Review: Faith in the frozen north
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 2, 2012
The international bunch from the first book is back, this time with their lives intersecting in Espani.  Taziri is now flying the Halycon 2, which is an airplane instead of an airship.  Major Zidane is working as flight security, and Keenan is her copilot.  Qhora and Lorenzo are married and living in Madrid running a fencing school.  One day, Taziri's flight drifts a bit off-course, while bringing passengers from Italia to Mazigh, and they happen to spot a brand-new Espani warship that promptly shoots at them.  Forced down over Espani, Taziri takes her passengers to Lorenzo's home, where they stumble into the middle of his personal quest to find the skyfire stone.  A stone that fell from heaven in the frigid northern part of Espani, and that is supposed to emit heat that Lorenzo hopes will save the faith of his fellow Espanis.In the first book, Lewis surprised me by writing a steampunk that I actually enjoyed.  In this one, he managed to do that with a fantasy.  Definitely impressive.  Whereas the first book focused on Taziri and the Mazigh steampunk science, this one focuses in on Espani--a culture that shuns science and instead trusts in faith.  This is not a set-up that would normally lead to me getting an enjoyable read, but the characters are sympathetic enough that it works.  It's sort of a way of examining the impact the industrial revolution had only with Europe being the one behind the times.My complaint in the first book was there was too much exposition and it took too long to get the action going.  Not a problem here!  However I was disappointed by two things.  First, Taziri's plot again mostly involves her wanting to get back to her family and missing her daughter.  This feels a bit too much like a repeat of the first book.  Second, where were all the Espani women?  I cannot think of a single significant one encountered in a whole book set there.  This made me sad after the large presence of females in the first book.  Qhora talks about Espani female gentility and such, but we don't ever really see it.Overall, this is a fulfilling follow-up to the first book that does not suffer from the middle book in the trilogy plight that so often occurs to book two.  The setting is different, and the action is tighter.  I'm excited to read the final book in the trilogy and am certain fans of the first book will not be disappointed by this one.