Ian Whates - City of Light & Shadow
It's past time I looked at another Angry Robot book. Today's is the final book in Ian Whates' fantasy city sequence (City of a Hundred Rows Book III, the website says) and it's just been launched, so it's officially out, but still brand-new and magical.
The first thing I look for in trilogies is how much of the previous volume one has to know to enjoy the story. Whates' has managed to introduce enough of the world for it to make sense. The emotional values will be stronger if you read the first two volumes, but you can get by on the third, if you want. I don't recommend it though, because the city is most magical in the first volume and it would be a shame to miss it.
I can't give you a plot summary without giving you spoilers, really. The city and its people are endangered and the hero and those around him have to save it. That's the same for all three volumes. The third volume draws together all the threads and people become what they're going to become and all veils are peeled back and, while the mystery is lost, we find out what's going on.
In many ways it's a satisfying ending. Whates draws together threads in a very efficient way. It loses a bit, however, in short-circuiting the wonderful layers of Thaiburley (the city). With less of the colour and trouble, with interactions confined to a much tighter group of characters, some of the flavour is lost. It's a trade-off: traditional fantasy quest conclusion vs local colour. I enjoyed the novel, but I really missed the sense of place that Whates had so lovingly established earlier. (Speaking of sense of place, Mary Victoria is running a series of blogs over at her place, in honour of another book - I'll talk about that soon - not tonight, I suspect, but soon.)
Whates has a tendency to use sentences that offer a steady pace and to linger on his characters' thoughts for just a moment too long. This means that City of Light & Shadow is not the fastest paced novel I've read recently. The shape of the page is a bit similar, one to the next and the eye becomes dull from time to time. On the other hand, his background explanations are clear and his worldbuilding doesn't burden.
What does all this add up to? Not the best novel I've read this last twelve months, but certainly not the worst. I still love the sense of place, even if Whates doesn't use it as much in this narrative as he has in the previous ones, and it all hangs together. If the weather were less like midwinter, I'd recommend it as good summer reading.
The first thing I look for in trilogies is how much of the previous volume one has to know to enjoy the story. Whates' has managed to introduce enough of the world for it to make sense. The emotional values will be stronger if you read the first two volumes, but you can get by on the third, if you want. I don't recommend it though, because the city is most magical in the first volume and it would be a shame to miss it.
I can't give you a plot summary without giving you spoilers, really. The city and its people are endangered and the hero and those around him have to save it. That's the same for all three volumes. The third volume draws together all the threads and people become what they're going to become and all veils are peeled back and, while the mystery is lost, we find out what's going on.
In many ways it's a satisfying ending. Whates draws together threads in a very efficient way. It loses a bit, however, in short-circuiting the wonderful layers of Thaiburley (the city). With less of the colour and trouble, with interactions confined to a much tighter group of characters, some of the flavour is lost. It's a trade-off: traditional fantasy quest conclusion vs local colour. I enjoyed the novel, but I really missed the sense of place that Whates had so lovingly established earlier. (Speaking of sense of place, Mary Victoria is running a series of blogs over at her place, in honour of another book - I'll talk about that soon - not tonight, I suspect, but soon.)
Whates has a tendency to use sentences that offer a steady pace and to linger on his characters' thoughts for just a moment too long. This means that City of Light & Shadow is not the fastest paced novel I've read recently. The shape of the page is a bit similar, one to the next and the eye becomes dull from time to time. On the other hand, his background explanations are clear and his worldbuilding doesn't burden.
What does all this add up to? Not the best novel I've read this last twelve months, but certainly not the worst. I still love the sense of place, even if Whates doesn't use it as much in this narrative as he has in the previous ones, and it all hangs together. If the weather were less like midwinter, I'd recommend it as good summer reading.
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