false 5886131 0553806971 9780553806977 41 10 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255574395m/5886131.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5886131.Shadow_Magic 1036925 Jaida Jones 237 63 3 0 false Fri Oct 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 13 04:31:40 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 23 04:57:54 -0700 2009
Also set in the worlds of Volstov and Ke-Han, the novel begins where the last one left off — the end of a war and the end of the dragons, leaving both countries on thin ice as they attempt a peace treaty. The pact is shaken by the death of the King of the Ke-Han, and when the older prince takes his father’s place as king things do not go well for his younger brother Mamoru. The new king declares his younger brother a traitor to the country, finding his love for Volstov and its language to be suspicious. After the king declares his brother’s treason with the penalty of death, Mamoru and his loyal guardian Kouje escape the castle walls and head straight for Volstov in hopes of sparing their lives.

The novel, similarly to Havemercy, is split among the main character point of views. In this novel there are four point of views, which for the content of the novel I thought far too many. Mamoru and Kouje each have point of views, as do Alcibiades and Caius — a soldier and magician from Vostolv who travel into Ke-Han to help ignite the peace treaty. The latter are far out of place in the main story line, and I felt their sections of the book to be largely drawn out, irrelevant half the time, and the characters almost useless until the very end. I couldn’t relate to them. I disliked Caius’ overly flamboyant character and his heavy overuse of the phrase, “My dear.” Mamoru and Kouje, on the other hand, I felt were the real stars of the novel. Their sections were always nice to read, and they had a great amount of character development.

Which leads me to the authors’ preference of character development over plot sequencing, the same problem they had in Havemercy. This is a slightly longer novel than average, and the middle seems entirely made up of dialogue and attempted character development. This left the ending rushed, another problem I had with the previous installment.

The authors received much negative criticism over their lack of female characters, which they have attempted to fix this time around with a third female magician attending Ke-Han with Caius and Alcibiades, and by the end of the book I still couldn’t figure out her character or why she was in the novel, other than to quiet the heated discussion of sexism throughout the book series. I can’t even recall her name.

I greatly enjoyed the setting. Havemercy takes place in Volstov and here we finally get to see Ke-Han, which is based completely off of feudal Japan. The plot, albeit slightly predictable, was definitely original and enjoyable as well. I also thought the little twist with one of the characters at the end of the novel was a nice touch.

Bennett and Jones are good story tellers, and I definitely think they’re still on the right track into the career of becoming authors, but Shadow Magic ran off the road just a bit. I’ll look forward to the next installment!]]>