Loved this, was surprised by how much. Very similar to KJ Parker's Devices and Desires series. Genius protagonist who changes society to achieve their goals. ( )

It starts out with a really interesting premise (that may end up to be sci-fi in the end, kinda like the Coldfire Trilogy) where the setting is a planet in a binary star system set up such that if one of the suns is invisible, havoc wreaks the planet. And we're 25 years after that last "Age of Darkness", where the pseudo-medieval fantasy world plunged into civil war and the nations ended up in a theocracy, with the last king deposed.

So the major players of the last war are all there, parenting and advising our new leads, who are unfortunately very teenaged.

I'm still deciding what I think about the tone. Because dear lord, the teenage angst and hornyness was just too much sometimes. But the teenagers are also playing politics in a pretty unkind world, and a lot of that unkindness is hinted at very strongly before it gets dragged into the present (if you've got any hangups on various kinds of violence, you should listen to the descriptions of the wartime atrocities of the past, and assume that atrocities are still very possible).

There are some major secrets set up in the first, say, 10% of the book, and then there's really just a lot of waiting around for some people to discover the secrets. I felt that the really major plot points didn't happen until 75% of the way through, and I was twiddling my thumbs for a few hundred pages.

The politics were interesting. Things are of course simplified from where they would be in a modern-day political situation, but there are at least four sides all vying for their own solutions. I really liked how Dirk became more and more politically savvy.

I think I liked the tonal shift at the end, where the idyllic years of youth definitively ended. I appreciated that Fallon pulled things on her male leads that would normally be pulled on a woman, though I think she could have gone a few steps further in the sympathy the reader should have for the victims. I am definitely more interested in the next book now than I was at 70% completion yesterday.

Oh, and I have one question about something that happens right before the big climax:
Narration mentions that Dhevynians who do the Bonfire Night or whatever it's called and drink Mother's Milk get brainwashed to the Shadow Dancers after, but this change of heart doesn't happen to Dirk, and he remembers everything. Why?

But dear heavens, I don't think I could deal with a whole book of Tia being a tsundere. The last fifth of this book was everything I hated about women in the Wheel of Time. ( )

Goodreads recommended this at me, so I thought I should confirm its taste: I love this series. It's quick and easy, but also smart and different fantasy, full of believable, real, understandable characters who make their own decisions. And it's also one of the finest examples of the brutal demands of being the only person who can save the world. I love the twists, I love the ruthlessness, I love the way the characters pull me this way and that, and I love its hard edges and accessible telling. It kicks arse. Read it. ( )

(Re-posted from http://theturnedbrain.blogspot.com)

It pleases me to see that Australian author Jennifer Fallon is slowly starting to receive some well deserved international attention. Her recent ‘Tide Lords’ quartet garnered a couple of positive reviews, and I’ve seen some blogs posting about her latest series ‘The Undivided.’

But I want to talk now about one of her older, less known, set of books; The Second Sons trilogy, comprising of 'The Lion of Senet,' 'Eye of the Labyrinth,' and 'Lord of the Shadows.' It’s a shame that these books haven’t received a lot more attention, because they’re really pretty great.

The title "Second Sons" is a clever little play on words. The trilogy concerns it self with the second sons of two powerful families, but the plot also hinges on the second sun in the world's sky. Ranadon has two suns you see, a large one which sets like ours, and a second one which never sets. Except for this one time when it did. A generation or so ago the second sun set, ushering in a disastrous dark age. And here’s where things get interesting. A super genius dude was able to predict when the dark age would end (with the power of maths!), and he told his priestess friend. She uses this information to convince the big ruler dude, aka The Lion of Senet, to sacrifice his son to end the dark age, and because she knows the time it will end it appears the goddess was talking through her.

But (the plot thickens) the super genius dude didn’t just predict when the dark age would end, he predicted when the next one would start. And priestess girl, who’s now insanely powerful high priestess lady, kind of needs that info to maintain her credibility. (It would be bad for her health if the ruler found out he sacrificed his first born for nothing…) Too bad super genius guy hasn’t been seen in decades.

But! There is another young lad with the brainpower to figure it out. This is Dirk, one of the "second sons" in the title. He and the Lion of Senet's son Kirsh are the main tagonists of the books. Not a typo. Tagonsts. It's a word I just made up. They're not protagonists (good guys), they're not antagonists (bad guys), they're just people. They do good things, they do shitty things, and believe me when I say they'll break your heart. This true for most of the characters in the trilogy. There is no black and white here, trust me. The Lion of Senet, in particular, is very well done. It would have been easy to make him a straight up villain, what with him killing his own son and all. But Fallon makes him a far more complex character than that. He’s fanatical in his his religious views, and a lot of the plot is driven by this. But what choice does the guy have? To admit that his religion might not be all-knowing would be to admit that he sacrificed his son for nothing. It makes for compelling reading let me tell you.

And the ending. Ah, the ending. It’s one of those ends that hits you like a punch to the gut, that stays with you for months or years or hell, probably the rest of your life. Years later and I find myself thinking of these books at odd times, running over in my mind the course of events that made things in the final volume play out the way they did. There is nothing so impressive as a book drawing to a perfect and inevitable close, with all the small pieces set in place over the three books leading to one magnificent finale.

They're not perfect, I'll admit that. These were written early in Fallon's career when she was still smoothing out her prose a little. She gets a bit heavy with the adverbs (he said sadly, she yelled angrily, he sighed ecstatically, and so on) but it's certainty not enough to ruin the enjoyment of the story. ( )

A solid novel told mainly from the view point of Dirk Provin, the second son of Morna and Wallin, Duke of Elcast. Set on the world of Ranadon, which has two suns, it poses logic against superstition.

This first book of the trilogy sets the scene, and takes Dirk from his childhood home of Elcast to the royal palace of Senet, where he makes friends with Kirsh, Antonov's second son, and Alenor, heir to the kingdom of Dhevyn. It opens as Johan Thorn is washed up on the shores of Elcast, which in turn brings Antonov and his unwanted attention.

Anatov Latanya, the Lion of Senet, rules the kingdom of Senet and is also the Protector of the island kingdom of Dhevyn, to which Elcast belongs. He is fanatically devoted to the cult of Shadowdancers, which is ruled by the High Priestess Belagren. She derives her power from 'visions' she had, predicting the end of the last Age of Shadows, a time when the second sun disappeared from the skies of Ranadon. Though she knows the truth, that the sun's orbit took it behind it's larger sister for a time, she does not know how to calculate when it will happen again. She is desperate to find out, before the power that she wields over Antonov and his empire slips out of her grasp.

There are those who follow the true King of Dhevyn, Johan Thorn, deposed and living in hiding. They know the truth of the suns' orbits, and the one man who understood the old science and calculated the return of the second sun to the skies lives among them. However, he has been turned into a drug-addled madman by Belagren's co-conspirators.

Though Dirk, growing up as a second son with no expectations of power, just wants to be a physician and help people, Belagren and Antonov want him for their power games; she to calculate the return of the Age of Shadows and cement her cult's power, and he to manipulate various players on his chess board. It is up to Dirk to stay true to himself, and hope he can save the people around him, too.


4**** ( )