Gilfeather, by Glenda Larke

I read The Aware
, volume one of the Isles of Glory, back when I was feeling too lazy to write reviews. I loved it, and now I just finished volume two, Gilfeather.

It's a great book. I love the characters. There's Blaze Halfbreed, a female warrior who has no place in the world because she is a half-breed. There's Flame, the beautiful sylv user who is being slowly tainted by the evil dunmagic. And there's Kelwyn Gilfeather, the naive physician who is thrust into a life of adventure that he doesn't particularly want.

The novel is told entirely in the first person, which is bad if done poorly and great if done well. In this case, it's done well. Most of the story is narrated by Gilfeather, and we see a lot of his inner struggle to come to terms with what he's done (he kills his wife in the first chapter), with the magics that he cannot see and doesn't believe in, and with his own repressed adventurous nature. The rest of the novel is narrated by Blaze who, while less conflicted, is also a very interesting person.

The plot is great too. There's lots of action. There's a great, well-imagined world. I'll definitely read book three as soon as I can get it.

I give Gilfeather a full five yo-yos.

Flight of the Nighthawks, by Raymond E. Feist

I'm not terribly familiar with the works of Raymond E. Feist, which made Flight of the Nighthawks something of a pain to read. I do have one of his other novels in my library (though I can't recall if I actually read it or not) and one of his stories was in Legends II, but I really don't know much of the backstory that would have made Nighthawks more enjoyable. As far as I can make out, about 90% of the characters are from previous books, and the plot revolves around incidents from the previous books. Since I'm not familiar with any of this, the book was awfully confusing in parts, which is very annoying in a book that's part one of a series.

If it wasn't for this, I'd give the book a high rating. The characters were interesting, and the plot was action-packed--both of which are things I love in a book. Feist's writing style is pretty good, and the pacing in excellent. It's probably a good book if you're a fan of his writing.

Since I haven't read his other books, I can't give it a good recommendation. If you've read his other books, go for it. If you haven't, you should probably read his other ones first. Since this is the beginning of a new series, it's annoying that it begins in the middle of a greater story. Because of this, I can only give Flight of the Nighthawks three yo-yos.

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.