I read the first two books in the Nightrunner series, Luck in the Shadows and Stalking Darkness, the summer before my freshman year of college. The Bennington library didn't have Traitor's Moon, so I wound up buying myself a copy, fortuitously found at a local used book store.

And never got around to reading it.

This summer, I re-read the first two and found that I still enjoyed them. My memory thus refreshed, I reached enthusiastically for the final instalment.

Read about fifty pages, and found it somewhat lacking.

Don't get me wrong - we're not talking scandalously bad. Still, the magic isn't there anymore, or doesn't seem to be. Some of it is small, structural stuff. I start to notice Flewelling reusing key words, spaced as close together as the same paragraph. Some of the descriptions seem a tad familiar; a tad too similar to how the same people and places were described in the previous books.

I wouldn't care so much if it weren't for the characters. LitS and SD both had multiple PoVs, but they were still mostly limited to a small subset of core characters. In TM, we're suddenly introduced to a whole flurry of new folk, from their points of view. In a first book, this'd be cool. This late on, and knowing Flewelling's penchant for killing off supporting cast, I'm plagued with the thought of 'why should I get attached or even care?'

What about the characters I already cared about, you ask? Ah, there lies the actual breaking point. The way both leads have developed is both narrativistically consistent and psychologically sound. I have no difficulty in seeing how the traumatic events of Stalking Darkness would cost Seregil much of his charisma and sense of humor. Unfortunately, those were the traits that endeared him to me in the first place. Were he a real person, I would sympathize with him. As a character, however, he's rapidly hit emo. This isn't helped by the way Flewelling has him cry waaay more than a man of his background would.

Alec, meanwhile, has also lost a key segment of his characterization to the previous novel's events. Namely, the innocence and naiivete that were once his stumbling-blocks. His newfound maturity and level-headedness would be laudable in real life, but reduce him to a rather bland character.

Seeing a pattern, yet?

I almost feel like I shouldn't complain. It'd be worse if Flewelling pushed a reset button, rather than dealing with consequences. But I keep feeling as though she thoroughly wore out both her heroes and her story, making them unfit to serve in a sequel.

Or maybe it's that I don't find a sequel necessary. Certainly, every loose end wasn't wrapped up by the end of Stalking Darkness, but as anyone who's ever been in a fandom can attest, they don't have to be.

True enough, I'm only fifty pages in and plan on reading further, so I might well end up eating my words. I certainly hope so. For the moment, though, this is me making my Sad Lily face.



By the time I finished Shards of Honor, I knew I wanted to read more. By the time I finished Barayar, I knew I *needed* to read more.

When did I realize this for the first time? When bits of the story made me cry enough that I had to put the book aside for several days, that's when. Admittedly, my PMSy state may have had something to do with it, but most of the credit goes to the book. For me, reading is a visceral experience rather than an academic one, and Bujold's writing hits right along those lines, without ever losing its intelligence.

It doesn't hurt that Cordelia's an awesome character: strong and intelligent (and clever and smart, as those are all slightly different things), yet still emotionally driven and fallible - and thus real.

The next omnibus is already on order. If Miles is as much of a character as his mom - and from the glimpse we get of him as a five year old, it looks likely - I'm going to thoroughly enjoy reading his books and vicariously living his adventures.

Even if I may have to occasionally put those books in the fridge, to quote a Friends episode.

ETA: In the interests of upholding my curmudgeonly reputation, I'll point out my one (tiny) quibble with the book. Barayaran culture, language and names are strongly Russian-based. I'm pretty sure it even said as much in either Shards of Honor or Barayar - I forget which. As such, Droushnakovi's name should be Droushnakovaya. 'I' or 'iy' are, for the most part, masculine surname endings. On a similar name, it says that her first name, Ludmilla, is pronounced so that 'lud' rhymes with mud. This is untrue; it's actually prononounced 'lyood'. Admittedly, this is all in the far future, so the language has likely morphed. Still, who would I be if I didn't get my nitpick in.


In other news, an Ascender is me! Yes, I know it took me a while, but there were a few trophies I had to bag first.

It's very likely I got more of a kick out of defeating the Naughty Sorceress than I should have, but considering she managed to kick my ass twice before I kicked hers, it's understandable.

In other other news, I want my own, smaller keyboard back. I swear, I made more typos in this post than there are words. Heck, I probably missed a few. Sigh.