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Title: Twilight Herald
Series: Twilight Reign #2
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 564
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Some city is a convergence point. Fell powers are gathering, whether crystal skulls or beings of power. It is all being orchestrated by some non-god, non-demon entity who hates the gods and wants to show mankind how powerless the gods are. It does this by enspelling an entire city to go mad and to kill as many people as possible.

Lord Isaak is there to gather up a spare crystal skull, or two, if he can manage it. Various characters from the previous book are also there on different pretexts, but it all comes down to everyone being manipulated by this being.

Where Lord Isaak was supposed to be the Savior of Prophecy but isn't due to him breaking the chains of Fate in the first book, a new white eye is claiming the title. The same white eye that killed Lord Baal, Isaak's mentor.

All the main characters survive the city's destruction but alliances aren't as strong and it looks like the New Savior is a protege of this Entity, the Shadow.

My Thoughts:

Enjoyed this but still had some serious issues.

The style choice for paragraphs. In a chapter there might be several changes between characters or location and this change is only shown as a new paragraph. The problem is that it is exactly the same paragraph style as when you stay with one character and you have multiple paragraphs. It is very disconcerting to be reading along and then realize that you've changed character, time or place with NO warning. There are multiple ways to accomplish, most of them quite easy, so I'm guessing Lloyd didn't read his own book after he wrote it.

My other main issue is how big, epic AND mysterious this is trying to be. A lot of things are thrown at the reader with no explanation and where this worked for me in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series (due to excellent writing and just enough hints to keep you from falling on your face) here it feels like the author has just left crucial information out of the readers grasp. I was really struggling to figure out just what was going on. It doesn't help that half the time I'm re-reading a paragraph or two to readjust my thinking about WHO I'm reading about now.

What I did enjoy about this book? Let me tell you.

A whole city going mad due to a malevolent spelled carved into the walls of a theatre and in the flesh of the playwright. Near the end Isaak ends up calling 5 aspects of Death to protect him and his allies and ends up having to face down several of the Aspects. The whole idea of a shadow entity working against EVERYONE for goals only it knows. A white eye that can kill legendary vampires and not blink twice about it.

This time attention is scattered around more and I wish things had focused more on Isaak. He's definitely growing on me as a character and I'd like to see some real character growth, as he's at the age where that happens quickly and shows quickly as well.

★★★☆☆ ( )

Tom Lloyd is violent, but creative in his use of the standard stock of elves, monsters, magic, gods, heroes, villains, and all the gray that falls in-between. This second installment of his Twilight Reign series shows his growth and increasing ability to weave a tale of disparate plots and characters to a common story.

My only caveat was the heavy violence and often agnostic perspective of the characters towards right and wrong, good and evil, while more pragmatic, makes them correspondingly less empathetic. However, in place of morally directed and motivated individuals, we see people who would fit well into the Hobbesian view of the world ("solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"). They are motivated by power, and corrupted by power, as Lord Acton would say, and it makes for a very fast, exciting, if occasionally violent story. ( )

This was brilliant, even better than the first book! ( )

Love this series, gritty in Erikson/Cook vein. If you like nice happy fantasy stay away, if you like blood and violence combined with political intrigue and a story that will keep you guessing give this a try. Two books in this is a series I will definitely keep reading. ( )