170 pages
I’m a little torn with this book. I discovered a different
series by Dalglish by chance at the library. I fell in love with it
immediately. The Shadowdance series has stuck with me since the first book. I’m
talking deep down, can’t stop thinking about it, obsession kind of stuck with
me. I found out the Half-Orcs was in the same world, and I just had to get my
hands on all of them. From what I understand from various author’s notes, the
Half-Orcs series was written first, and Shadowdance was created as a backstory.
This is where being torn comes in…
I did like the book. Enough to give it four stars even. The tone
just felt so foreign. In his author note Dalglish talks about the book taking a
much darker tone than was anticipated, but that wasn’t even the issue for me. Dark
books, movies, songs, etc, are my comfort zone. This just felt… rushed. It felt
like there wasn’t as much description as I was used to from him, and it felt
like we were being dragged along without getting much time to look around. I’m
hoping as this series progresses things will fall into a more familiar rhythm. I
think Shadowdance just set such a high standard in my mind for all of his
writings.
Now, the negatives are out of the way. Seeing more of Drezel was
much needed for me. There are a lot of complexities to this world that I was
only beginning to understand at the end of Shadowdance. More of the gods’
backstory is revealed, and the ways of magic shown even more in depth.
The main characters are fascinatingly contradictory. Seeing how
their bond grows, changes, or collapses will be interesting. Harruq’s growth is
what interests me most though. It feels like his character will be the more
dynamic of the two, and while I want to like Qurrah… I just can’t. I hope that
will change, the brothers seem to rely on each other in so many ways. We’ll
see.
The storyline was a little discombobulated. Things moved so
fast, and connections were made and ran by so frequently, some of the threads
were a touch hard to grasp at first. I think a lot of it was because the book
was so short. With only 170 pages to weave something so complex, it leaves the
reader with a bit of whiplash. I checked, the next book is 321 pages. Things should
only get better from here!
Overall, I liked the book. Stepping back and holding it as its
own novel rather than trying to push it into the Shadowdance shaped hole I
wanted it to go in helped a lot in coming to that conclusion. I’m really
looking forward to reading the rest of this series!
Rating:
♥♥♥♥