Ten Arrows of Iron (The Grave of Empires #2), by Sam Sykes

  The first book in the Grave of Empires series felt refreshing. A new magical steam punk world, an interesting roguish hero and entertaining fantasy adventures. I needed that, for some reason. Yet reading the second book, Ten Arrows of Iron, filled me with disappointment. It's not a bad book by itself, it's just so much less good than the first.

  First of all, it's basically a heist story, a genre that I despise with all my heart. But even without that, it's inconsistent, repetitive, lazy. There are even some scenes where Sal oscillates between having no weapons, using a sword and an axe that she lost in a previous scene. A lot more characters have been added, while the ones in the first book were eliminated or sidelined, yet all of these new characters are almost cardboard, doing stuff that's in their character sheet, but for reasons often not consistent with previous behavior and that feel artificial.

  Yes, the scope of the battles is huge, the threats are cosmic, the body count horrendous, the romantic angles multiplied and pumped up, but I felt almost nothing as Sal just went through the motions, one moment hurt and exhausted, the next killing hundreds of people with a sword and a gun, the next flirting with the people who want to kill her. The writing is using the same formulas that worked in the first book, but repeated again and again, until they lose their strength. And so many things just happen because they have to happen. The last scene, where she randomly finds a guy in a tent on the road she was randomly travelling on was soo bad!

  But I feel the worst transgression was that Sam Sykes changed the character of Sal the Cacophony from a damaged person seeking revenge at all costs to an anti-hero, who is kind and thoughtful and ultimately good, only misunderstood while she kills whole communities. I had no need of that. The original single-minded character who sometimes did something good by mistake was enough for me.

  Bottom line is that I hope the character can be salvaged in the third book, but I fear it might not happen. Falling in love with your own character is a sure way to ruin them.