Review: Better than first book
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 29, 2014
It is not required you read the first book  but it might help enjoyment.  This is not a deep piece of literature.  But it is a fun, fast paced adventure well written and the Kindle price is very attractive.  There is one overriding moral issue and that is absolute power corrupts and it deals with the morally corrosive nature of having power, and a society that supports and reinforces this feeling of superiority to others.I will not synopsize the plot; you can get that from authors description.  But I will say Elaine ( the head librarian/bookworm) becomes a real person, making decisions and taking responsibility something that she seemed adverse in the first novel.  The "hero" Johan gets lots of sympathy votes for a difficult upbringing.  But he is too naive, too simple.  He takes on blame and guilt when he should not and does not take obvious actions.  If someone is converted to glass and breaks and you have undefined magical powers why not at least try and bring them together? If a building is on fire with children on top why reinforce part of the building instead of putting out the flames, providing a ladder, moving the children....  He obviously has tremendous power why not challenge for high sorcerer and then enact whatever new laws he wants instead of challenging outside the system.  He would  only have to fight one magician instead of the entire governments stable of magicians that way.  This would all make more sense if Johan was twelve instead of supposedly almost an adult.  I can only assume the author is reserving the option of a love complication,  perhaps even with Elaine, where he drops hints along this line.Like many current authors the story is left somewhat open at the end for the next sequel.  I dislike this growing practice but in this case at least the book comes to a reasonable conclusion and can stand alone. You are not required to buy the next book / installment in an ongoing soap opera although you want to because the story was fun to read.  So the end is a bit of a cliffhanger but the story was at a fairly good wrapped position before the teaser was added.The pricing also avoids the greed that has infected many of the OTHER authors who spit out multiple sequels milking a series until they have extracted the last bit of fun and profit from the series.