The Death of the Necromancer

I liked the Murderbot Diaries and decided to read something else by the same author, so here I am. Although it was obvious from the start that this would be nothing like the Murderbot Diaries, and indeed it's hard to recognize that it comes from the same author.

Instead of the fairly distant future, we're in an alternative magical 19th century world, with a queen and aristocrats and sorcerers. And Nicholas Valiarde is plotting revenge against Count Montesq, who arranged the unjust execution of his foster father.

The only resemblance I can see between this story and the Murderbot Diaries is that both feature a protagonist who is dangerous and somewhat irritable, but basically good.

I'm not quite sure what to make of it on first reading. Initially it's not very compelling, I could easily put it down; it gradually becomes more exciting as the story unfolds, but I'm still unsure how much I'll want to reread it in future.

The characters are quite varied and distinct, agreeable enough, but I haven't become a devoted fan of any of them. The plot is busy. The magic is mysterious. I prefer disciplined fantasies in which magic is treated as a branch of science: it follows laws and operates within limits. But, if there are any laws or limits here, they're not explained.

I may be able to come to more definite conclusions after a second or third reading.

DNF - PG 98

Why?

Because I don't like it. Honestly, I'm not enjoying it at all. That is, partially my own fault for not noticing the ‘mystery' tag and being so incredibly feed up with poorly written mysteries as the secondary genre in several books I've read lately.

This one, so far, hasn't had in terribly leaps of logic, but... I feel nothing beyond annoyance while reading. I find the main characters bland and personality-less, the mystery is very verbose - or maybe that's just the writing style because there's an awful lot of words for saying as little as it does. And the writing style is complicated, I can't picture things, flashbacks are not clearly delineated, and people are so randomly mentioned I often have to go ‘who's that?' and still not know. Names are just thrown around willy-nilly and ...

I'm starting to wonder about Wells being one of my favorite authors because for how much I love her Raksura series, really liked her Fall of Ile-Rien series... I've not been having good luck since. I might come back to this one when I'm a little less feed up with mysteries being added to books by authors with no experience writing them, but for now, I'm done.

3.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
Nicholas Valiarde, disregarded noble and part-time thief, is on a mission of revenge. For years, he has planned to lay low the man who falsely implicated his mentor in necromantic crime. But now a plague of ghouls is getting in his way.

Review
This second installment of Ile-Rien is a much more cohesive, polished affair than the first. It's set in the same world, a hundred years later, and has a few references to its predecessor. But there are also so many references to other past exploits of its protagonists, that you'd be forgiven for thinking it a sequel to another (nonexistent) book entirely. (And the later sequels are another story as well.)

Happily, there's far less of Faerie and courts in this book. Instead, it's a magic-infused period mystery/heist story that works much better than the first book did. I've given each book the same rating, but they lean toward different ends of the range. This book is much more assured and enjoyable; I looked forward to picking it up. The wrapup is on the easy side and doesn't stand up to the quality of the rest of book, but you can look past it to enjoy the whole.

This again is the omnibus Book of Ile-Rien version. I didn't compare it to the prior e or print versions I have, but also didn't note any substantive changes. Looking this series up in ISFDB reminded me that an Ile-Rien story is also in the anthology Elemental I also have, so I'll be looking that up as well, though the anthology didn't stand out in my mind, so I won't be rereading the whole thing.