You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.33 AVERAGE
4.33 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
While I am a huge sucker for world building and complex plot lines, what I really love most about this series is the character growth. I love the discussions of what it means to forgive yourself and others and the fact that no one is obligated to forgive.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, War
Moderate: Body horror, Murder
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Was bored by the storyline and characters. Already struggled through book two as well.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I absolutely love being confused by the sheer scope of a book and to have it done across 3 books is kinda insane!! Truly gonna miss this world and can’t wait for the standalone in the future!!
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Right through the end of the series, The Licanius Trilogy remains a series that feels like the start of an author’s career. There are the bones of lots of compelling storylines and characters, but Islington often struggles to keep his focus on what makes this world work best.
Starting with the overall arc of the plot in book three, the inconsistent pacing is the biggest detractor to the storytelling. The world we’re given is huge—a legitimate fantasy epic—but the constraints applied to our POV characters frequently make the world feel so much smaller than it is. We regularly return and re-return to locations we’ve already visited and conceal large swaths of territory I’m eager to learn more about. The way our POV’s are interweaved also serve to make the world feel smaller, as our protagonists all frequently interact with the same characters and (quite hilariously) are regularly spending time describing the activities of the past chapter to a character who probably needs to relay something else back to our protagonist in turn.
The story also suffers from feeling small as characters disappear or are omitted from the story for extended periods of time, only to be arbitrarily jammed back in seemingly just so that something of note can happen with a named character. Shana’s inconsequential death just to add weight to the end fighting is of particular note, but Fessi’s presence in this book is one of the story’s biggest problems. Fessi is a tremendous character in book two in particular and she just disappeared off-screen at the end of the last book. We’re then told that she’s probably dead early on, and 680 pages in, she shows up as a possessed corpse, only to be squished to nothingness within two pages. There’s so little care given to such a core character from the series, which feels so particularly rude in a world like this where we see the likes of Davian and Caeden killed and/or mutilated over and over.
Islington also certainly addresses this with a note at the end of the book, but the Aelric/Dezia ploy is very strange. They show up 700 pages in as a predictable deus ex machina and then are pulled off the table again almost immediately. I enjoyed getting to read Islington’s thought process, and I don’t feel that he’s wrong in his concerns. But it certainly feels like some reorganization in the planning stages could have cleared a path for a Nesk storyline that would have paid off their arrival more satisfactorily.
Adjusting back to what is on the page, for a story that wants to be world-ending large, the decision to spend so much time on the Zvealar plot line is also a struggle. Davian’s time in the past is probably largely about grounding the series’ theology, but it’s a pacing killer, and I’m not sure it really sticks the landing with any of Raeleth’s preaching anyways.
Do we have choice? Does it matter? Well, the characters in the end seem to decide we do have choice but that fate is also real. How can these two things co-exist? Well, because of faith. Personally, I’m not a believer in our world’s Christian God, so I’m not a believer in our fictional world’s El either. I wish that Islington had found a better space to really dive into the theology of this world. There is plenty of talk about El and the Venerate and plenty of other theological concepts, but it often feels like preaching and based in theory, rather than built out of real experiences and discussion within the world. It’s not overly-preachy, but it is largely unconvincing, in my read.
On the flip side, when the book does hone in on the character’s relationships, I think tremendous success is found. Caeden and Davian are a consistently great pair, particularly with Caeden’s impending killing of Davian. Asha and Davian’s reunion also totally works, as does the growing dynamic between Wirr and Taeris throughout the book.
Taeris was my favorite character throughout the trilogy, dealing with similar baggage to Caeden, but without the burden of having to be a major POV character. Taeris death at the story’s conclusion is also one of the few really earned feeling deaths with strong narrative setup and payoff.
And while I don’t think Islington found his complete footing on plotting here, I do think his writing progressed very well during the series. Book one found me with plenty of eye roll moments in dialogue and descriptor, but by book three it very rarely happened. Islington has learned to rein in his more quippy urges and finds himself with a much more grounded slate of characters here that works much better.
Overall, The Licanius Trilogy is a pleasurable read, though not one I would eagerly recommend unless I knew the reader were a voracious fantasy reader with a preference for plot over character.
Starting with the overall arc of the plot in book three, the inconsistent pacing is the biggest detractor to the storytelling. The world we’re given is huge—a legitimate fantasy epic—but the constraints applied to our POV characters frequently make the world feel so much smaller than it is. We regularly return and re-return to locations we’ve already visited and conceal large swaths of territory I’m eager to learn more about. The way our POV’s are interweaved also serve to make the world feel smaller, as our protagonists all frequently interact with the same characters and (quite hilariously) are regularly spending time describing the activities of the past chapter to a character who probably needs to relay something else back to our protagonist in turn.
The story also suffers from feeling small as characters disappear or are omitted from the story for extended periods of time, only to be arbitrarily jammed back in seemingly just so that something of note can happen with a named character. Shana’s inconsequential death just to add weight to the end fighting is of particular note, but Fessi’s presence in this book is one of the story’s biggest problems. Fessi is a tremendous character in book two in particular and she just disappeared off-screen at the end of the last book. We’re then told that she’s probably dead early on, and 680 pages in, she shows up as a possessed corpse, only to be squished to nothingness within two pages. There’s so little care given to such a core character from the series, which feels so particularly rude in a world like this where we see the likes of Davian and Caeden killed and/or mutilated over and over.
Islington also certainly addresses this with a note at the end of the book, but the Aelric/Dezia ploy is very strange. They show up 700 pages in as a predictable deus ex machina and then are pulled off the table again almost immediately. I enjoyed getting to read Islington’s thought process, and I don’t feel that he’s wrong in his concerns. But it certainly feels like some reorganization in the planning stages could have cleared a path for a Nesk storyline that would have paid off their arrival more satisfactorily.
Adjusting back to what is on the page, for a story that wants to be world-ending large, the decision to spend so much time on the Zvealar plot line is also a struggle. Davian’s time in the past is probably largely about grounding the series’ theology, but it’s a pacing killer, and I’m not sure it really sticks the landing with any of Raeleth’s preaching anyways.
Do we have choice? Does it matter? Well, the characters in the end seem to decide we do have choice but that fate is also real. How can these two things co-exist? Well, because of faith. Personally, I’m not a believer in our world’s Christian God, so I’m not a believer in our fictional world’s El either. I wish that Islington had found a better space to really dive into the theology of this world. There is plenty of talk about El and the Venerate and plenty of other theological concepts, but it often feels like preaching and based in theory, rather than built out of real experiences and discussion within the world. It’s not overly-preachy, but it is largely unconvincing, in my read.
On the flip side, when the book does hone in on the character’s relationships, I think tremendous success is found. Caeden and Davian are a consistently great pair, particularly with Caeden’s impending killing of Davian. Asha and Davian’s reunion also totally works, as does the growing dynamic between Wirr and Taeris throughout the book.
Taeris was my favorite character throughout the trilogy, dealing with similar baggage to Caeden, but without the burden of having to be a major POV character. Taeris death at the story’s conclusion is also one of the few really earned feeling deaths with strong narrative setup and payoff.
And while I don’t think Islington found his complete footing on plotting here, I do think his writing progressed very well during the series. Book one found me with plenty of eye roll moments in dialogue and descriptor, but by book three it very rarely happened. Islington has learned to rein in his more quippy urges and finds himself with a much more grounded slate of characters here that works much better.
Overall, The Licanius Trilogy is a pleasurable read, though not one I would eagerly recommend unless I knew the reader were a voracious fantasy reader with a preference for plot over character.
Now I’ve had time to contemplate, its two months later and I’m still thinking about this series.
The ending to this trilogy blew me away, the epilogue had me ugly sobbing for several hours
The ending to this trilogy blew me away, the epilogue had me ugly sobbing for several hours