Locklands by Robert Jackson Bennett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First, the good, and it's really, really good:

The worldbuilding and the magic system just keep improving. All the original foundations led to greater and greater implications and exploitations. By the time this book comes around, 8 years have passed and so much of the world has been thrown into never-ending conflict. Where we go from there is probably even more fascinating than the other two books combined. The discoveries and the twists in the plot and the emotional tragedies that we undergo are also top-notch.

The bad:

The battle in the first part of the novel was a bit one-note even though the exploration of mental pairings was pretty interesting -- in concept. In the tale-weaving, I felt a little annoyed -- mostly because I had grown to truly love the heist-type novel and the hierophant battle in the second, so having to change direction like this, ignoring the subtleties of the previous two, made me hunger for what was lost.

Fortunately, the novel revs back up and eventually gives us the glorious characterizations I remembered. The battles also get more fascinating. The whole Door bit, too.

I mean, that kind of pull back the curtain on reality and do a bit of world-code hacking is pretty damn awesome. These books, just for that, alone, should put them on any SF OR Fantasy fan's top-read list.

Final analysis?

It pushes the reader hard into extremely interesting territory, giving us some high magic/tech overload that is just too awesome, all the while staying couched in a fantasy setting. It's delicious, and all three together are worth it.



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