Aurora Burning

A good, well written adventure that feels far more serious and adult (ie. grown up) than book 1.

Book 1 of the series felt like it was trying to merge the more whimsical side of Pratchett with a rather serious space adventure. It did quite a good job and the obviously intentional chuckles allowed me to ignore quite how unlikely “Legolas-in-space” actually is.

Book 2 still had humour, but it became more and more along the lines of wry banter. Some events (and flashbacks) are really not-funny and well written. The seemingly impossible nature of actual elves-in-space is actually called out and addressed as a plot point, character development happens hard and the stakes are raised to chilling levels both on a personal and civilisational level.

On top of all of that, towards the end of the book the narrative style and the actual text on the page starts to change in dramatic and experimental ways - to very good effect. I was impressed.

Most of this book was a good solid 3 Stars: I liked it.

The ending of the book changed dramatically enough that I kind-of want to give that 5 stars just for the sheer guts of the author to experiment in multiple ways of telling a story (they actually change the text on the page!) and as the icing on the cake it really worked for me.

On balance I'm sticking to the 3 stars- the ending was amazing, but it was only a tiny portion of the book. That said, I'm really looking forward to seeing how things develop in the third book.