I considered being aggravated by Hobb's device of running three separate and distinct character narratives, keeping them separate, and making abrupt switches between them, but each of the three was engaging in her own way and when finally - over halfway in -they all come together, it all seems to work. Each of the three grows in her own way to the same. Alise, who married to escape her home, and ended up with an abusive brute, begins to realize that she does have some control over her destiny. Thymara, the mutant who should have been exposed to die at birth, is beginning to realize that the rules may not have to apply. And, finally, Sintara, a crippled queen dragon, is learning that she is a dragon after all.
All well and good - and this is announced as a trilogy - but in a well-crafted trilogy I expect each volume to have some individual integrity. And this one doesn't. It just ends with no conclusion of any story line and countless set-ups for the following volumes. The reader has been let in on the ultimate villainy of the man sent by Alise's husband to "protect" her. We already know that he, not some unknown woman, is Alise's husband's lover. And as the travelling company prepares to deal with the probable death of the weakest of the dragons, we learn that he has probably killed her to salvage some of her blood and scales to sell for their magical healing properties. That's where Hobb drops it. Everyone else is gathering around the dying dragon and he is gloating in his cabin over his theft.
Definitely annoying. Still, the story is good enough that I will probably read the rest - but I will still be irritated that she so blatantly suckered me in for the second volume - and I'll be looking for it at the end of that one. I don't remember that it was so obvious in the book of hers that I read several years ago. Or maybe it was - and that was why I never went back for Volume 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment