Pages

Monday, August 19, 2013

Syren (Septimus Heap 5) by Angie Sage

Syren (Septimus Heap, #5)Syren by Angie Sage
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Again, I like the Septimus Heap world, but I have the same main concern here as last time: no overall bad guy. She is taking this approach of related antagonists, but it is a lot less cohesive than I would have thought. She may be thinking the same thing at this point, I don't know. It is a good lesson to learn though. It is very important to have one enemy, or at least one group of enemies. The reader wants to know who the bad guy is, so they know what to expect.

Other than that the book was OK. The characters continue to grow, and the Septimus, Beetle, Jenna combination feel very "Harry, Ron, Hermione"-ish to me. Not bad, but interesting how common configurations or themes persist once they are presented in a way that really works. Enough cohesion for a great team, but enough personality differences to provide drama consistently. The three stars is largely for the overall problem I mentioned above. This book is only slightly below the last volume, in my estimation, but you have to round down at some point.

0 comments: