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FindingJane
Jan 07, 2015FindingJane rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
The story continues in this fantastic follow-up to “The Curse of the Gloamglozer”. Quintinius Verginix is up to his eyeballs in intrigue but he’s woefully unequipped to deal with it. When a shift-eyed student decides to use him, Quint is an unknowing pawn in his schemes. The myriad threads of this story wind together in tighter and tighter coils as the story proceeds, with all the many characters playing their parts with exquisitely penned elements. This book is awash in palace intrigue, murder, assassination, an ice siege, doomed expeditions and a battle as bloody as anything Tolkien ever wrote. As always, the story combines its many elements with pitch-perfect accuracy. The amusing names sound like something out of Dr. Seuss and the Edge seems much like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. But these are meant to be more-or-less serious chronicles and the wordplay never trips up the reader. The illustrations are also excellent, although the bad guys are often a bit too obvious, what with sneers, squinty eyes, pointed noses and twisted features writ large on their countenances. The whole story ends on an ominous note as one noble traveler discovers himself lost in a vast wasteland, his mode of transport gone, his companions dead and his quest at an end almost before it begins. However, there are chilling signs that desperate measures will be taken and the innocent will suffer. It’s a fitting lead-in for the next installment in this epic saga.