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meganbmooreTen years ago, Nicholas Valiarde’s foster father, Edouard, was framed and executed for the crime of necromancy. Even though he’s of noble birth, Nicholas’s mother raised him in poverty, preferring that to living with her late husband’s relatives, resulting in Edouard literally grabbing him off the street. Nicholas, of course, has been plotting his revenge on Montesq, the man responsible for Edouard’s death ever since, and with the aid of his lover Madeline, an actress, Reynard, a flamboyant member of the court, and several others, he’s almost ready to spring his trap. Except that people are mysteriously dying, and corpses are rising up and wearing the faces of living people, leading to rumors of a new, real necromancer.
While The Element of Fire was set in a vaguely European medieval world with technology, The Death of the Necromancer, set a hundred years later in the same world, is more solidly set around the Victorian era, giving it a more solid feel. I have this odd thing with Martha Wells. I like her plots and I like her characters, and the Ile-Rien books are very much my kind of books, I feel like I should be obsessively into them while I read them, instead of just liking them. (As contrasted with, say, Patricia McKillip, where I tend to be invested while I read, but then most of it goes away once I close the book.) Oddly, I found myself drawn more tot he supporting characters than I was to Nicholas and Madeline, though I liked them. I especially liked Ronsarde, an official tied to Edouard’s death, and Madeline’s grandmother, Madele, a harsh tongued witch. (I had a problem with something Reynard said early on that kept me from warming up to him, even though I know my reading of the line is very much not what was intended, and that my mind made a much bigger deal of it than it should have.) The character that made the most impact on me, though, was the nameless young queen-lonely and isolated, but also viciously intelligent and very candid-who was only in one scene. I hope she plays a larger role in the trilogy this serves as a prequel to.
While The Element of Fire was set in a vaguely European medieval world with technology, The Death of the Necromancer, set a hundred years later in the same world, is more solidly set around the Victorian era, giving it a more solid feel. I have this odd thing with Martha Wells. I like her plots and I like her characters, and the Ile-Rien books are very much my kind of books, I feel like I should be obsessively into them while I read them, instead of just liking them. (As contrasted with, say, Patricia McKillip, where I tend to be invested while I read, but then most of it goes away once I close the book.) Oddly, I found myself drawn more tot he supporting characters than I was to Nicholas and Madeline, though I liked them. I especially liked Ronsarde, an official tied to Edouard’s death, and Madeline’s grandmother, Madele, a harsh tongued witch. (I had a problem with something Reynard said early on that kept me from warming up to him, even though I know my reading of the line is very much not what was intended, and that my mind made a much bigger deal of it than it should have.) The character that made the most impact on me, though, was the nameless young queen-lonely and isolated, but also viciously intelligent and very candid-who was only in one scene. I hope she plays a larger role in the trilogy this serves as a prequel to.