CBR Bingo: Border (characters have to sneak over several country borders, and there is also a threat of invasion due to the weakening of a magical barrier)
I really enjoyed James Islington’s The Will of the Many when I read it a few years ago, and I have been eagerly awaiting the follow-up The Strength of the Few. I’ve had the author’s first series The Licanius Trilogy, which starts with The Shadow of What Was Lost, on my TBR for some time now (it’s been on my radar even since even before The Will of the Many came out) and I recently got around to reading it.
The plot is complicated, and I can’t be bothered to try to summarize it, so I’m just pasting in the synopsis from the back of the book:
It has been twenty years since the godlike Augurs were overthrown and killed. Those who once served them—the Gifted—were spared only after accepting the rebellion’s Four Tenets, which vastly limited their powers.
Davian suffers the consequences of a war lost before he was even born. When he discovers that he wields the forbidden power of the Augurs, he sets into motion a chain of events that will change everything.
To the west, a young man whose fate is intertwined with Davian’s wakes up in a forest, covered in blood and with no memory of who he is…
And in the far north, an ancient enemy begins to stir.
Ultimately, I was a bit disappointed in this. I didn’t really connect with any of the characters, as most of them felt like walking plot devices instead of people. The plot had some cool moments that showed promise, mostly the parts where there was obviously some time travelly stuff going on. But it also felt somewhat repetitive—there were too many instances of: major character meets middle aged man who gives them a task and/or reveals a clue, middle aged man disappears or dies, character completes task or investigates clue, (optional) realizes middle aged man might have been lying and/or withholding information, repeat ad nauseam. This gave the feeling that the characters weren’t really making any decisions or having any agency and were just being pushed along by the plot.
This wasn’t terrible, I enjoyed it for the most part, but I’m not super eager to finish the trilogy. I remember liking the writing and story development a lot more in The Will of the Many, so if nothing else, it was good to see how the author has grown since his earlier works.