I read the first book of the Greatcoats series…and most of the second one…and really enjoyed the writing, so when I went to the Forbidden Planet store and saw this book, I was immediately intrigued. After all, antiheroes and reformed villains are among my favourite things (hence why I love Loki so much).
I did enjoy reading this book, though I can’t really say that it was as easy to read as some others. For instance, there was a lot of information dumping and repetitiveness…especially with Cade reiterating, over and over again, how he wasn’t one of the good guys. Despite that whole ‘the lady doth protest too much’, though, I did find him to be an interesting, engaging character…and I especially liked how the wonderists shown at the beginning of the book weren’t actually those who ended up being what the book was about, even though two of them were.
I found it interesting to see the relationship between Cade and Corrigan, even though I really didn’t like Corrigan for most of the book. Cade put on a really good front of being a bad guy, but being able to see events from his POV made it easier to see that he was a better person than he would have had the reader believe. Corrigan, I spent most of the book expecting him to betray everyone else…and even if I had a stronger respect for him by the end of the book, I could never quite shake that feeling that he would eventually turn on the rest of them.
As for the other wonderists in this book, I found Galass and Shame to both be really interesting, well-rounded characters. The whole concept of someone being awakened to an attunement to blood magic and having to figure out how to control something that sends most people insane was a really intriguing one. And I really enjoyed Shame’s interactions with Cade on her first appearance…and how he helped her, knowing that it was right, even if the whole reason he did so was because of Aradeus. And speaking of Aradeus…he was definitely more like the swashbuckling hero that Cade claimed so vehemently that the rest of them weren’t. He was someone who could have come across as really creepy and a lech…but by the end of the book, I felt that he was one of the better characters.
All told, I really did enjoy reading this book. While it wasn’t as good as the Greatcoats series, the main character was engaging enough to make me want to see more of him in future books…and I’m especially keen to see more of the history of characters like Corrigan, since there was a scene earlier that indicated there was something more tragic that had happened in his past. I definitely would have liked to see more details about that.
Ink of Blood 