The Soul of the World by Joshua SilvermanMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Soul of the World picks up two years after the events in The Emerald Tablet. Leoros is stuck on earth, trying to get back to Potara and at the same time convince everyone that he is not insane. Kem rules Potara with Shirin by his side and have declared both Atlantia and Dio traitors. Atlantia still searches for the elusive Leukos. Dio is a depressed drunk and Axios is caught up in the resistance. Then the Brotherhood of the Black Rose enter the scene, offering Kem immortality, and the stakes are raised.
The Soul of the World is a much tighter and smoother read than The Emerald Tablet, though it still has its issues, one of which was the never ending rerun of Dio's drunken episodes. Whilst it was gratifying to see the characters grow from the beginning of the book to the end, I personally felt there were one too many Dio-drunk and Leoros-depressed/emo scenes for me, especially since they seemed to ramble on about the exact same issue over and over again.
And then, as he did to me in Gardens of Ampheia*, he ended abruptly, in something of a cliff hanger. Well, maybe not as big a cliff hanger, but still an incomplete story arch, unlike the neat-ish ending we had with The Emerald Tablet. I suppose that's a given with middle books of trilogies? (Let's not forget Orson Scott Card did that in Earth Afire too.)
I guess we'll have to wait for the The Island of Shadows to see what happens. I'm expecting good things of it.
*Aside: While we're talking about this - check out Gardens of Ampheia. I'd say this is Joshua Silverman's best yet
I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
View all my reviews
The Emerald Tablet was reviewed in this post and Gardens of Ampheia was reviewed here.
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