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If you missed my review of the first book, a motley crew of extremely unlikable people and equally unlikable dragons set off on an expedition to find the possibly mythic city of dragons. Most of the first book sets up the expedition. The second book concerns the expedition itself.
I’ve now read the second book. It’s better than the first, sort of, but I can’t really recommend the set as a whole. I still don’t see why this story required two fat books to tell—both are very, very padded and repetitive. So much of the story involves slogging through a swamp, without much happening other than characters hating each other, that I began to feel as if I was slogging right there with them. But not in a good way.
On the positive side, one of the two evil gay men from the first book has a quite good redemption plot, including a romance with a nice gay man who is absolutely perfect in every way. I feel a little bad criticizing Hobb for making a gay man too nice after previously criticizing her for writing evil gay men, but seriously, he is perfect. He exists as an antidote to the eeeeeevil gay men in the first book. That isn’t actually a great example of non-homophobic writing, though it’s certainly an improvement on the last book.
There is an explanation of the dragon-Elderling-Rain Wild mutation thing, which is reasonable but not as intricate and cool as the dragon-serpent revelations of the last series.
The characters are more likable in this book. Generally. The mutant clawed Rain Wild girl, who was one of the few whom I actually liked from the first book, gets stuck with an excruciatingly boring plot that made me cringe every time it switched to her POV. The men demand that she choose one of them, and she says she’s an independent woman and doesn’t have to choose anyone. This sequence is repeated what felt like fifty times, though it was probably only four or five.
Also, there is an extremely gross section early on dealing with giant parasitic worms. It’s long, too.
There are some narratively satisfying moments, but overall I can’t recommend this.
DRAGON HAVEN (RAIN WILDS CHRONICLES, NO 2)
I’ve now read the second book. It’s better than the first, sort of, but I can’t really recommend the set as a whole. I still don’t see why this story required two fat books to tell—both are very, very padded and repetitive. So much of the story involves slogging through a swamp, without much happening other than characters hating each other, that I began to feel as if I was slogging right there with them. But not in a good way.
On the positive side, one of the two evil gay men from the first book has a quite good redemption plot, including a romance with a nice gay man who is absolutely perfect in every way. I feel a little bad criticizing Hobb for making a gay man too nice after previously criticizing her for writing evil gay men, but seriously, he is perfect. He exists as an antidote to the eeeeeevil gay men in the first book. That isn’t actually a great example of non-homophobic writing, though it’s certainly an improvement on the last book.
There is an explanation of the dragon-Elderling-Rain Wild mutation thing, which is reasonable but not as intricate and cool as the dragon-serpent revelations of the last series.
The characters are more likable in this book. Generally. The mutant clawed Rain Wild girl, who was one of the few whom I actually liked from the first book, gets stuck with an excruciatingly boring plot that made me cringe every time it switched to her POV. The men demand that she choose one of them, and she says she’s an independent woman and doesn’t have to choose anyone. This sequence is repeated what felt like fifty times, though it was probably only four or five.
Also, there is an extremely gross section early on dealing with giant parasitic worms. It’s long, too.
There are some narratively satisfying moments, but overall I can’t recommend this.
DRAGON HAVEN (RAIN WILDS CHRONICLES, NO 2)
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