[bala · home]
[okadenamatī · reviews]
[mesaramatiziye · other writings]
[tedbezī · languages]
language: English
country: USA
year: 2022
form: novel
genre(s): fantasy
series: The Tarot Sequence, #3
dates read: 5.6.22-6.6.22
I finally read K.D. Edwards’s The Hourglass Throne, the third book in his Tarot Sequence (of a planned nine main series books; RIP me). I think it was the weakest of the books so far, but I still gave it 4.5 stars on Storygraph, which is a testament to how good I think the first two books (and especially The Last Sun, the first book) are.
my primary reaction is, honestly, being very smug about it, because some of my close readings from literally the prologue and chapter 2 of The Last Sun have turned out to be 100% accurate. (verb tense matters! to be fair I wasn’t 100% convinced I wasn’t overreading things that were just authorial slips, but I was right! verb tense does matter!) I was also right about some other world-building and narrative things but those matter less to me because I wasn’t the only one who saw them coming.
in terms of its weaknesses, I think mostly it comes down to the sheer number of characters that the narrative wants to all be equally important to us. they’re great! but there are so many of them that even Rune’s core relationships end up getting short shrift (and I don’t think this is just me not being very interested in Addam), because it’s trying to make time for all of them. I also missed the architectural details that gave texture to the urban landscape of the first two books.
anyway! the action was great, it’s very fast-paced, there are — for all that there are kind of too many characterrs — many great little character moments. the humor throughout both heightens the darkness (and it is at times a dark book) and helps reign things in a bit. as a conclusion to the first “trilogy” I’m pleased, although given that the next book is a road trip across the US I am also…worried. the single passing comment about magic in the Amazon also had potentially unfortunate implications re the issues with urban/contemporary fantasy, although I’m very glad that at least it backed off on the whole ~Native American blood~ thing that The Hanged Man dropped in. we’ll see what happens next, I guess!
moods: dark, emotional, hopeful, tense