All Is Fair by Emma Newman
Nov. 4th, 2015 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
The Duke of Londinium is dead.
Long live the new Duke.
Sam, a stranger to the world of the Fae, finds an unexpected offer from one of the Elemental Court’s most enigmatic Lords turns out to be far more than he bargained for.
Meanwhile, Max, an Arbiter of the Split Worlds Treaty, is getting closer to uncovering who is behind the murder of the Bath Chapter.
Can he stay true to his sworn duty without being destroyed by his own master, whose insanity threatens to unravel them all?
It’s several days after ANY OTHER NAME. Cathy is still recovering from the attack on her life, while Will is questioning the events that led him to challenge Bartholomew while also trying to shore up his rule over Londinium. Meanwhile Sam is reeling from the sudden death of his wife but, intrigued by Lord Iron’s offer, decides to find out more about the Elemental Court and gets far more than he bargained for. Finally Max, the gargoyle and Ekstrand have decided to move against the Agency to force out whoever is behind the attack on the Bath Chapter and Britain’s sorcerers, but doing so brings them into contact with an adversary more dangerous than they could have ever imagined …
The last book in Emma Newman’s SPLIT WORLDS TRILOGY is an ultimately disappointing affair as the plot sprawls out to bring in new elements while the central mystery gets a rushed and unfulfilling conclusion. This is a shame because there’s so much interesting world building going on in these books and I would have easily read a series of 6 or 8 because Newman does well at investigating and challenging the social and political landscape of her world and I really enjoyed the sinister revelations that come about the Agency and how it operates. I also enjoyed the expansion into Oxford and it’s mirror city and I especially liked its sorcerer Rupert, who shares Ekstrand’s eccentricity but is more amenable to modern technology. However, the developments with Sam come very late in the trilogy and the introduction of the Elemental Court – though potentially interesting – doesn’t have the room to make as much of an impact as it should. I was also very disappointed to see no mention or fall out from the rape in book 2, which left me very uncomfortable, particularly because of the way the book ends for the two characters concerned. What really annoyed me though was that the denouement to the mystery about the attack on the Bath Chapter was so poor – the antagonist literally doesn’t get introduced until the final quarter and we never find out what the motivation for it all was (only what Max and the gargoyle assume it could be). I wonder how much of this is expanded in the short stories and although this book didn’t work for me, I’d be interested in reading both them and a follow on trilogy.
The Verdict:
The last book in Emma Newman’s SPLIT WORLDS TRILOGY is an ultimately disappointing affair as the plot sprawls out to bring in new elements while the central mystery gets a rushed and unfulfilling conclusion. This is a shame because there’s so much interesting world building going on in these books and I would have easily read a series of 6 or 8 because Newman does well at investigating and challenging the social and political landscape of her world and I really enjoyed the sinister revelations that come about the Agency and how it operates. I also enjoyed the expansion into Oxford and it’s mirror city and I especially liked its sorcerer Rupert, who shares Ekstrand’s eccentricity but is more amenable to modern technology. However, the developments with Sam come very late in the trilogy and the introduction of the Elemental Court – though potentially interesting – doesn’t have the room to make as much of an impact as it should. I was also very disappointed to see no mention or fall out from the rape in book 2, which left me very uncomfortable, particularly because of the way the book ends for the two characters concerned. What really annoyed me though was that the denouement to the mystery about the attack on the Bath Chapter was so poor – the antagonist literally doesn’t get introduced until the final quarter and we never find out what the motivation for it all was (only what Max and the gargoyle assume it could be). I wonder how much of this is expanded in the short stories and although this book didn’t work for me, I’d be interested in reading both them and a follow on trilogy.
Long live the new Duke.
Sam, a stranger to the world of the Fae, finds an unexpected offer from one of the Elemental Court’s most enigmatic Lords turns out to be far more than he bargained for.
Meanwhile, Max, an Arbiter of the Split Worlds Treaty, is getting closer to uncovering who is behind the murder of the Bath Chapter.
Can he stay true to his sworn duty without being destroyed by his own master, whose insanity threatens to unravel them all?
It’s several days after ANY OTHER NAME. Cathy is still recovering from the attack on her life, while Will is questioning the events that led him to challenge Bartholomew while also trying to shore up his rule over Londinium. Meanwhile Sam is reeling from the sudden death of his wife but, intrigued by Lord Iron’s offer, decides to find out more about the Elemental Court and gets far more than he bargained for. Finally Max, the gargoyle and Ekstrand have decided to move against the Agency to force out whoever is behind the attack on the Bath Chapter and Britain’s sorcerers, but doing so brings them into contact with an adversary more dangerous than they could have ever imagined …
The last book in Emma Newman’s SPLIT WORLDS TRILOGY is an ultimately disappointing affair as the plot sprawls out to bring in new elements while the central mystery gets a rushed and unfulfilling conclusion. This is a shame because there’s so much interesting world building going on in these books and I would have easily read a series of 6 or 8 because Newman does well at investigating and challenging the social and political landscape of her world and I really enjoyed the sinister revelations that come about the Agency and how it operates. I also enjoyed the expansion into Oxford and it’s mirror city and I especially liked its sorcerer Rupert, who shares Ekstrand’s eccentricity but is more amenable to modern technology. However, the developments with Sam come very late in the trilogy and the introduction of the Elemental Court – though potentially interesting – doesn’t have the room to make as much of an impact as it should. I was also very disappointed to see no mention or fall out from the rape in book 2, which left me very uncomfortable, particularly because of the way the book ends for the two characters concerned. What really annoyed me though was that the denouement to the mystery about the attack on the Bath Chapter was so poor – the antagonist literally doesn’t get introduced until the final quarter and we never find out what the motivation for it all was (only what Max and the gargoyle assume it could be). I wonder how much of this is expanded in the short stories and although this book didn’t work for me, I’d be interested in reading both them and a follow on trilogy.
The Verdict:
The last book in Emma Newman’s SPLIT WORLDS TRILOGY is an ultimately disappointing affair as the plot sprawls out to bring in new elements while the central mystery gets a rushed and unfulfilling conclusion. This is a shame because there’s so much interesting world building going on in these books and I would have easily read a series of 6 or 8 because Newman does well at investigating and challenging the social and political landscape of her world and I really enjoyed the sinister revelations that come about the Agency and how it operates. I also enjoyed the expansion into Oxford and it’s mirror city and I especially liked its sorcerer Rupert, who shares Ekstrand’s eccentricity but is more amenable to modern technology. However, the developments with Sam come very late in the trilogy and the introduction of the Elemental Court – though potentially interesting – doesn’t have the room to make as much of an impact as it should. I was also very disappointed to see no mention or fall out from the rape in book 2, which left me very uncomfortable, particularly because of the way the book ends for the two characters concerned. What really annoyed me though was that the denouement to the mystery about the attack on the Bath Chapter was so poor – the antagonist literally doesn’t get introduced until the final quarter and we never find out what the motivation for it all was (only what Max and the gargoyle assume it could be). I wonder how much of this is expanded in the short stories and although this book didn’t work for me, I’d be interested in reading both them and a follow on trilogy.
