theblackdog

This was another fun tale from The Hangman's Daughter series that doesn't take place entirely in Schongau, but in the city of Regensburg. Here we finally get to see more of Jakob's past during the war and an event that will come back to haunt him nearly 25 years later. Of course Simon and Magdalena get tangled up in what happens to Jakob in Regensburg without even trying, but the action gets interesting, and there's a lot you have to pay attention to. Of course you might be able to figure out who the real bad guys are early on, but you still want to know what they are up to. I think one part of the ending was wrapped up a little too neatly, but in a historical context it makes sense. Still, I wouldn't have minded it going another way.

The series still seems to be going strong, so I am curious how the next book will hold up.

Lex has become more fascinating, and we have only moved forward a month since end of Boundary Crossed. A few hanging threads were resolved in the start, including learning what ultimately happened to her sister Sam. Actually I am glad that wasn't dragged out into a whole long drama. There are plenty of other situations to worry about instead. Lex is just trying to get along but she doesn't fit in and the rest of Clan Pellar isn't helping.

Actually I just realized that we don't see as much of Lex's power being used that we saw in the first book. However, we see some other awakenings and perhaps we will see more of her boundary magic in the next book.

My thought is this series has gone more from Lost Girl to Buffy, except the supernatural isn't necessarily trying to take over the world or awaken old demons, at least not yet. I look forward to the next book.

The book doesn't quite suffer from being boring because now all the initial action happened in the first book, but events must be set up for the third book so nothing happens here. However, it does seem like Lyra was dumbed down because she makes some decisions that I don't think she would have made. I never understood why she actually bothers to get in the car with Sir Charles, who randomly spoke to her at the museum. Yes, I get it she was running from the “police” and may have thought she wanted to get away but she wasn't that trusting of people in The Golden Compass. That's another thing; there are two guys specifically after Will and the letters from his father, and then they just kind of vanish after they almost catch Lyra at Oxford. It seems like they were working for Mrs. Coulter or Sir Charles, so I would have expected to see them show up in one of the other worlds. Also how does Mrs. Coulter suddenly have such a command of the specters that she can make them do things that they never did before? They did not take to the air until “she made them forget they were bound to the earth” and now they can conveniently attack the witches? That seems to be lazy way of creating a new problem for characters who didn't have to face the a problem before.

Pullman also seems to like killing characters once their “task” is done, and it feels a bit unnecessary. Scoresby leads Grumman to a mountain to meet with the knife bearer, now let's kill him. Grumman meets Will and helps him, oops, time to die now. At least the death of Sir Charles actually fits the plot and most of the character motivations.

Here's hoping the third book is better.

This book is a decent continuation of the Monolith story but it feels incomplete. We learn more about Europa after a forced landing by Galaxy is caused by what appears to be a terrorist act but that gets wrapped up without much talk about potential motivations other than possible greed. Heywood Floyd is back and ends up going to be a part of the rescue as he happens to be on Galaxy's sister ship, the Universe. You get some bits about his life since 2010 and he reconnects with his grandson but that's about it. Not much else that I can really say other than it's a quick read but not a huge progression in the story.