The Skull Throne

The Skull Throne by Peter V. Brett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Are Arlen Bales and Jardir dead or just missing? Who will step up to fill the power vacuum left in Jardir's absence? And what of Leesha Paper and the child inside her, or Rojer Half-Grip and his ever-growing group of wives? And what of Count Thamos? All of these questions and more will be answered in the penultimate volume of the Demon Cycle, The Skull Throne!

I got this from Netgalley.

After the wreckage that was the Daylight War, I decided nabbing an ARC was the only way I cared to continue the series. Fortunately, I got my wish. Was it worth the time?

That's hard to say. In many ways, I thought this was A Feast for Crows for the series. Why do I say that? Arlen and Jardir are barely in it! Once the cliffhanger from the last installment is resolved, I'd say they barely get 50 pages total. The rest of the book is split between the Krasians, Leesha and Rojer, and what's going on in Angiers.

While it didn't focus on Arlen and Jardir, what we did get was better than the Daylight War. Maybe not having to experience Arlen and Renna's fake-seeming relationship actually perked up the story a bit. I do like where the book seems to be heading for the conclusion of the saga, though. Too bad we get barely a taste of that in this volume, though.

My two main gripes with the series as a whole are that it seems to have been Martinized after the first book in that a lot of extraneous characters have been introduced and some of the existing ones have been detailed to an excruciating degree. Also, when the main character is the least charismatic of the bunch, you have problems. While I like Arlen in a D&D character sort of way, I don't really find him very interesting.

I'm giving this a 3- since I liked it more than the Daylight War but didn't "like" it like it.

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