Oh the ever elusive half-star need.. 3.5 on this one due to a lot of lost depth.

A series I am fond for. Each book has moved further and further into the labyrinth of a culture and shadows. Of politics and magic. Each turn I rarely had an idea would come--it's just that well obscured.

In an over-arching sense I liked the movement of this book. It was obviously cut in half for which I don't know if I'd have had an epic tome or the very soft and fairly benign ending we had here vs the ultimate culmination/showdown that must occur all over the final installment.

We pick up as Kip and the Mighty have fled the Chromeria, Teia and Kerris are forging ahead, the shadow player of Guile, the old Man of the Desert, the crazy Murder Sharp-- all working their orbits, paths, and twists.

Your focus is rather held but there are many angles which pick at me. Time is fluid in the book. Sometimes you know a day or month has passed. Sometimes you don't know--you figure it out.

The new Prism is an oddball sociopath but only given a hat-tip of knowledge too. What is Zymun doing all these months? How is he or is he not doing his job? We know he likes to kill people...

Kip and his new wife; why the focus so much on lovemaking? I don't get this digression. It's fine on one level but a distraction on another. It could have been as succinct as Zymun but Weeks takes us really far into their issue and at the end even issues a statement of a real world problem manifest in the book. Why? I don't understand?

Newly made superviolet goddess Liv.. she tries to help.. but we don't understand the how, or the what. Then it circles back to her way late.. So little to know..

Maybe this series should have been 2 more books to allow more development and elaboration. Important elements seem to be left by the side while focusing too much on emotional mental development which in the end only has some basic human results.

Major plot points land in this book and seek a resolution but even then the last book is going to be packed to the brim or its going to be a weird disappointment.

Enjoy the world, wish we saw more of it and the depths of the magicks within. Onward!