Review: great beginning, mediocre middle, blown last quarter
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 7, 2014
Like another review, I was captivated at the outset, enough to keep reading during the sort of dull middle part.  It did turn out that some things were being built in that part to use later.  But the author transitions from a carefully planned plotting mindset in which ambiguous adversaries take small steps and work for decades to build small armies, to one in which without motivation or explanation they burn two cities and kill most of the characters that have been developed.  In the end there are only two characters (and a large talking cat) to which we remain attached.  There is one other ambiguous character that seems poised for action, but we never hear of what he has done.So I bought the sequel to see.  Oops, skip 5 years ahead, and immediately repeat the great-leader-in-captivity plot.  I also dislike when authors can figure out how to continue after they have taught a character magic, so they simple give another character a means to neutralize it.  Duh, pointless.So my estimate of the rating of this book was at 5 stars at one point, diminished to 4 near the end, plummeted to 3 at the actual end.