Voice of the Gods, by Trudi Canavan

I have now read the final volume of Trudi Canavan's Age of the Five Trilogy, Voice of the Gods. As a whole, it isn't as good as her Black Magician Trilogy, but it's still pretty good.

As far as this book goes, it has it's good points and it's bad points. It does explain how come there is a set of ex-conjoined twins where one's male and one's female (the male had a sex change), though it's only briefly mentioned in passing almost as an afterthought (probably just to explain the blunder from the last book). The plot is pretty fast paced, and I love the characters. It's not particularly deep, but it is a fun read.

One thing I don't like is that the characters are all pretty dumb. Say you're a Circlian. You worship five gods, who killed all of the other gods off a hundred years ago or so. Now suddenly another religion, called the Pentadrians, pops up. They also worship exactly five gods. Everyone wonders where these five new gods come from, but no one (until almost the end of the last book) ever stops to think that maybe their the same gods, just playing some inscrutable godly games. Sheesh. I had that figured out before the end of the first book. I also had it figured out the the reason the gods hated the immortal Wilds is because immortals can become gods, but somehow this came as a shock to the characters.

It's a bit annoying, but it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the story. I give Voice of the Gods four yo-yos.

A (Fairly) Wild Ride

Okay, so, I've finished reading Trudi Canavan's Last of the Wilds. Actually, I finished it a few days ago, but I've been kind of lazy lately, so I'm just getting around to writing about it now.

If you've read my past reviews, you know that I've also read Canavan's Black Magician Trilogy, and that I liked it. This book, is the second volume of her second trilogy, Age of the Five. Even though I didn't write a review of the first volume, Priestess of the White, I really enjoyed it.

I really enjoyed this one too. All the characters from the first book are here, and all of them are very well crafted. Auraya has got to be one of my favorite heroines in all of fantasydom (if that's not a word, it should be). We learn more about the history of the characters, too, like the true story of Mirar and Leiard. We also learn a bit about the nature of the gods, and find out that the Pentadrians.

One thing I really didn't like--and really, I think either the author should have realized the mistake while researching or the editor should have picked up on it it--is the Twins. The are a pair of separated conjoined twins who are brother and sister. Anyone who knows anything about the subject knows that conjoined twins are ALWAYS identical. Next time, research.

I really did like the book, but that one glaring mistake annoys me so much, I'm giving it 4 yo-yos. Up next, the Wheel of time part 11, Knife of Dreams.