skygiants

Yeah. YEAH. The gods were way more present in an active way in this book and I didn't think that they could do that! Or wanted to do that, maybe?

I'm happy for them that they repelled the Mede and also that they saved Eddis from the volcano. (I don't know if I believe that all the Eddisians will be like "ooh good farmland, time to move!" though. Eddisians seem pretty big on the whole Being From Eddis thing.)

I did NOT see Teleus/Relius coming, I think because I was picturing Teleus as like 35 and Relius as like 65? Which obviously real people sometimes have those relationships, just. Huh. Okay.

War stories are generally not my thing so I was, overall, less into this book than I wanted to be. And while I liked that the answer was "to win a war you need a Thief, not a king," it also aggrandized Gen in ways that probably will be very bad for him, or would have been if his dad hadn't died. Poor war minister dad. :(

...this was kind of like getting the Iliad with Odysseus as the hero. Except afterward he doesn't get ten years of wandering, he goes home and hugs his babies. (Do not get me wrong: I am excited for Eugenia to grow up and be the terror of the court.) That may be where my vague sense of imbalance is coming from. Those the gods love, in Greek epic, do not prosper long. They use you for what they need, and even if you live through it, you're not getting a happily ever after.