Book Review: Slaves of the Mastery

I've got a theory about trilogies; I call it The Second Book Theorem. Starting with His Dark Materials, I noticed that in most of the trilogies I've encountered, the second book in the trilogy, more often than not, is the best in the series. The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials), Lirael (The Old Kingdom Trilogy), That-Second-Book-Whose-Title-I-Forget (The Elenium) and now, joining their ranks is Slaves of the Mastery, of The Wind On Fire Trilogy.

The first book sucked. Tanked. Majorly. It was a whole lot of bad from Badonia. There was almost no point in reading the first book. Hell, you can skip it and come out largely unscathed, plotwise. In fact, I recommend you to completely ignore the first book. It's nothing compared to this one.

This book? Oh, it's just one of the best fantasy books in a trilogy that I've read in a while, right behind Lirael and The Subtle Knife. The characters are again one of the strongest points in this book, but this time, add a compelling plot and wonderful pacing to that list.

I don't really like divulging details about the plot but...

Well, Aramanth, released from the grip of the Morah, becomes kinder - weaker. The city had let its guard down and its defences were few. Then came the Mastery and its army, marching in to annihilate Aramanth and enslave its people. This they did, burning the city to the grounds and the Hath family were all captured, save for Kestrel, who had been hiding in the city and somehow got away. Now, she will have to find her family again and set them free...

Well, there's more to it than that, and you see Bowman, along with Mumpo, develop further, growing wiser/stronger. Also, the introduction of Sisi, the Johdilla, adds more depth (even if she herself lacks it) and color (now this she has a lot of) to the proceedings.

It's wonderful how everything gets together so well in this book and I was actually amazed that the author had this in him, considering the H-U-G-E disappointment that was The Wind Singer. All in all, reading this was a pleasure and I expect most of you will feel the same.

I give this an 8 out of 10.