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sterling8 's review for:
Infidel: Bel Dame Apocrypha Volume 2
by Kameron Hurley
I'm going to keep on with this series. In this book, we get to see the political dangers and physical dangers of privilege, safety, and the jungle. The book still feels self-contained, although it would certainly help to be familiar with the characters from the first book. There is resolution to the story of this book, instead of a cliffhanger waiting for the third book in the series.
I didn't get into it quite as much as the first book. I'm going to explain why, and it's almost too bad that I'm going to do this, because it will make the book sound worse than it is. I've already given a lot of praise for the first book in this series, God's War, and I'm not going to repeat it here, so this review may contain more negatives about this specific book as opposed to the positives of the world and characters that I've already discussed.
The plot in the book, on one hand, was simple. Nyx was trying to finish a job before people could kill her. Much like the first book. On the other hand, I'm not sure I ever quite grasped who was playing whom, who was a double agent, and exactly why all the different players were trying to kill Nyx and her team. Still good action scenes, still brutal violence, but they didn't seem to hang together quite as well. Maybe this was partly because I didn't need to figure out setting and was paying more attention to the plot.
Still not getting into the Nyx/Rhys relationship. It's bad for both of them, and not in any stereotypical romantic way. I had some sympathy for Rhys (and his family) in this book, but he's still kind of a patriarchal jackhole who judges people a lot. Khos still didn't get much page time and was not interesting when he did, which made me sad. Inara was not my favorite character from the first book. She is interesting here, but I still didn't really like her.
Nyx is starting over again with a new team, so there are new characters and the team from the previous book really doesn't have much interaction. The book was set up that way, but it was kind of a waste of some really great characters and relationships from the first book. I'd wanted to see those relationships continued, not learn about new characters that I didn't have a ton of buy-in for.
The series could really go anywhere from here, and I'll definitely keep reading to see what happens next. Kameron Hurley is an author to watch.
I didn't get into it quite as much as the first book. I'm going to explain why, and it's almost too bad that I'm going to do this, because it will make the book sound worse than it is. I've already given a lot of praise for the first book in this series, God's War, and I'm not going to repeat it here, so this review may contain more negatives about this specific book as opposed to the positives of the world and characters that I've already discussed.
The plot in the book, on one hand, was simple. Nyx was trying to finish a job before people could kill her. Much like the first book. On the other hand, I'm not sure I ever quite grasped who was playing whom, who was a double agent, and exactly why all the different players were trying to kill Nyx and her team. Still good action scenes, still brutal violence, but they didn't seem to hang together quite as well. Maybe this was partly because I didn't need to figure out setting and was paying more attention to the plot.
Still not getting into the Nyx/Rhys relationship. It's bad for both of them, and not in any stereotypical romantic way. I had some sympathy for Rhys (and his family) in this book, but he's still kind of a patriarchal jackhole who judges people a lot. Khos still didn't get much page time and was not interesting when he did, which made me sad. Inara was not my favorite character from the first book. She is interesting here, but I still didn't really like her.
Nyx is starting over again with a new team, so there are new characters and the team from the previous book really doesn't have much interaction. The book was set up that way, but it was kind of a waste of some really great characters and relationships from the first book. I'd wanted to see those relationships continued, not learn about new characters that I didn't have a ton of buy-in for.
The series could really go anywhere from here, and I'll definitely keep reading to see what happens next. Kameron Hurley is an author to watch.