The Quartered Sea

Huff is hit or miss for me, and I think it’s because her Id Vortex is located somewhere very different from mine. Benedikt is a bard of Shkoder who can only sing water, not the other elements, but he’s better than anyone else at water. Still, he’s super insecure about it, and when an exploratory trip beyond the known waters goes wrong, he becomes essentially a slave in a foreign land. His passivity was annoying to me, but there are heroics and last-minute rescues if you like that part

I am sort of torn on this one. On the one hand, it's refreshing to read about fantasy-medieval Central America instead of Europe, nice to examine how the magically chosen culture guardians can go badly wrong, and look at some of the ways personal insecurity can have larger-scale consequences. On on the other hand, fantasy Aztecs are almost invariably portrayed as coldblooded sociopaths, hidebound bureaucrats are very nearly my least favorite characters to read about, and insecure and amoral but irresistible pretty boys are my least favorite characters to read about.

So... yeah. It was a decent read, I suppose, but not a main character I enjoyed spending time with and not exactly the comfort food I was looking for.

Struggled to finish. Expected a better ending to this interesting series

Meh.