2017 SF, fifth of its series. Montgomery and the Mage-King's forces
are cleaning up the conspiracy… but someone else is ahead of them.
If this series were a trilogy, this book would be the middle
volume. Alien Arcana set up the secrets and the conspiracy, and
broke its back, but this book doesn't really answer the questions that
were raised.
Instead, we get a frustrating hunt for people who are already being
assassinated; we keep getting promises of answers, but the kill teams
are always one step in front. There's some slight resolution here, in
that the kill teams themselves are eventually identified.
In a secondary plot, Montgomery's hauled in front of the Council to
justify his actions (he has, after all, killed two fellow Hands of the
Mage-King), and it all gets very political.
And in a tertiary plot, we get space terrorism, and something like an
attempted coup.
The action is good, but I find myself unconvinced by perfect
non-leaking conspiracies; it all verges too much into paranoia for my
taste, even if in this case it's being done by taking over existing
fanatical organisations and never letting them know that they're being
run for other goals. I realise that this is all being set up so that
Montgomery can eventually sort things out, but in this specific book
there's a lot of the setup and not much sorting. Montgomery himself
ends up seriously injured in body and mind, in ways that aren't going
to heal.
In other words, it's the low point at the end of the second act. And
while that may work very well in terms of the overall story, it's not
much fun to read in itself.
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