#stormcaster

Evan brings up Destin at least once a chapter and is just constantly like, "I wish Destin were here. Destin would laugh at my jokes. Destin would know how to sail my pride and joy boat that I named after him without ever telling him. Destin so cool. I wonder if I can get away with writing more love letters to Destin.

And that was not only traumatic to Ash, it was traumatic as hell for me too. I didn't give af about jenna and her childhood crush. I WAS MOURNING! And then I continued to mourn for the rest of Flamecaster-- which made the entire reading experience terrible.

Then by Dreamcaster, I was still mourning. Han--but in a different way bc Lyss' grief felt more respectful to Han in some ways-- and CAT BC SHE APPARENTLY DIED TOO??? And I was also disturbed by the Raimon 'hints' (I believe it's mostly Lyss' own paranoia about her mom moving on, but still DISTURBING)

By Stormcaster the grief about Han was settling down, but then I got angry bc it finally hit me that Raisa and Han (THE WHOLE REASON THAT I READ ALL FOUR BOOKS BC OF) would never get a happy ending together. History repeats itself, just like with hanalea and alger, which is terrible since Raisa stuck it to her family at the end of Crimson Crown about how she was LEARNING FROM THE PAST! and there were more references to raisa moving on and spending the rest of her life with someone else and that made angry too, bc she's a half of my otp! idc if he died, idc if it's healthy and realistic to move on, THEY HAD JUST GOTTEN MARRIED!

And finally, by the time Lyss and Ash finally reunited with Han, and it was confirmed that Raisa and Han were meeting up in the amulet and would continue to do so, DEATHCASTER WAS OVER! oh, and don't get me started on magret, bc by that point i was too emotionally numb to grieve over her.

When I first saw the cover and read the synopsis for Flamecaster, I was SO excited. The Seven Realms, even after ten years, is still one of my favorite series. To be gifted with a whole sequel series - to get even just a little more story about these characters I’ve grown to love, to get to meet their kids and get to explore the Realms more - I was elated!

Within the last year or two, I made the decision to not read a series before the last book was released. Flamecaster came out before I made that choice (and may have been one of the books to push me to it), so the first time I read it, I was sitting in the doctor’s office waiting to be seen. Three chapters in, and hit me right in the feels: major character death. I took a few days before diving back into the book, but once I did, I enjoyed it, and it made me look forward to the rest of the series.

Fast forward to 2020 (*makes sign of the cross*). I’m finally ready to read the whole series together. I reread TSR to re-familiarize myself with the story, loved it just as much as the first time around. When I was ready to pick up Flamecaster again, I was prepared to have my heart broken again. I was ready to git ‘er done!

So, Flamecaster, right? GOOD first book. A wizard healer who’s also an assassin? Oxymoronic, but I’m here for it. A rebellious young woman who likes to blow shit up, has a mysterious magemark on the back of her neck that gives her some cool powers, AND is fighting for her home against a tyrannical king? Tell me more! Bloodsucking, wizard-hunting priests? Gross, but intriguing. DRAGONS?!?! Honestly, could take them or leave them, but cool integration into the canon.

But as I got into the next books in the series, especially the last one, there were a lot of moments where I felt like I was just reading to get through the story, not really soaking anything in, not really enjoying the content. For example, Evan, the protagonist of Stormcaster, basically lives on a boat. Obviously, from his POV, gonna be a lot of boat stuff, but it felt kind of excessive at points. Like so much stuff about masts and riggings and sails and mizzens. I got lost a few times. Additionally, the overarching plotline revolves around a twenty-five-year long war, so there’s a lot of talk about battle strategies and tactics and stuff my brain just kinda glossed over.

Mostly though, I felt like there was a lot of exposition or build up that lead to one of the quickest resolutions I’ve ever encountered. This seemingly all-powerful antagonist introduced in book one is gone in a matter of seconds in the penultimate chapter of the last book and that’s it. No epic battle. No one fighting for their lives. Just here one second, gone the next. Arguably, could be comical but was more disappointing.

The Shattered Realms is beautifully written. Vivid imagery. Great example of world building. A variety of well-crafted characters. I’m always down for smart, strong, badass women, and Alyssa Gray is someone I should aspire to be. Again: dragons, named Splash and Slayer and Goat who were loyal and funny and taunting of 'puny humans'. There was espionage and deceit, wartime love and unlikely newfound friendships, family reunions and the loss of loved ones in more ways than one.

On a scale from 1-10, I’d give the Shattered Realm series a tentative 5. When compared to it’s predecessor, Seven Realms series, the world-building and character design are, for the most part, relatively well done...in the beginning. Later on, things go downhill at a steady-to-steep incline to right off a cliff.

The climax to both the main plot and sub-plot are abysmally unsatisfying. Main characters get sidelined, side characters abruptly disappear, old characters go through dramatic and unexpected character changes just to further the plot, old plot elements are conveniently remembered AND forgotten to service the plot, major conflicts are resolved between chapters, old and new concepts are introduced for seemingly no explained reason, conflict begins involving some characters and then ends without their involvement, despite there being a 25 year gap between the two series, virtually nothing in the world has changed since then save some characters had kids, and some characters died, and truly what I believe to be the biggest cardinal sin of them all is that of the eight primary main characters (that being whose POVs we get to read across all four books) only two of them are given satisfying conclusions.

The Seven Realms series had two main characters whose stories were told across four books. The Shattered Realms series has four times the amount of characters whose stories are being told in the same amount of books. I don’t know if there was just an issue of having a page limit (which frankly sounds ridiculous if that were the case) or if this is really just the author’s choice, but realistically this series could have, and should have spanned across at least 6-7 books.

I’m tagging this moderately sufficiently, not to draw the ire of other fans, but merely to see if anyone responds similarly or differently, I am genuinely curious how others felt about this.