The Singing

Spoilery? Yeah.For a series that started out with Maerad and her being The One, the sections of this book that focused on her brother were much more interesting, with much more warmth and movement: I don't mind a bit of road trip in my stories.Croggon still manages to hit all the fantasy tropes without being self-conscious about it: without too much effort Hem saves someone he loves from an incurable disease, Maerad suddenly works out how to defeat the Elemental that held her captive for a good chunk of [b:The Riddle 393145 The Riddle (The Books of Pellinor, #2) Alison Croggon https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1360170670s/393145.jpg 858967], and then they meet up and save the world. Pretty much as I expected it to go, but I still found myself skimming Maerad's parts in order to get back to Hem and Saliman.Although it's written as a ‘look what historians dug up, we don't know the full story', I want to know what happened to the bad guys who were human? Did they puff off into smoke and ash like The Nameless One? Are the Elementals still there? How did the events of the book affect the other people Maerad met in the second book? Too many un-wrapped up threads.The worst part, and this is petty, is that there was no payoff on the Maerad/Cadvan story. All the cliches were in place, down to the third party telling Maerad that Cadvan is in love with her (DUH), while she (obviously) freaks out and decides that he's not so bad. And then the end, when she's done saving the world and nearly dies but of course doesn't, THERE IS NO KISS. Well, there's a kiss, told in flashback. There's no acknowledgement of a relationship - there is no conversation between them at all. It's hardly fair to come through four books of fantasy cliche and then the one that I don't really mind doesn't get played out at all.