Curse you, Elizabeth Moon! and King County Library! You foiled me one week short of my TBR Double Dare, when Elizabeth Moon's book Echoes of Betrayal came out and the library inexplicably had an e-copy available instantly for my NOOK.
Anyway, I was going just to save it for April 1st, but then I read the first chapter and before I knew it I had finished it. Oops. And now I have to decide whether to buy it for my NOOK or match my other hard copies.
I found this installment more focused -- the previous book had opened many story lines to an extent that the word "sprawling" came to mind several times after I put it down. In Echoes of Betrayal we start to see the connections between events and why we need to worry about the people on the various stages of the board. It's a hard balance to take between having characters we care about and want to follow, but needing them to drive the history of the entire continent. These books are about the entire land, unlike the earlier Paks trilogy which was about the development of a person from youth to paladin.
She treats her religion very seriously -- these gods don't shy away from interfering, and the question isn't whether to believe but whether (and whom) to worship. We see Gird hounding would be skeptics around until they drag themselves into a better grace. I like the treatment of ethics; good and evil aren't there because of what the gods say -- they are choices people make, and the gods made choices as well.
And there are dragons! Which is always a good thing. I think I'll put some of Moon's books on my "I think the kids will like it" shelf.
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