The Witness for the Dead

I mostly enjoyed it - mostly because Addison is so good at making people that you're supposed to like actually likable and those that you're supposed to dislike, very unlikable. And I do like Celehar, though I do, admittedly, find him a little dry and boring at times.

But... A lot of the same problems I had in The Goblin Emperor, I am still having in this book. (A generally homophobic, racist, sexist world. Over-done fantasy names.) Conversely, a lot of what I liked in The Goblin Emperor is relevant to this book, too. (People are generally good and the good guys often win.)

Regardless, this book tried for a four star read for me - and because of Celehar being likable, the book being peaceful (even during the zombie hunt), it almost made it. Ultimately, what made this book a three star read instead of four stars is the plot. The plot being Celehar's daily job being a Witness for the Dead. The fact that the plot is four or five different ‘cases' and dozens of people that I have no prayer keeping straight. The plot being cases that, really, aren't even connected and this could have been four or five short stories of fifty-ish pages each and I probably would have liked the ‘book' better.

(I don't know if I'll read the sequel, whenever it eventually gets published. Probably depending on if I think I remember enough about this and the previous one to get by. Because this book does not have a glossary in it and, really, I think it needs one. It's a good thin I reread The Goblin Emperor a few months ago, otherwise this would have probably been a DNF.)