I loved it! Fantastic fantasy, a wonderful world by an author clearly aware of the genre, and happy to breeze past the tropes. It felt like a perfect cut between hard and soft magic, a hard and soft world: everything you know is need-to-know; every card ever turned over remains in play, as it were. As ever with Brandon Mull, the characters were strong, but approachable-- more here than in many others, in my opinion. Rachel had power, but a rational amount that she gained one step at a time. Jason, as it happened.... didn't, which I think is fascinating. His appeal was that he did what he could at the right time, which I think is an excellent way to express the specific genre of kids' fantasy: of course the righteous side comes out on the upside, but the main character would be hard to call a chosen one. I'm glad he got a nice end though, even if

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he didn't get with Corinne.... yet.

It's a hard sell for me to give a Brandon Mull book less than four stars, so I won't. That said, I do have a note (for all it's worth; he's had 9 years to correct it and did, before I said anything). I think the cast is a bit overblown. Somewhere in the second book, we started adding people to the party like mad. Drinlings, Amar Kabal, and various helpers from stages past and present started to get a bit hard to track (but especially the Drinlings). I think seeing virtually all of them again at the end,

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re: the whole revolt and counterrevolution in Trensicourt

, but also generally, inflated the problem. But even disregarding all that, there were just a few too many to track, and it did feel a bit like many of them were there

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just to die, more or less

. When, for instance,

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"Heg" appeared in the Fuming Wastes, it automatically seemed suspicious

because I didn't know who he was. Same with Nicholas from the first book, the various lieutenants of the war party. I generally roll my eyes when a familiar character is reintroduced, to the effect of "[Character], who helped us back in book 1." Yet here, given the circumstances, I might have preferred it.

I had various other minor thoughts on the unconventionality of the world and story as it relates to the general genre, but in the end I think that hid some of the appeal. I think this book certainly feels like a spiritual... ancestor? to The Five Kingdoms series, which makes sense, given the content. If I'm honest, it feels a little like Mull started asking "what if Lyrian was different?" enough times that it constituted a perhaps stronger, more defined series. But I loved this one nonetheless.

Would recommend to anyone who liked books like Eragon, and would be interested to see non-Tolkien races take the place of those more conventional. Mull has an excellent imagination, and an exquisite awareness of the worlds and genres in which he creates, but doesn't let it stop him. As always, I'd recommend this, and all his books, as a quick and very enjoyable read to readers of any age, especially 20-somethings who find the genre dedicated to them on the thin side, and want something that doesn't need to be grim (but still has the option, if it likes) to be good.