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Book Review of The Hero Strikes Back (Hero, Bk 2)

The Hero Strikes Back (Hero, Bk 2)
jai avatar reviewed on + 310 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


After their last adventures, the Pair is back in the city of High Scape, normally a hotbed of disasters which the Pairs must avert. Now there are odd climate changes, but not disasters, and on top of that Lee is afraid for Taro because minor nobles have been disappearing. Again Lee is the narrator of this story so we see everything from her perspective. I get the feeling that although she's supposed to be an observant and quiet Shield, she misses a lot about other people and how they perceive her. So far this series is light fantasy - easy reading, not too taxing, but there is an underlying layer of more serious subjects. Unfortunately the books point out these underlying layers and then frustratingly nothing really gets resolved about them. In book one, it's pointed out how terribly some Shields (steadfast, dependable) are treated by their Sources (flightly, dramatic), but while Lee is shocked and dismayed by this, she doesn't act. In book two we learn of how both Sources and Shields are resented by the population for getting everything for free, and there seems to be a mistaken notion that they do hardly anything for it, but if the Pairs are doing their jobs, the normal population should never know what disasters they have avoided. Basically - an ongoing series, that has a lot of things I'm interested in seeing resolved so I'm pretty much sucked into seeing what happens. I also like how flawed the characters are, even though they can drive me nuts (of course Lee) so that's sucking me in too.