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TCM Reviews 'TCM Reviews for Book, Ebook, and Audio Book Reviews in Every Genre' |
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This book’s jacket is as potent as the first volume’s was gruesome. Gadras, Elanna and Ang Saroth materialize yet again, as a journey begins to the Isle of Dusk and the quest continues. Battle is fierce: an army of demons is mad-keen on obliterating mortal kind and will halt at nothing to awaken their fallen count. Revived through the blood of the blameless, dark Count Zabax Dilgreshar is unable to forget his death and mutilation at the hands of his niece, Ang Saroth, not to mention his sustained lust for her. It is of no consequence that the fidelity of his wife, Shai’larun, a serpeth sorceress, remains unscathed. Not much is seen of the great wizard Aldulan: his long and white beard, or eyes bearing unjaded wisdom, or the cloaks shimmering like baby snow. But his command is rife and his teachings undead throughout the tale.
Unhurried good writing perseveres at the beginning of this sequel while towards the end a bit of editing falls away. A score of missing punctuation begins to distract and then, possibly in keenness to arrange for the successive book in the series, the ending comes rather abruptly. It becomes an imposition on the reader to draw their own miniscule sense of closure to the elements produced in this novel. There is nevertheless plentiful action right from the onset, as cemetery intruders flit soundlessly through dusk like fog in the cusp of autumn. True to form, if the first book is anything to go by, Eric A. Radulski does not write delicately and some themes can be disturbing for the faint hearted. The author carries fine imagination and limits his work to a readable length that manages to hold audience as forces of light continue battle with darkness. A lot happens all the way, from skirmish with fiends to werelocks, and one may stumble upon acid-belching dragons wheeling the skies aloft pivotal characters to the plot.
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