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A review by waden34
The Measure of the Magic by Terry Brooks
2.0
Bearers of the Black Staff was a very promising start to this series. Skeal Eile was such an evil person that I was really looking forward to how things turned out in the sequel. The build up for the confrontation between the Drouj, the Seraphic, and the valley's inhabitants was quite exciting.
Then a demon was introduced and completely ruined any magic that the first book created. I believe that without the ragpicker, this book would have been far more powerful. I could see the plot going in more or less the same direction. The only difference being that the characters would have made the choices themselves instead of being in thrall to a demon.
It also felt like this book could have been released as a short story instead of a full length novel. There was a lot of wandering with not much happening. We've seen that before in this series, and I was sad to see a return to it here. I was truly hoping that with this being only a 2 book series instead of the typical 3, that it would be more intense and fast paced.
All that said, the characters Brooks writes about are still always top notch. I care about them even when they are meandering and not accomplishing anything. That certainly does show something for the author's creativity.
Then a demon was introduced and completely ruined any magic that the first book created. I believe that without the ragpicker, this book would have been far more powerful. I could see the plot going in more or less the same direction. The only difference being that the characters would have made the choices themselves instead of being in thrall to a demon.
It also felt like this book could have been released as a short story instead of a full length novel. There was a lot of wandering with not much happening. We've seen that before in this series, and I was sad to see a return to it here. I was truly hoping that with this being only a 2 book series instead of the typical 3, that it would be more intense and fast paced.
All that said, the characters Brooks writes about are still always top notch. I care about them even when they are meandering and not accomplishing anything. That certainly does show something for the author's creativity.