Well, I'm rather tempted to do a copy/paste of the review of the preceding book in this trilogy to save time in writing this one. Heck, being this newfangled "internet" thing, there is probably a good possibility of just providing a "link" to the previous review (something like this one). But I suppose doing so, while both time-saving and surprisingly accurate, would be against all we stand for here at Geek Speak, where instead of writing less, we will take any opportunity we can to write more, and we know that you, dear readers, have come to expect that. So here is my attempt to effectively re-write and/or re-use a previous review and yet still make it shiny and new.

Kings of the North is the second book in the Paladin's Legacy series by Elizabeth Moon, following last year's Oath of Fealty, the series itself a sequel series to her Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy (a personal favorite). This latest book continues the exploits of Kieri, Dorrin, and Arcolin, and throws a few more characters into the mix.

As an aside, I'm now having my own little Geek VS Geek debate with myself on how much detail I should go into the plot of this book. On one hand, some kind of recap could be good and probably expected, but on the other hand, I'm not sure what the point would be, exactly -- if you're a fan of the series, then the specifics it don't really matter, and you're more interested in my thoughts on the book rather than just a recap. And if you're not (yet) a fan of the series, discussing specific characters that you don't yet know would probably cause you to gloss over such discussion anyway.

The result of my little self-debate? We'll do broad strokes for plot discussion. The main plotlines from the first book, Kieri's new kingdom, Dorrin dealing with her evil family and her new dukedom, and Arcolin taking over the mercenary company, continue. Some larger over-arching issues become more apparent, with Kieri facing an invasion from the north, Dorrin dealing with more issues surrounding the mysterious semi-sentient crown jewels discovered in the previous book, and Arcolin discovering how an old ally, Alured the Black, may, in fact, have dangerous megalomaniacal tendencies (some of which may actually deal with the aforementioned semi-sentient jewels).

As for my thoughts: Well, I liked it. Quite a bit, actually. As I have discussed in the previous reviews, I particularly like the world that Moon has created and the people within. This book wasn't quite Can't Put It Down (CPID), but it was close. One aspect I particularly, coming rather unexpectedly near the end, was the introduction of (Spoiler Alert!) dragons. They have been referred to in the series in the past, usually tied to the least-mentioned of the three main heroic Saints, Camwyn (the other two are Gird, whom the paladin Paks follows, and Falk, whom Dorrin follows), but brief and/or oblique references had been it, until this book. This development piques my interest for the next in the series even more than it already had been.

But despite my fondness for the book and the overall story, it has a lot of flaws, just like its predecessor. The book is still rather scattered. It jumps between characters almost at whim, made even more scattered by odd chapter divisions. We may have one chapter devoted to one character, then four chapters in a row for another character, then back to the first character for two chapters before jumping to someone else. And occasionally chapters end mid-scene for no particular reason at all. Not little minor dramatic cliffhangers or anything along those lines at the end of a chapter. Just the end of a chapter, picking up right again on the next page. Odd.

There are other issues with in-book timing. Occasionally a big deal is made of one character's journey of a couple of days getting from point A to point B, but later on a longer journey is covered in the course of half a sentence. It makes it difficult to follow the passage of time. Combine that with the scattered nature of which character(s) are currently being followed, and it causes a headache for the reader when trying to wrap one's head around the big picture of what is going on at any given point in time. Probably best to just nod and smile and enjoy what is on the current page.

Oath of Fealty also had the issue of glossing over sections (dialogue particularly, but action scenes as well), just referring to them rather than explicitly showing them. This book continues that, though it wasn't quite as annoying as it had been. Either it made more sense for the flow of the book to do so here than it did previously, or perhaps I had just gotten used to it. Thus, it wasn't as distracting, but still present.

And one big problem that I had with the book: Paks, she of the eponymous Deed from the original series and the paladin whose Legacy names this series, ups and disappears. She was not a big presence in the first book (less than I would have liked, but understandable, I suppose), but still around. In this book, she makes an appearance early on, and then leaves out of the blue. Pretty much in the middle of a conversation, she suddenly gets a Call (her god telling her to do something) and leaves. No explanation for what the Call was for. I figured she'd make an appearance later on in the book and we'd see that her Call was sending her to do something that would affect one of the other various plotlines. But nope. She's never heard from again the rest of the book. It was a very WTF-esque moment.

A lot of these issues stem from the biggest difference between this book (and series) and the original Deed of Paksenarrion series. The original series followed Paks, and that was it. There was an occasional scene focused on others, but not many. This new series tries to be much more global. I don't think Elizabeth Moon is used to writing on a global scale as she is attempting here, which is where all the problems with timing and inconsistencies in characters (both from the standpoint of which characters get the focus from a writing standpoint, and in-book with characters' reactions to certain events) comes in.

But still. I liked the book, and the countdown has already started for the next one. But just like the first in the series... I can't quite recommend this one. Kings of the North has a slightly better ending than Oath of Fealty, but it still doesn't have as much of a solid ending as I would want for a novel. This feels like a continuation of a story without really being a complete book in and of itself. My recommendation to hold off until the entire series is out and can be read in one go still stands. And since you all should have read the Deed of Paksenarrion as I told you to a year ago, feel free to read it again now. It's been a year. You'll like it just as much.

   -- K. Burtt