Bloodmage

Despite my disappointment with the first part of this trilogy, I have challenged the second volume. It turned out to be much better than the first book. The plot is loosely linked to the events described in the first book and it is more subtle and intricate. It contains a lot of elements of a crime story, we follow the development of events from a number of vantage points. It comes to an obvious and predictable conclusion at the end (apologies for the spoiler!) but following the course of the events is interesting and entertaining. There are several parallel streams of action which allow to follow tracks of a couple of characters and the characters themselves are much more interesting and vivid: I really liked Choss, tough fighter involved in criminal underworld of Perizzi but at the same time very human in his behaviours. Vargus intrigues me and I am looking forward to see what role did the author foresee for him. There are a few elements of the novel which Aryan seems to use for building up the great finale, which I hope will be the case of the third and last novel of this trilogy (yes, I am going to read it). Overall I rate this higher than first part of the book and I am about to finish.

P.S. The cover of the book is horrible... again.