Shadow Baron

A fantastic follow-up to one of my favorite books from the 2020s. As someone who appreciates good world-building, I really appreciated this sequel as it was, admittedly, more focused on building up the world than it was the characters, but, building up the characters was what the first book was for. The characters stories progressed in a way that felt natural to them and rather satisfying, honestly. I cannot wait to see where they get taken in the next book, because the groundwork has been set for what should be an absolute thrill-ride. The only thing keeping me from rating this as highly as the first book is admittedly, there are no replacements for some of the characters who were lost in the first book, and those particular characters were some of the biggest reasons why the first book was so great. But, the remaining cast is still quite good, but a hole is felt, for me. But, not much of one. I still enjoyed this quite a bit.