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A review by spiringempress
The Uncrowned King by Michelle West
3.0
In a manner similar to its predecessor, West's series is unlike any fantasy book that I have encountered before and there's a lot to admire. West takes chances on her narrative choices and how she advances the plot. This second book focuses on the Northern providences and the power dynamics that are arising as a result of the King's Challenge. Valedan en'Leonne, the last of his clan, has entered the challenge to win valor, but it also attracts the attention of men, who want him dead. It also focuses on Terafin House and its war of succession before the death of its ruler.
While I enjoyed the slow exploration of the political connections and powers within the Northern territories, it is hard to connect this story with the one unfolding in the previous book. For one, it is hard to visualize and even conceptualize the geographic space that these stories are taking place in. This seems to result from the fact that the first and second books take place in separate areas without any references to the other. Valedan is dropped into the north suddenly with little to no reflection on the events of the past book. Therefore, it sometimes seems that the books are taking place at different points in time and it takes a lot to realize that they are operating on the same grand stage.
West also has a tendency to ramble on for paragraphs without identifying the narrator or the perspective. Sometimes, I would start a chapter and be completely oblivious to who the narrator was supposed to be because the only identifying information was a location at the beginning of the chapter, which means nothing to me. More often, I would be twenty pages into a chapter and read a detail that didn't make sense for whose perspective I thought I was reading only to discover that somewhere the perspective had switched with the barest suggestion. As a result, I noticed that the author never referred to the characters by name except for once before only using pronouns for the entirety of the chapter. This was just slightly aggravating.
While I enjoyed the slow exploration of the political connections and powers within the Northern territories, it is hard to connect this story with the one unfolding in the previous book. For one, it is hard to visualize and even conceptualize the geographic space that these stories are taking place in. This seems to result from the fact that the first and second books take place in separate areas without any references to the other. Valedan is dropped into the north suddenly with little to no reflection on the events of the past book. Therefore, it sometimes seems that the books are taking place at different points in time and it takes a lot to realize that they are operating on the same grand stage.
West also has a tendency to ramble on for paragraphs without identifying the narrator or the perspective. Sometimes, I would start a chapter and be completely oblivious to who the narrator was supposed to be because the only identifying information was a location at the beginning of the chapter, which means nothing to me. More often, I would be twenty pages into a chapter and read a detail that didn't make sense for whose perspective I thought I was reading only to discover that somewhere the perspective had switched with the barest suggestion. As a result, I noticed that the author never referred to the characters by name except for once before only using pronouns for the entirety of the chapter. This was just slightly aggravating.