Andrew

Starts off interesting but doesn't hold up.

The Piggy plotline feels poorly thought out and characters actions don't seem logical under scrutiny.

Ender is more obnoxious than the first book, bordering on insufferable as he Mary Sue's his way through every situation with every other character fawning over him.

The main focus ends up becoming all the relationships between the characters, which is unfortunate considering Orson doesn't seem to be very good at writing believable characters or dialogue.

If you really enjoyed the first book I'd say it's worth a try.

I thought the book opened really well, very descriptive flavourful text and the beginnings of an interesting world.

It went downhill quick for me though. I found the dialogue overly stiff and formal, and the female characters are questionable. Early into the novel the main character seduces a travelling actor, strips and enters her bed while she's asleep (we don't hear her reaction we just know she approves because she compliments his sexual abilities in the next scene). Then, after a short back and forth where he tells her he's in love with her or whatever, she proceeds to recite her entire backstory to him complete with a murder of “insert loved one” that she is avenging long-con style. To top the scene off, we have a painfully on the nose discussion about how civilized people are the real barbarians.

If dialogue and engaging plot is unimportant to you then I might recommend this book. I was quite enjoying it until the dialogue & plot kicked in.

Filled with interesting ideas, but the execution was not to my liking.

Similarly to The Stand, the middle section of the book is a depressing slog and the ending does not make up for it. The main character goes through ordeal after ordeal and the reader is never adequately rewarded for sticking with the book.

The book is filled with cheeky pop-culture references that are neither funny nor clever and only serve to take the reader out of the book. Particularly the phrase “Can you give me hallelujah”. This phrase is drilled into the readers mind over and over, seemingly as a joke? I don't understand what the motivation for repeating this cheesy line over and over was, but it made the book that much more annoying to read for me.

Again, there are tons of interesting ideas, however none of them are really expanded on which makes the middle section of the book depressing and uninteresting.