A review by mdpenguin
An Earthly Crown by Kate Elliott

adventurous emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I liked that there were more character perspectives used in this: it let the author keep a newness to the Jaran culture while also letting us get some other perspectives on the off-worlders and other cultures on the planet. And I like that we get a little more science fiction: there are more off-worlders in the story and we get to learn a bit about what kind of tech they have. It doesn't really stand alone like the first book did and the ending isn't particularly satisfying. Each thread of story kind of peters out with everyone placed in position for the next act. In a foreword, the author stated that she thought of this and the third book as one book in two acts, and they appear to have been released in the same year (1993), so I'm not going to hold that against it. The only thing that I have issue with is that there are a lot of romantic relationships in it but none of them are healthy. Healthy relationships seem to exist somewhere in the background, and I don't really have trouble with the story being what it is, but it really does seem to be one of those books that pushes unhealthy relationships as being exceptionally fulfilling rather than as exceptionally damaging as they really are. That's just a pet peeve of mine, though: if it weren't so overdone in fiction then I'd probably not care.