Take a photo of a barcode or cover
peter__b 's review for:
The Providence of Fire
by Brian Staveley
Despite enjoying this book for the most part, It definitely felt like the 2nd book in a trilogy. We get introduced to a handful of new characters and the story moves along in interesting directions, but we don't really learn too many new things and the few that we do learn about, are only really half revealed. I'm not sure this one needed all 600 pages though since it dragged on quite a few occasions.
The world, likewise, gets very little new development, with the only new elements introduced being a barbaric race of tribes that are brought together under a single leader for the first time ever(sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?) and a secretive, yet brutal order hiding away on an island. We also get a few more details about some ideas brought up in the first book, but overall, I was quite disappointed regarding this aspect of the book.
The characters also seemed quite a bit weaker this time around. While I'm glad we got to see more of the female protagonist in this installment, her storyline basically just consisted of meeting a couple of incredibly useful characters by pure luck and then doing nothing useful for the second half of the book. Valyn, the warrior protagonist, was quite annoying in this book. His single-mindedness might have made more sense if his decisions didn't constantly backfire on him. Kaden's storyline was probably the most enjoyable, but the one criticism there would be the very slow pacing of it at times. Some of the new characters introduced felt very much story driven and some actually felt completely unnecessary which was one of the main reasons why this felt like the 2nd book in a trilogy rather than a good book in its own right.
I wasn't a big fan of the writing in general either. It felt like the author rambled on for ages, adding endless descriptions to things that didn't need them and going on and on about what the characters were thinking. The pacing was also quite on the slow side, making it feel like an editor could have cut a 100 or so pages without much consequence to the story or characters. The story itself though was quite fun at least. The twists were well handled and despite some very convenient coincidences, it all felt well thought out.
So this was actually quite a good book in the series, but not quite as good when viewed on its own. I'm still invested in the story and to some extent the characters, so I'll probably be continuing with the series. Based on the first two books, I'd still recommend this to most fantasy lovers.
The world, likewise, gets very little new development, with the only new elements introduced being a barbaric race of tribes that are brought together under a single leader for the first time ever(sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?) and a secretive, yet brutal order hiding away on an island. We also get a few more details about some ideas brought up in the first book, but overall, I was quite disappointed regarding this aspect of the book.
The characters also seemed quite a bit weaker this time around. While I'm glad we got to see more of the female protagonist in this installment, her storyline basically just consisted of meeting a couple of incredibly useful characters by pure luck and then doing nothing useful for the second half of the book. Valyn, the warrior protagonist, was quite annoying in this book. His single-mindedness might have made more sense if his decisions didn't constantly backfire on him. Kaden's storyline was probably the most enjoyable, but the one criticism there would be the very slow pacing of it at times. Some of the new characters introduced felt very much story driven and some actually felt completely unnecessary which was one of the main reasons why this felt like the 2nd book in a trilogy rather than a good book in its own right.
I wasn't a big fan of the writing in general either. It felt like the author rambled on for ages, adding endless descriptions to things that didn't need them and going on and on about what the characters were thinking. The pacing was also quite on the slow side, making it feel like an editor could have cut a 100 or so pages without much consequence to the story or characters. The story itself though was quite fun at least. The twists were well handled and despite some very convenient coincidences, it all felt well thought out.
So this was actually quite a good book in the series, but not quite as good when viewed on its own. I'm still invested in the story and to some extent the characters, so I'll probably be continuing with the series. Based on the first two books, I'd still recommend this to most fantasy lovers.