James Islington

4.75/5

My enjoyment of this book was over the top. I loved just about every page. I found it to be a fast-paced but complicated read. There were several times in this book that I was on-the-edge-of-my-seat excited to get through to the next scene and find out what was happening or going to happen or did happen (as much of this story involves the characters discovering their forgotten pasts as well as determining their futures).

The only thing for me that kept it from a 5-star rating were actions/reactions by a few characters which were not what I expected. I won't go into any details because it would be spoilerish, but it is also a personal preference thing - nothing that takes away from the overall awesomeness of this book. If I rated it on my enjoyment level alone, it would get an 8 out of 5.… (mere)

I have been looking forward to seeing the final instalment of The Licanius Trilogy since I finished the An Echo of Things to Come almost two years ago. As appears to be the case for many others, I didn't get around to re-reading both the previous books before starting with The Light of All That Falls, so even with the helpful summary of previous events, it was a bit of a cold start, and took me a few chapters to get back into. I think this series could definitely do with a top-to-tail reread in the future to come to fully appreciate the complexity of the plot and how it fits into the world crafted by James Islington.

Speaking of the complexity of the plot, I felt that this was one of the best, but at the same time the most problematic, elements of both this book and the trilogy as a whole. On the one hand, the intricacies of both the individual storylines of the main characters as well as the ways in which they interconnected was extremely well done, and made for good pacing as well as character development. On the other hand, the complexity meant that some plot points and decisions were difficult to follow without the reader's complete and utter concentration, and together with the smorgasbord of secondary characters, outlandish names and time travel thrown into the mix, I found myself having to double back in a few places to make sure I had understood what was happening.

The other things that greatly impressed me about Islington's writing were his ability to bring out the driving themes of the book, while also showing great attentiveness to maintaining internal consistency and the details of his magic system. I particularly enjoyed the treatment of the driving themes of destiny and fate vs freedom of choice, and the importance of being the person that one wants to be rather than being governed by how one is perceived by others, both of which are convincingly engaged with by the characters in their thoughts, choices and interactions. The improvements in the use of Essence and kan were also creatively developed and realistically required attentive study and practice. Although I did feel that the last battle did fall a bit flat in terms of displaying the full extent of the characters' abilities, the epilogue was nevertheless a satisfying way to wrap up the series.

Ultimately, I think this is a 4.5 for me - an engaging and immersive final book which ticks the majority of the boxes, definitely merits a re-read, and makes me interested to see what the author will come out with in the future, but didn't quite have the X factor to top it off.… (mere)

I kept getting Stormlight Archive vibes, which is a compliment to Sanderson, but thoroughly enjoyed the first book in this series. It did take the oh-so-excellent narration by Michael Kramer to fully get me engaged, but once I did, the storyline set its hooks in me.

The only problem that I had was the seemingly utter stupidity of the teenaged protaganists. Maybe I'm too far removed from that age, and just don't remember how stupid I was, but it seems to be my new pet peeve in books.

I've already purchased the audio and Kindle versions of book #2, An Echo of Things to Come.… (mere)