Sara Douglass has taken her own spin on the plot twist, the character twist (wherein a character previously assumed to be the reincarnation of Sliced Bread is discovered to actually be secretly eeeevil, while characters everyone reviles as a cross between Osama bin Laden and a child molester are revealed to be the salvations of man-, bird-, and tree-kind) and moved it beyond perfection into predictability. Rest assured, if you are introduced to a character who appears to be a pretty decent guy, that he will eventually turn out to kick puppies or something. On the other hand, previously kickass members of the Hot Cover Art Girls With Swords and Halter Tops Club are now reduced to vapid, simpering sidekicks who sigh a lot (I'm looking at you, Azhure and Zenith). And then Faraday - who from Day 1 has been the most boringly consistent character of all, with her interminable sulky, self righteous martyr complex - drops the F-bomb out of nowhere, and you know you're in the presence of a master. Still, after the first 87 times the monster rips off his mask to reveal he's really kindly old Mr. MacGregor, you get the point.

But then, Douglass has never been accused of being too subtle. She will take a horse and beat it, not only 'til it's dead, but long past its expiration date. Take Zenith, who's really starting to tick me off. See, Zenith and her grandfather StarDrifter are in love, which is OK because they're both SunSoars, which is like being a Bush in that you rule the world and you can pretend things like the Constitution don't exist, much less apply to you. (Does that make WolfStar Karl Rove?) Except Zenith is all angsty over the fact that she wants to boink granddad, and so she spends the entire book agonizing over it. Seriously. Every. Single. Time we cut to Zenith, that's what she's doing. She serves absolutely no other purpose in this book except to conduct a tortured inner dialogue: "But I love him! But it's gross! But he's so hot! But it's naughty!" Fish or cut bait, honey.

But you know, detailing everything wrong with a Sara Douglass novel is a little mean, plus way too easy - like shooting fish in a barrel. The truth is, I've hung in for 5 books so far, and am planning on the 6th, so obviously she's doing something right. I'll admit that the sheer soap-opery melodrama is, in its own way, a delightfully guilty pleasure. I also like the fact that, for the most part, Douglass has managed to maintain a level of coherence and internal continuity in an astonishingly complicated and twisting series of books; any surprises she reveals about events that occurred in the first three books generally hold up on further inspection. This makes for a fairly longish series that works as well on the fifth book as it did in the first, quite an accomplishment these days.

So these eeeevil demons have crashed through the Star Gate and rendered all of Tencendor's likely heroes useless. The Enchanters are disenchanted, the StarMan is starless, and the StarSon is... Wait, who's the StarSon again? That distinction plays a huge role here, as professional underdog Drago leads a ragtag band of humans to Save the World. Trite, but true. Anyway, a lot of the book is spent describing the horrors that the Demons visit upon Tencendor, and the utter helplessness of most of the population. There's less of action here (save for the fleeing) than of revelations. Such is the fate of the middle book of the trilogy. So we get more on the mysterious 'craft' that crash landed millennia ago; the origins of the various species of Tencendor (except the Avar - I want their story!); the whole StarMan/StarSon controversy; the potential power of the Acharites, &c. All to set up the final book, really, although the ending of "Pilgrim" is delightfully cliffhangerish.

So yes, I mock, but at the end of the day I really do get a kick out of these books. I wish to God Douglass were a more consistent writer, or at least had a decent editor, but I don't look a gift novel in the mouth. "Pilgrim" is an enjoyable, entertaining continuation of the Wayfarer Redemption series.
Sara Douglass has taken her own spin on the plot twist, the character twist (wherein a character previously assumed to be the reincarnation of Sliced Bread is discovered to actually be secretly eeeevil, while characters everyone reviles as a cross between Osama bin Laden and a child molester are revealed to be the salvations of man-, bird-, and tree-kind) and moved it beyond perfection into predictability. Rest assured, if you are introduced to a character who appears to be a pretty decent guy, that he will eventually turn out to kick puppies or something. On the other hand, previously kickass members of the Hot Cover Art Girls With Swords and Halter Tops Club are now reduced to vapid, simpering sidekicks who sigh a lot (I'm looking at you, Azhure and Zenith). And then Faraday - who from Day 1 has been the most boringly consistent character of all, with her interminable sulky, self righteous martyr complex - drops the F-bomb out of nowhere, and you know you're in the presence of a master. Still, after the first 87 times the monster rips off his mask to reveal he's really kindly old Mr. MacGregor, you get the point. But then, Douglass has never been accused of being too subtle. She will take a horse and beat it, not only 'til it's dead, but long past its expiration date. Take Zenith, who's really starting to tick me off. See, Zenith and her grandfather StarDrifter are in love, which is OK because they're both SunSoars, which is like being a Bush in that you rule the world and you can pretend things like the Constitution don't exist, much less apply to you. (Does that make WolfStar Karl Rove? ) Except Zenith is all angsty over the fact that she wants to boink granddad, and so she spends the entire book agonizing over it. Seriously. Every. Single. Time we cut to Zenith, that's what she's doing. She serves absolutely no other purpose in this book except to conduct a tortured inner dialogue: "But I love him! But it's gross! But he's so hot! But it's naughty! " Fish or cut bait, honey. But you know, detailing everything wrong with a Sara Douglass novel is a little mean, plus way too easy - like shooting fish in a barrel. The truth is, I've hung in for 5 books so far, and am planning on the 6th, so obviously she's doing something right. I'll admit that the sheer soap-opery melodrama is, in its own way, a delightfully guilty pleasure. I also like the fact that, for the most part, Douglass has managed to maintain a level of coherence and internal continuity in an astonishingly complicated and twisting series of books; any surprises she reveals about events that occurred in the first three books generally hold up on further inspection. This makes for a fairly longish series that works as well on the fifth book as it did in the first, quite an accomplishment these days. So these eeeevil demons have crashed through the Star Gate and rendered all of Tencendor's likely heroes useless. The Enchanters are disenchanted, the StarMan is starless, and the StarSon is... Wait, who's the StarSon again? That distinction plays a huge role here, as professional underdog Drago leads a ragtag band of humans to Save the World. Trite, but true. Anyway, a lot of the book is spent describing the horrors that the Demons visit upon Tencendor, and the utter helplessness of most of the population. There's less of action here (save for the fleeing) than of revelations. Such is the fate of the middle book of the trilogy. So we get more on the mysterious 'craft' that crash landed millennia ago; the origins of the various species of Tencendor (except the Avar - I want their story! ); the whole StarMan/StarSon controversy; the potential power of the Acharites, &c. All to set up the final book, really, although the ending of "Pilgrim" is delightfully cliffhangerish. So yes, I mock, but at the end of the day I really do get a kick out of these books. I wish to God Douglass were a more consistent writer, or at least had a decent editor, but I don't look a gift novel in the mouth. "Pilgrim" is an enjoyable, entertaining continuation of the Wayfarer Redemption series.