Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
- Bertrand Russell
~*~
So, over the weekend I finished WARRIOR AND WITCH by Marie Brennan. I really liked this book. It was a good follow-up novel to Doppelganger, and I do still like the world she’s created. I’m not sure if she plans a third in the set, but I hope so – I would love to see what’s in the Epilogue expanded upon into a novel. The witches have to shake up a lot of their traditions in this book, and exploring the ramifications of those changes would make an interesting tale.
What to say about the book without giving things away… I like the interplay between the characters. Not just the main characters either, but I like the way the secondaries react as well. There are lots of good pieces of character development, yet the secondary characters are able to stay secondaries and not take over the plot. (Some readers will disagree with me, but I like having it be obvious who the story is about.)
The only bit of bad that I really would complain about is the number of POV shifts. These shifts were a lot more understandable in Doppleganger, as the main character was in two bodies, and the POV shifts followed both halves. In this case, we follow multiple different people. It works fine for the story, but there were occasional moments of confusion while I figured out who was the POV character. It does still work, but not as smoothly as in the first book.
All said, it’s a good novel with which to end my spring reading and jump into summer reading. (The difference? Just a bit of sun and some iced tea.) What’s on your summer reading list this year?
