Book completed

[eve_prime]

Queen Demon, by Martha Wells. Rising World #2. Just like Witch King, this book is telling two stories in parallel, across the same interval of time. The “Past” story has Kai and his friends working to overthrow the evil Hierarchs who have colonized and brutalized their homelands. In the current day story, which takes place maybe 60-80 years later, Kai and the others are helping their people recover from the occupation and trying to prevent something like it from happening again. I found this story more successful than Witch King, for two reasons. First, the switching-back-and-forth-between-times was less confusing, because in this book they spend most of the time in very different places. (It’s one thing to read a book where the point of view switches from one chapter to the next, but I find it’s quite another to read a book where the point of view, characters, and place are all the same but the time is different.) Second, although the Internet thinks these two books are all there are and will be, it’s pretty obvious that there will be more. And of course, we know the characters and their unusual world even better now and are more invested in them.

However, I’m thinking that the next time I read these books (which surely I will), I’ll start with the present-day beginning, but once it’s switched to “Past” I’ll just read those chapters until I’ve reached the end of the book(s), then I’ll read the current day storyline afterward. Or who knows, maybe I’ll be so familiar with them all by then that I’ll be happy enough to read them in the author’s preferred order yet again.

Comments

[heleninwales]

I have a habit of totally ignoring Chapter headings, so stories where the action jumps backwards and forwards in time can leave very me confused unless the changes are well signalled in the actual prose.