Shadowblack

This was a great sequel to Spellslinger, still as funny and as fast paced as book 1 so breezed through it in a day.

4.8
KELLEN !!

So Kellen is an outlaw now. Him, Ferius and Reichis are basically wandering the lawless deserts between the countries, being chased around by bounty hunters sent by Kellen's people, when they end up in a university city bringing together the young and rich to build their minds and their relationships. Now with some extra shadowblack infection! Something needs to be done.

I don't really like this series that much. It is what it is, I find it nothing even remotely close to what I loved about (at least the first three books of) The Greatcoats. I have no idea what is going on, but this one lacks the charm and the laugh out loud humour, mixed with such fucked up, absolutely horrible things. Now let me elaborate.

What was absolutely brilliant about the The Greatcoats was the fact that the protagonists were good people, but they weren't sweet and perfect. They were horribly messed up and their flaws were quite obvious in an endearing way. Here we have a kind of whiny kid who is super special, a woman who sounds seriously like some granola chick who thinks a “spiritual” trip to India will set her right while feeling incredibly badass and... a talking cat who is actually really funny. A little fluffy edgelord who likes to talk about eating people's eyeballs. Reichis is obviously the best. Other than him I really don't like the characters.
Not even the new ones. They all felt kind of useless vehicles of bringing up the big bad power in he background, but I don't even know why we had to learn their names. They were nothing. The book ended with the three mains leaving, basically going “okay, forget about them, they don't matter”. Not even the insta love interest. (Who was engaged, but then her dude turned out to be dead AND gay, because fuck you so Kellen could charm her with his irresistible fuckup powers and then leave her to shit to be a hippy drifter or whatever. Because fuck you. That is why. This whole lovey-dovey storyline was the most inconsequential, shoehorned, useless thing EVER.)

At one point in the story I thought everything about Kellen's life was going to take a turn. We meet a new character, who seemed kind of legit badass and I was looking forward to it. You know why?
Because I HATE the whole Argosi thing. I can't stand the stupid sayings and the wishy-washy nothing they do. Their whole philosophy is nonsense. You can't just take a kid whose whole like got taken, say nothing concrete to them, then act like a condescending cunt when they are moody and clueless and kind of WTF. As annoying as Kellen can be, I totally understood him in this particular thing.
At one point another Argosi basically claims they don't give a crap about things that don't have big, history changing consequences. So she leaves when kids at an international university are getting ill. At a place that was created to build relations and turn a desert into an actual country. Because a whole new country in the middle of a continent happening or not is not important for history. WTF.
Somehow the whole book feels like the characters are reacting to the events wrong. Like their conclusions are just all messed up.

The world building is still cool. The magic system, the places are rich and interesting. We'll see more of that in the next book, so that is a good thing, but the settings and that talking cat can't save the whole series from being a disappointment. Most people will not agree with me, but this one still feels kind of juvenile and just... watered down. Something edgier is really missing from it and that makes me sad.

I am definitely going to pick up the next book, just because I still hope for it turning into something more. I doubt it will happen, but... you know. I loved the first three Greatcoats. I loved those so much. I probably won't recommend this series to many people. It's just not enough.

(Also, the cover is lovely, but there is no way Kellen's hair grew so much in the few months since the last book. I am nitpicking, yes.)

Have a good night and do not believe cardplayers with stupid philosophical sayings. They suck.

As usual, Sebastien de Castell astounds me. He finds ways to torture his protagonists to the brink of giving up, and then somehow finds ways to make them whole again.

As much as I miss the Greatcoats, I have grown to really love this series.