{"id":9277,"date":"2021-08-06T15:18:27","date_gmt":"2021-08-06T15:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.offkorn.com\/blog\/?p=9277"},"modified":"2022-06-13T03:21:28","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T03:21:28","slug":"house-war-1-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.offkorn.com\/blog\/house-war-1-3\/","title":{"rendered":"House War #1-3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michelle Sagara<\/a>‘s House War series<\/a> starts off both reminiscent of and extremely different than her Elantra<\/a> series.<\/p>\n

The first book (The Hidden City<\/em>), though it certainly doesn’t shy away from dark\/explicit topics or events, in general tells the uplifting story of someone building something for themselves after having lost almost everything. You can see hints of Elantra<\/em>‘s Kaylin and Severn in the two protagonists and a bit of similarity in the layout of the cities, but for the most part the world and characters created here stand on their own. What really sets it apart from that series though is that it never gets bogged down in metaphysics or abstracts.<\/p>\n

City of Night<\/em> follows it in much the same way The Empire Strikes Back<\/a> followed its prequel… which is to say that it tears down much of what Hidden City<\/em> built up. This is a very dark book centered on both despair and necessary sacrifice. While it ends on what could be considered an optimistic note, the actual path traveled to get there is littered with loss.<\/p>\n

The third then decides to strike a mood balanced between the two previous entries. Again we have a tale focused on building a new life from the ashes of an old one, but one interspersed with quite a bit of frustration and some trauma (although it’s mostly side characters facing the trauma here rather than the central group). Ultimately I think it wraps things up too<\/em> well. Too<\/em> conveniently. While I’m glad to not have a repeat of Elantra<\/em>‘s re-occurring etiquette and social class subplots, having everyone fit in so well strains credibility.<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see both how this will get to where it needs to get to match its prophesized events and how well it ends up integrating with the author’s earlier Sun Sword<\/a> series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Sagara‘s House War series starts off both reminiscent of and extremely different than her Elantra series. The first book (The Hidden City), though it certainly doesn’t shy away from dark\/explicit topics or events, in general tells the uplifting story of someone building something for themselves after having lost almost everything. You can see hints of Elantra‘s Kaylin and Severn in the two protagonists and a bit of similarity in the layout of the cities, but for the most part the world and characters created here stand on their own. What really sets it apart from that series though is that it never gets bogged down in metaphysics or abstracts. City of Night follows it in much the same way The Empire Strikes Back followed its prequel… which is to say that it tears down much of what Hidden City built up. This is a very dark book centered on both despair and necessary sacrifice. While it ends on what could be considered an optimistic note, the actual path traveled to get there is littered with loss. The third then decides to strike a mood balanced between the two previous entries. Again we have a tale focused on building a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[522,28,520,108],"class_list":["post-9277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-related","tag-essalieyan","tag-fantasy","tag-house-war","tag-michelle-sagara"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t