As I said before, my intention with this series is to do a short review of each book and a full review of the series of a whole when I have finished reading it.
So, here we go with book 2 - Dragonfly Falling....
The army of the Wasp Empire is still carrying on with their invasion of The Lowlands and The Lowlands are fighting back as best they can. And that is the main crux of this volume - Warfare. There are several major battles (no spoilers but if you've read Empire in Black and Gold you'll not be surprised to find one of them is the battle for Tark) and these are graphic battles. War is not a pleasant experience and Mr Tchaikovsky makes a great job of making the scenes quite brutal at times. Unlike in many books of this ilk though this, thanks to the Artificers, is a war of invention. People are basically inventing newer and more efficient ways to destroy the enemy and this is another area where the author excels as these people have to deal with the aftermath of what they have created.
As well as many of the old faces from 'Empire' we are introduced to a whole host of new characters, races and places. Not everyone may be where you would expect them to be by the conclusion, but again, they all have their reasons. There is a good amount of foreshadowing which promises well for future books but, to be honest, this series has got its' hooks well and truly into me so I would have been after the in the series anyway.
How good is this as a series? Lets just say I have plenty of books on my To Be Read pile but although I planned on reading 'Shadows of the Apt' one book every month or so, interspersed with others, within a couple of hours of finishing Dragonfly Falling Stenwold, Che, Grief in Chains et al were calling and I had to listen.
So, next up, Blood of the Mantis
See you soon ;-D
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