A review by nigellicus
Midnight Over Sanctaphrax by Paul Stewart

5.0

This is certainly the strongest book of the three, although part of that is it paying off all sorts of karmic debt built up over the previous two books. Twig suffered enormously, lurching haplessly from adventure to adventure, most of them horrendous and horrible, then when finally things seem to go his way, he contributes, unwittingly, to disaster and the loss or death of most of the existing supporting cast. No sooner is book three underway than it all goes horribly wrong again, but this time Twig has experience, determination, agency! Off he goes heedless of the odds or the impossibility of the task to recover his scattered crew and restore his lost memory and save the world! It's all quite thrilling, while the trademark horrors and nastiness are all present and correct, this time we have a protagonist equipped to cope with them and maybe even triumph. He's even got a sidekick as callow and green as he once was and through whose eyes we see most of the action. The mild distancing effect does wonders for Twig's personality: characters on the Edge are boldly drawn but they're not exactly complex or popping off the page.

I enjoyed it very much, all told, but I was slightly put out by the female characters, of which there are few. Sympathetic female characters do exist, but they are scarce, only one rises to the height of an actual supporting character. Two female-dominated species are, er, hair raising in their depiction of femininity, though of course most of the species on the Edge have hair-raising aspects. Still: Shrikes and Termagents? Really?

I do not, oddly enough, expect things to improve noticeably in future volumes, but hopefully it won't detract from my enjoyment.