This I remembered much more vividly from the first time around than I had Shaman's Crossing, and even then it was still hard to stop reading...as if obsessively staying up reading this would make things any less bleak for Nevare. This is a far more depressing book than the first, with it feeling like just one thing after another is being piled on and Nevare gets more and more weighed down by it all.

Nevare definitely grows as a character in here as he learns to accept his lot and make the best of it. Granted, it takes him the entire 700-ish pages to really get to where he needs to for book three, but even with the slow moments in here it's still a fascinating read. This brings in the frontier feeling that Shaman's Crossing had a little of but not a ton since it spent so much time based out of the academy. The dark and brooding feeling of the magical forest pushing up against the frontiers "progress" just sets such a good stage for this all and just has an atmosphere I've never found in any other fantasy novels.