Although the most important book that I have read of late obviously is A Feast for Crows (I leave the reviewing of that one to Elio, except to say that it is a very good book but also a very different book from the previous ones), I have also managed to take time out from my work to read the second half of Jacqueline Carey’s The Sundering;
Godslayer.
After reading the first half, Banewreaker, long after it was released, I had promised myself not to wait on reading the second half. After all, they were originally meant to be published as one, and the end of Banewreaker was such that one really didn’t want to wait on the conclusion for too long. Quite a feat for the author to have accomplished, I must say, given that you know from the get-go where the story is heading: the ‘bad’ guys, the ones you in fact end up rooting for, are fated to lose.
Perhaps it is just human nature, helped along by the way Carey writes the story, but even despite knowing that it is a tragedy, you constantly keep hoping that something will happen to change the inevitable. You just can’t imagine she’ll really go ahead and do what she’s said she will do, even when the evidence mounts higher and higher. But ... she does. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll read the last hundred pages with a growing lump in your throat and a tightness in your chest. Not too many weeks ago, we studied tragedies in my Literature class, and Godslayer definitely fulfills many of the requirements of a classic tragedy, not the least being able to produce katharsis in its readers.