Helpful Score: 2
I had read the first book, "Flesh and Spirit" and was taken in by Ms Bergs detailed account of another world. This world is deeply detailed. The mud and grime of a world nearing a cataclysmic change and the death of all knowledge. Enter Valen our not so heroic, hero who has issues and problems with everything in his life. Born of the magical elite he can not read, though his father was a cartagrapher of great import to his world and his high positioned family.
An outcast, sometimes addict, and n'er-do-well who doesn't fit into his family, his society or his own skin. Valen is drawn in, as is the reader, to plots and intrigues that swirl about him like the waters of a vortex. Who he is and what he is; is more important than he can ever image. So, despite his miss-spent youth and being a rebel with too many causes, Valen finds the answers that bring him the summit of understanding for him and a rollicking good read for us, the reader.
An outcast, sometimes addict, and n'er-do-well who doesn't fit into his family, his society or his own skin. Valen is drawn in, as is the reader, to plots and intrigues that swirl about him like the waters of a vortex. Who he is and what he is; is more important than he can ever image. So, despite his miss-spent youth and being a rebel with too many causes, Valen finds the answers that bring him the summit of understanding for him and a rollicking good read for us, the reader.
