The Isis Pedlar

The third volume of the Isis trilogy - unlike the first two, which I kept and have recently re-read, I didn't enjoy this one and passed it on to a charity shop some years back. It doesn't feature the main characters of the first two stories, though I think young Jody is in it, older, but it deals with how some of the wrongs of the colony are finally eased.

I think the reason I wasn't keen was the theme of the villain from outside who intrudes to con the colonists, instead of having them somehow come out from the deluded attitudes seen in the second book. It would've been better if Hughes had instead written another book set between the first 2 volumes, which dealt with how Mark Taylor took over the colony and showed the struggle between show more him and the older Jody - that would have made for a tense and dramatic story that came out of the original set of characters. show less