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A review by akryku
The Harbors of the Sun by Martha Wells
4.0
After the first three quite good books this duology (The Edge of the Worlds and The Harbors of the Sun) was a bit of a letdown. The story seems bloated and, at least for me, doesn't actually concentrate on the parts I'd consider important. There is a lot of chasing, a lot of exploring ancient cities/ships and really not enough explanation of certain story points and exploration of Consolation's flight and how they will survive and integrate themselves within Raksura society. I still think that if Wells would have cut down on the adventure part and actually concentrated even more on the Consolation part and relationships between the characters it would have improved the story quite a bit.
Some select questions still haunt me: Are Forerunners and Progenitors the same? How did Fell and Raksura develop in different directions (just because of the Arbora)? And why the hell would anyone keep the creature that was found in the third book in some random city alive and "just" punish it with life-long solitary confinement? Even Moon hangs a lampshade on it that imprisoning the most likely already mad thing for hundreds of years wouldn't have actually improved its mental state much so why do it and endanger further generations? No idea, and even though these duology had the perfect opportunity to explain it or even hint at a reason it doesn't. Instead, a nearly exact same happens again since our lovely characters find a weapon which has the potential to annihilate large parts of the population and just lies around in another one of this Forerunner cities. It literally just lies around in a random chamber with a compulsion charm to take it on it. Why? For shit and giggles, apparently.
Wells also decides to use quite a few different perspectives in the duology which might have been necessary from a story-telling point but doesn't help to differentiate certain characters. The mass of Arbora and Warriors are still mostly a mass to me and hard to tell apart, their collectivistic society working against them in this point.
I still live for Moon, Chime, Jade and Stone, however. Also Consolation and Kethel. And the nice and surprising, yet perfect friendship between Malachite and Pearl.
Overall, I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the last two books but they could have been so much better.
Some select questions still haunt me: Are Forerunners and Progenitors the same? How did Fell and Raksura develop in different directions (just because of the Arbora)? And why the hell would anyone keep the creature that was found in the third book in some random city alive and "just" punish it with life-long solitary confinement? Even Moon hangs a lampshade on it that imprisoning the most likely already mad thing for hundreds of years wouldn't have actually improved its mental state much so why do it and endanger further generations? No idea, and even though these duology had the perfect opportunity to explain it or even hint at a reason it doesn't. Instead, a nearly exact same happens again since our lovely characters find a weapon which has the potential to annihilate large parts of the population and just lies around in another one of this Forerunner cities. It literally just lies around in a random chamber with a compulsion charm to take it on it. Why? For shit and giggles, apparently.
Wells also decides to use quite a few different perspectives in the duology which might have been necessary from a story-telling point but doesn't help to differentiate certain characters. The mass of Arbora and Warriors are still mostly a mass to me and hard to tell apart, their collectivistic society working against them in this point.
I still live for Moon, Chime, Jade and Stone, however. Also Consolation and Kethel. And the nice and surprising, yet perfect friendship between Malachite and Pearl.
Overall, I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the last two books but they could have been so much better.