Last night I finished Cast in Chaos, the sixth book in Michelle Sagara’s Chronicles of Elantra series. I enjoyed it very much, but apparently my brain is having trouble with full sentences and paragraphs today, so to point form we go!
- it occurs to me, in all the discussion the past couple years of covers and female characters in particular on covers, that maybe this one deserves a shout-out. She is wearing practical, not secondary-sexual-characteristic-enhancing clothing; her face is towards the “camera” and not obscured; and perhaps most importantly, her position and posture gives her an active role in the cover. Compare that with all the passive, dead or drowning or headless girls on most book covers… Yes, I do think this cover needs a shout out. Good job, whoever designed it. Thank you.
- just when I think this series is getting a bit too long for me and I might be falling out of it, it does something to suck me right back in. The last 150-ish pages of this book… damn. In the best way.
- fans of the series will definitely enjoy this installment. I especially loved getting to know the Arkon quite a bit better. And the development with Nightshade towards the beginning, though he sort of falls out of the book after that (I am guessing that thread will be picked back up in Cast in Ruin, book 7, and the continuation of this book).
- I am pretty sure this book (this series) would really reward a re-reading. There is a lot of chewy, gritty, figuring out who you are, and how you engage with your world in a compassionate and honest way, and how you heal from your past stuff in there, hidden (or not so hidden) among the dragons and the magical portals and the talking elemental Water. This is why I love fantasy.
- so yeah. Chronicles of Elantra (starts with Cast in Shadows). Highly recommended; read it if you haven’t.
Lillian Wheeler 