Review: Not Necessary But Nice II
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 15, 2012
This novella takes place in betweenThe Iron QueenandThe Iron Knight; in fact it reads somewhat like an episode cut from the beginning of the latter for length.So if you are reading the Iron Fey novels, do you absolutely need to read this?IMHO, no.  I suspect that the reason it was cut in the first place is that it contains nothing you absolutely need in order to understand anything that occurs in the fourth book; however, that doesn't make it useless or uninteresting to Iron Fey Series fans.In this episode we get considerable detail from Puck's point of view about Ash and Meghan and his feelings about same.  We also get evidence that Meghan's true father, Summer King Oberon, who revealed inWinter's Passagethat he cares a lot more for her than he's been willing to admit, cares a whole lot less about her happiness than the preceding might have led us to believe.  We get the calling in of the rash promise Ash made to Leanansidhe, Queen of the Exiles, in the previous book, and we get the REAL reason for the "road trip" suddenly proposed by one of the characters on page 351 of the fourth book. (Clearly, the other character's guess is revealed to be wrong.) Perhaps the most intriguing information not revealed elsewhere is how Puck reacted to the temptation to see his fondest (and darkest) dreams come true.So what it comes down to is that if you loved the Iron Fey series, you will want to read this before you read the fourth book.Note: Non-Kindle users finally have an alternative:The Iron Legends: Winter's Passage\Summer's Crossing\Iron's Prophecycollects this along with the two other Kindle-only novellas:Winter's PassageandIron's Prophecy, and Kindle users who haven't already purchased the other two novellas separately can opt for the Kindle version of the collection:The Iron Legends: Winter's Passage\Summer's Crossing\Iron's Prophecy.Note: The question has been raised whether this can be categorized as Steampunk; IMHO based on the first three books, the answer is no, though there are "steampunkish" elements.