Hinterland

by James Clemens

Reviewed by Ruby

After the fall of Chrism, the lands of Myrillia seem to be holding their breath. There is tension in the First Land as Tylar- the former Godslayer, now acting god in Chrism’s place- and Argent – Warden of Tashijan and the Shawdoknights- absolutely hate each other. However with the threat of the Cabal hanging over their heads they have no choice but to try to get along. To mend the rift between them there is to be a ceremony that will reinstate Tylar as a full Shadowknight with much fanfare.

Surprisingly, not everything goes as plan. After all the guests arrive at Tashijan there is a great winter storm trapping them inside. But this is no ordinary storm; this one is fueled by Dark Graces and is determined to raze Tashijan to the ground. While that is going on, the knights are also threatened from deep within the Citadel as former Castellan Mirra has attacked with an army of ghawls steeped in Gloom (I am not sure if that is different from Dark Grace or not). Pinned between two forces Tylar escapes with a small group and heads deed into the Hinterland, trying to find the storms’ source of power before it is too late.

I enjoyed this book as much as I did the first one. (I have to admit though that I actually had to stop reading about half way through to reread Shadowfall because there were so many little things that I had forgotten.) The characters were all well written and the uniqueness of the story was still present, which is what I found the most compelling. It was new and different. I had two problems with this book however; one with the style of writing and one with the plot.

The overall style of the book was fine but I noticed, more in this book than any other I’ve read by this author, that when he wants a chapter to end with a specific word or phrase he will make that happen regardless how awkward or clunky it makes the few sentences before it. I think it was done for shock value but since I found the ‘revelations’ at the end of chapters not all that shocking, I don’t think it was worth it.

Technically the problem I had with the plot is actually two things but they are kind of connected. The first one is that the book is called Hinterland but it took the majority of the book for them to actually get there. And the second one is that seeing how long it took Tylar’s group to go from the First Land all the way to the Hinterland on the Eighth Land I found it unbelievable that Tashijan hadn’t collapsed yet. Or were we supposed to believe that three quarters of the book was like a day and a half or something? That was the only thing I found a little confusing.

There is a third point that bothered me about people not seeing what’s directly in front of them, but I can’t go into any more details without giving something away and I don’t want to do that, so I’ll have to discuss it when the third book comes out…whenever that is.

Grade: B