The blurb on the back cover of my edition of this book gives away a pretty big spoiler for book one. So does the first line of the book, so I’ve had to take a different one for the blog, I don’t mind the odd spoiler with warning, but it’d be a bit mean to surprise-spoiler people with not even a warning.

Events in book 2 pick up where book 1 left them. If you’ve read Spirit Gate you’ll know where that was, and if you haven’t then you should. Honestly, go read it. Yes, it is a huge book, and so is this one, and I’m guessing the next one as well, but that doesn’t matter. They are worth the investment. Anything with giant eagles and flying horses is worth a look, right?

But apart from those attention grabbing elements there are plenty of reasons to pick up this series. First of all, the world-building. If you like world-building then you should love this, because it isn’t just one country or culture that Elliott has created here, there are various peoples, just like in the real world. The main focus is on the people of The Hundreds, but there are many “outlanders” and their stories and history are vital to the story.

There are also multiple point-of-view characters, so be prepared for that. Depending on the story, having multiple POV characters can lead me to hurry through the chapters of those I don’t love in order to get back to my favourites, I recall doing that a bit on certain Wheel of Time rereads, but I never felt the need for that here. For one thing most of the chapters are short, so you never felt that anything was dragging you away from any other aspect of the story, even if you really wanted to know what was happening. And then there was the fact that I enjoyed all the voices. Well, enjoyed might not be the right word for those chapters dealing with death, rape, and abuse, and be warned, there is a lot of that, but I wanted to know about all the characters.

To get back to the violence, there is a lot of violence. More than you might think. There is death and there is rape. A lot of rape. But none of it is done to thrill. It is all horrifying and horrible.

And, in part, it ties into one of the themes of the book. Slavery. All of the cultures in Shadow Gate save one are cultures that own slaves. Some call it selling labour and it isn’t intended to be permanent. The differing reactions to slavery are fascinating, and I loved the way that some of the characters seem to be re-evaluating slavery. Slavery to most of us today is regarded as an evil. But for most of human history people have enslaved others. And kind and compassionate people could grow up in a culture believing that it was okay, because when something is everyday and commonplace you can hide its true brutality from yourself. It was wrong, of course, but for someone of that culture to come to that realisation is a very difficult thing.

I also really liked what Elliott did with the character of Keshad. I think, he is, perhaps one of the more unlikeable POV characters, but his is an important story. All his actions were because of slavery. He wanted to be free, that became his only focus in life. His and his sister’s freedom. Nothing else mattered. In another story he could have been a dashing hero. Only in order to escape slavery he did terrible things. Do we, as readers, excuse that behaviour because it was, in a way, forced upon him?

And then there is Shai, again, he is a man who has grown up in a culture where slavery was a fact of life and slaves were, in many ways, disposable. His family covered up terrible crimes to protect one of their own. And in Spirit Gate Shai allows something horrendous to happen before Mei makes him reconsider. But that happened because of the culture he grew up in, his view of slaves and slavery was such that he didn’t see how evil that act was. And the soldiers who actually did the deed, we find out that they saw no wrong whatsoever in it.

It’s hard to read about.

And these aren’t even the actions of the bad-guys!

And I’ve gone on far too long, but really, if you like epic fantasy at all you should read this series. Elliott’s writing is just wonderful. I could read it all day long.

http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2015/01/shadow-gate/ ( )

Crossroads #2

Significantly better than the first in the series, characters have developed, the plot is focused and there;s much less jumping about, even tough in terms of drama and action it's much lower key.

the change is that the focus is now entirely on the hundred, and rather than being a book exploring contrasts between societies its now much more of a personal one , the consequences of choice and the justifications of power. Many of the details are revealed, we finally know what's going on, although it will be the next book before anyone does something about it.

The 9 god given cloaked Guardians had a falling out, although the details of he reasons are lost, but the cloaks have found new bearers and at least one of the original 9 wishes to preserve a tyrannical peace over the Hundred strictly enforcing her ideas of what is right. Marit and Kirit under the guidance of Jochain find themselves only learning too slowly what it means to be a Guardian having discovered their cloaks by accident. Their uncertain alliance might not be enough against Her controlled influence of the others.

Elsewhere Her armies having suffered a defeat, regroup, and those left wishing to preserve a broader concept of justice find themselves with a small respite to rest and recover. Free of corruption new reeves can be trained, Qin soldiers find themselves land and wives, refugees seek shelter and traders look to profit, sometimes all at once. A few enlightened souls even endeavour to understand and prepare for the future.

There are still a few occasions when you lose track of which city is being talked about, and who's travelling to where and why. There's also more focus on a few of the shadowed characters, and these can be unpleasant to read. It's not quite dark fantasy, but it does become close at times, we're spared the explicit and gruesome details. The chronology is consistently linear, which is also an improvement, with one clever passage where Kirit's memories become the tale told out to another character. It's interesting to learn her backstory. Sadly the slightly mystical nature of the non-human characters is broached but never explored for consequence, although the book is long enough already!

Always pleasing when the middle of a trilogy manages to hold pace and even improve from the beginning. ( )

Kate Elliott returns to 'The Hundred' for 'Shadow Gate' the second installment of the 'Crossroads' trilogy. The author provides news of what Marit has become, and sketches the story of what became of the Guardians, and how they fell to shadow. Shai resumes his search for his brother Hari, and Cornflower's tragic and brutal backstory is told, whilst Captain Anji and his merchant wife Mei begin to build their stronghold in The Hundred, beset still by the threat from the Sirnakian Empire. Siblings and freed debt slaves Keshad and Zubaidat also have roles to play as the tale builds to a climax at the siege of Toskala. ( )

The hopelessness of the characters really grated on me. What can they do, as mere humans, when supernatural powers, for good, have turned bad? It was once again unnecessarily sensual. Violent.

I just don't know if I'll even read the others as they come out. This just depressed me. ( )