Noonshade followed on beautifully
from Dawnthief and surpassed the original in many ways. Set,
again, against the backdrop of a civil war between the east
and west, the Raven must stop dragons entering their dimension
through the rip created by the casting of Dawnthief.
The use of battles and science works so
well, once you have bought the dimensional travel from book
one this outing real hits home. A nice touch to this is the
large lack of continuity errors giving a feel that Barclay
has planned this out meticulously. That aside, readers who
didn't like the dimensional travel from the first book will
find this hard going as it goes much deeper.
The occupation, for want of a better work,
of Julatsa shows some brilliant writing. Barclay gives the
Wesman a feel of reality and knowledge of warfare, there aren't
many heroic saviors here and there is a lot of destruction.
This carries through to the large scale battles and tactical
awareness of many of the characters making battles more exciting....rather
then a head long charge.
After the classic fantasy style of the first
book, collect the artifacts, place them here, go on quest.
Noonshade throws this out of the window, giving an original
feel to proceedings. Again, the happy ever after effect is
missing, a shock death near the end of the book put pay to
that. I really didn't see it coming.
If there is a floor to the book, however,
it is the ending. It feels a bit too rushed and oh....there
we go. It also makes you wonder how the third book will follow
on, in a way this is a cunning ploy making you think and rush
to buy book three.
All in all, however, Noonshade is a better
read that Dawnthief. And that is saying something....as Dawnthief
is a brilliant book.
