Finished book 4 of JV Jones' Watcher of the Dead series. This was the best book of the series in that the preceding were too negative and this was more positive. Finally some very positive things are happening for Raina. Raif is now extremely powerful and even has a sex mate. Effie also has real power and her situation isn't so gruesome as it once was. I think actually that Mace was not even in book 4 at all??? He's been off at war.

The right level of injustice balanced against something positive, like the hope that results from aces up the sleeve, etc is not so easy to manage. It's understandable that things will look grimmer in the beginning and gradually become more positive. Such was the case with Rothfuss and his second book, and so on in these sorts of books.

Now starting Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Refreshing. Most would say it's on a higher level than the Jones series. Not really so though. The social norms are more complex, because it's only a slight variation of reality. If you're going to make an entirely new world with entirely different social norms, it's just too much to make them very complex. So then, the Sull for example end up way too crude, the only other way forward would be for Jones to do a better job at finding something in them that appeals to us humans instead of trying to emphasize that they're totally alien/foriegn.

One thing I dislike of Jones is that she has her characters using sayings occasionally that just don't belong. The world is not earth. Why would someone say "easy peasy"?

70% into the third of JV Jones' trilogy. With each switch in scene it's hard to bother continue reading. The suffering Raina experiences is too unbalanced. There needs to be something to balance suffering. With Hobb's Fitz, you knew he had such aces up his sleeve. Jones' Raif has great aces now, yet actually isn't really got much suffering. Probably the combination of suffering plus the ace is important. Effie's suffering has thankfully eased up. Riana though is more than 1000 pages of geting raped, slapped around, forced to marry the person who raped her, murdered her true love, with no one knowing what he did, and watching him destroy their clan, etc, etc. No glimpse really of anything positive. Totally unbalanced. Came very close to giving up on this book again. Instead the reading of it goes very slowly as the endless changing of scenes continues to make it hard to continue reading. I get into one scene just for it to end. To continously have to re-get in to another character's situation gets old.

A Cavern of Black Ice by JV Jones

The hero has an ace up his sleeve. We realize this almost immediately but it's only very, very slowly developed, with the hero not really realizing it even. Such is the standard formula. The one that works best that I'm aware of.

Lots of injustice. But overkill. Overdone and crudely done.

I suppose there is mystery. Certainly most of the magic isn't explained in too much detail. Something about this story doesn't work well for me. Doesn't have enough depth. The clans recall vikings to me. I think of the Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay which had much more depth to it, yet for that matter, didn't particularly move me either. Can't remember why. There may not have even been a hero with an ace in that one at all.

For Jones, the switching from scene to scene, gets annoying. Bit too much of a GR Martin feel in that respect. As we start the second book we've got:
1. Ash March off with the Sull.
2. Angus Lok just leaving the Doglord.
3. Penthero Iss
4. Sargo Veys
5. Marafice Eye
6. Raif
7. Raif's younger sister
8. Raina
9. The assasin going to kill Angus Lok's family (a big long bit about her working as a waitress, why???)
10. Angus Lok's daughter (in the middle of fighting the assasin, the scene stops, hundreds of pages later we still haven't came back).
11. The Listener in the far North.
Etc. Endless jumping around. Very similar to that ass GR Martin.

We keep going back to Raif's younger sister just to see what horrible thing will be done to her next. Injustice overload. No balance. She's 8 years old and they almost burned her for being a witch. But did kill her dog. It's just been a endless stream of horrible things that happen to her. It's too much. No balance. And then Raina the rape bride. And waaay too much jumping around. You can't keep stopping scenes right at their climax and then not returning till hundreds of pages later.
In this way primarily you fail, JV Jones, fail badly. Starting to think your goal is just too annoy the hell out of people.

Told in third person which maybe explains in part why I feel a little distant to it. Does have it's moments where the hero pulls out his ace. Ash though, the second hero, her ace is a bit overkill. And there's no development of it. Just, tiddah! Superpowerful!

I'm starting book two. But barely interested enough to continue. Maybe should read some more Kay instead. Thought EE Knight was refreshing also...

It's got injustice but it's overdone and perhaps too crude. It's got an ace and that's done pretty well. It's got mystery. But the jumping from scene to scene, and then not returning to things for hundreds of pages is a huge negative. I've had about enough.