Shadow Gate: Book Two of Crossroads

The Crossroads series is an excellent example of well written, carefully thought out fantasy. Unlike so many other fantasy series, this series has a tidy beginning, middle, and end. The characters are three-dimensional and varied, and you find yourself really identifying with many of them. The world is richly detailed and fully realized, with many systems of religion, and society. I highly recommend this read!

This work is a worthy successor to Spirit Gate. I will admit I had never even heard of the author before I saw the first book in the series in a bargain sale, but since then I have purchased all three of the Crossroads books so far in print. Where book one introduces and gives the backgrounds of all of the main characters, book two further fleshes out the main characters and even elevates one of the minor characters in the first book into major character status. One of the things I despised about the first book was that the "main" character for the first forty or so pages is killed off. She returns with a vengeance in book two, though still not as much as I would have liked. The locations in this book are much more static than in the first. This allows the author to concentrate more on the characters than having them tromp from place to place. In addition to further fleshing out the original characters this work also introduces some new chacters that contribute to the plot and character interactions. One method that I use to determine whether or not I like a work is whether or not the prose becomes visual while reading. Both this book and is precursor do that. The one aspect that I did not like about this work was its repetitive descriptions of virgin and child rape. Admittedly, Kirit's experience explains much about how she acts, but this could have been accomplished without being so graphic or detailed. The child situations contribute nothing, and should have been left out completely.

The second book in the series starts off with giving background information to smaller characters of the first book. Its a great explanation of a characters feeling and what has happened to them so that you feel more connected to the people and settings of the book.

This second book in the series, in my opinion, is better than the first book. The characters introduced in the first book were brought to life even more. Their development was impressive to the point where you almost fall in love with them. I highly recommend this book and series, to anyone who loves to cheer for the good guys.

Alright, so first thing you need to know is I bought the third book after I finished this one and I couldn't finish it. The problems that I had with this one get worse in the third one. So positives first: I really like Kate Elliot. I thoroughly enjoyed her Spiritwalker Trilogy: at times I was tearing up, and others I laughed out loud. So I bought this trilogy thinking it was a sure thing. There's a lot more characters in this trilogy. I don't have a problem with that because I felt the important characters are well-drawn. The plot line pacing is definitely slower in this trilogy, but again, it was ok with me. Her dialogue between characters is always smooth, and the world-building is great. Where I started having an issue was when I realized there was a definite increase in the violence to women and children/infants in this second book. And I felt like this increased in the third one for sure, to the point where I couldn't handle it anymore and didn't finish the book. I was only 18% of the way through. I'm guessing she was trying to make it very graphically clear that the bad guys are definitely evil; however, I felt like it was getting to the point where it was gratuitous. A downright evil enemy can be adequately described without quite so many examples or graphic detail. Being a woman, reading about rape in a story bugs me, but I can handle it if it's part of the story arc. However, rape of children and murder of infants is not something I handle well. It was definitely part of the story in the first book, in the second book I started to wonder, and in the third book I was absolutely sickened to the point I didn't care about finishing the book anymore. This is VERY rare for me. After a few examples of this sort of thing, I'm pretty sure the audience gets the point that the bad guys are EVIL. Any examples after that point are simply sick and gratuitous. I was very disappointed I didn't finish this trilogy when I so thoroughly loved her Spiritwalker trilogy. I really love her writing, world-building, and fully dimensional characters, but there is a point past which I simply can't take any more child rape and infanticide.

The map was available on Kate's site. Good idea to keep it handy, put into favorites or something. I sure refer to it a lot. As to the review, as others have said it's not as good as Crown of Stars, which is a classic and considered one of the best epic fantasy series ever written. I'm having trouble with the amount of sexual abuse of women and children. It doesn't need to keep being repeated, we got it the first time. We hate the bad guys anyway. It's a big story though, with lots of plot lines and many characters. It's complex and yet the nature of the Guardians remains vague. Hopefully the final book will fill us in later on the characters we're reading about now.

I read each in the trilogy from cover to cover as fast as I could. The author used an incredible amount of cultural knowledge to construct a world that is convincingly complex without falling into the trap of unpronounceable names and kitsch-y D&D type fantasy.

This series is one of my all time favorite series ever!