Such promise: English Warlocks and Nazi Psychics battle it out during World War Two. Such potential. A shame it hardly lives up to it.
The English side of the battle is the real damp squib, it’s much more about the terrible mental and physical struggle of the English team and their warlocks. The best they can manage is to create some bad weather.
The Nazi psychics are also tortured by their leader to imbue them with their mysterious powers, and treated like weapons. But they manage to get fully into the action, what little there is of it. A couple of episodes of action are all that we are party to, the rest of the book is set-up and background.
This feels like the vague first part of a trilogy, and as such Tregillis doesn’t want to blow his load too fast by giving us an epic battle between the warlords and the psychics. Which is exactly what we want.
I’m assuming the second book in the series will lead into an amazing third book, but I’m afraid I won’t be sticking around to find out.
Authors need to realise we want to be massively entertained throughout the series and every page and chapter should have something to keep us gripped.
Tregillis has produced an interesting book, which shows potential, but which ultimately fails. I’m sure the third book in the series will finally live up to the promise, but it’s too little too late.
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