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A review by margeryb
Dandelion Fire by N.D. Wilson
3.0
Listened to the audio
As for the audio production, they had the perfect narrator for this type of book, with a tone of voice that worked perfectly for when the characters were in Kansas as when they were in various fantasy worlds.
However, this second part in this series didn't grab as much as the first title even though this one was probably objectively more exciting and definitely had a better-balanced climax to set up that the first book. It's just that the first book felt like a twist on the portal fantasy genre, while this one seemed to go in the more traditional fantasy route. This is not to say Wilson didn't create an imaginative tapestry of lore and worldbuilding to play out... it's just not what I was expecting and wanting from the sequel exactly. When you have 99 cupboards leading to potentially leading to 99 worlds, and you only explore 3 or 4 of them it makes you wonder about the point of the other cupboards were.
I'm probably giving this book a harsher assessment that it deserves, but I did not personally enjoy it as much as the first and was disappointed by its more conventional turn. As it also resolved the plotlines of the previous book and this one, I'm sort of at a loss for where book 3 would naturally go.
As for the audio production, they had the perfect narrator for this type of book, with a tone of voice that worked perfectly for when the characters were in Kansas as when they were in various fantasy worlds.
However, this second part in this series didn't grab as much as the first title even though this one was probably objectively more exciting and definitely had a better-balanced climax to set up that the first book. It's just that the first book felt like a twist on the portal fantasy genre, while this one seemed to go in the more traditional fantasy route. This is not to say Wilson didn't create an imaginative tapestry of lore and worldbuilding to play out... it's just not what I was expecting and wanting from the sequel exactly. When you have 99 cupboards leading to potentially leading to 99 worlds, and you only explore 3 or 4 of them it makes you wonder about the point of the other cupboards were.
I'm probably giving this book a harsher assessment that it deserves, but I did not personally enjoy it as much as the first and was disappointed by its more conventional turn. As it also resolved the plotlines of the previous book and this one, I'm sort of at a loss for where book 3 would naturally go.