Watcher of the Dead is the fourth book in J V Jones’ (JVJ) Sword of Shadows series and as such I’ve assumed that you’ve either got knowledge of the previous 3 volumes, or, after reading this, you’ll be enthused to click on the link at the bottom and order volume one.
Until I just had a look, I always thought JVJ pushed this series out fairly rapidly but it turns out its 4 books in 11 years, which compares unfavourably to George RR Martin’s 4 books in 9 years (and I never thought I’d use the word unfavourably in comparing release schedules against Martin!). Still, its mostly due to a 5 year hiatus between books two and three, which caused me to reread books one and two at the time.
Book four, Watcher of the Dead, sees the action really hotting up. “Relentless” isn’t a word I use a lot, especially in a 400 page novel but it really is suitable in this instance: from Angus Lok, to Raif, to the Eye, Effie, Raina and so on, at the start of each and every chapter you’re desperate to continue the story of the person from the last chapter. For all of two pages anyway, and then you’re gripped by the continuation of the next characters story arc.
Poor old Raif is looking like he’s going to be held together entirely by scar tissue at some point in the not to distant future, there is some imagination involved in the regular torments he suffers. Certainly wouldn’t want to get the wrong side of the person that dreamt them up.
Part of the skill is keeping a tight rein on your characters, if they wander off you spend too much time getting them into place for the finale, and this is where series can lose it in the middle- endless trekking, contrived reasons for going somewhere and a lot of boredom for the reader. It’s obvious JVJ has spent a lot of time planning this series and this book particularly because at volume 4 we’ve not really encountered pointless marching for the sake of getting the chess pieces in the right place.
The only issue I have with this book is a silly one really. It’s so well written if you read the series back to back it exposes the shortfallings of the first book. Thats not to say Cavern of Black Ice is badly written because it isn’t, but this is on a different level, the writing is up there with the top contemporary fantasy crowd. I shudder to think the level of research thats gone in to some of it (although hopefully not as much research into the torture aspects as the post Iron Age technology and so on).
All in all, well worth reading. If you’ve read the other 3, it’s a no brainer to get this, if you haven’t, go grab volume one, A Cavern of Black Ice, you’re in for a treat.
If you want to see some more detailed analysis (containing *SPOILERS*), there are some after the click through.
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Watcher of the Dead is the fourth book in J V Jones' (JVJ) Sword of Shadows series and as such I've assumed that you've either got knowledge of the previous 3 volumes, or, after reading this, you'll be enthused to click on the link at the bottom and order volume one.
Until I just had a look, I always thought JVJ pushed this series out fairly rapidly but it turns out its 4 books in 11 years, which compares unfavourably to George RR Martin's 4 books in 9 years (and I never thought I'd use the word unfavourably in comparing release schedules against Martin!). Still, its mostly due to a 5 year hiatus between books two and three, which caused me to reread books one and two at the time.
Book four, Watcher of the Dead, sees the action really hotting up. "Relentless" isn't a word I use a lot, especially in a 400 page novel but it really is suitable in this instance: from Angus Lok, to Raif, to the Eye, Effie, Raina and so on, at the start of each and every chapter you're desperate to continue the story of the p
The first chapter of gainst All Things Ending is available for download as a PDF on Mr Donaldson’s website.
