Eldbärare (“Fire-bearers”) is part 2 of a 4-part fantasy series. I reviewed part 1 some while ago.

At the end of book 1 the twins got trapped in a magic stone circle. After a year all of a sudden they get out. They’ve spent this year viewing the memories of the man who holds them in the circle. Since he’s hundreds of years old, they learn a lot. This is a useful plot device but to me it’s too much like cheating. At various points throughout the rest of the book, they can just think back, “oh didn’t we see/hear something like this back in the circle” and bam, problem solved.

But the twins still don’t really know what their father wanted them to do, or where they’re going. The world is still a mystery. It is hard to know who’s friend and who’s enemy. They continue their quest (and acquire a second one on the way) and continue to learn about the wide world that they know so little about. I rather like this setup – it makes much more sense than the usual fantasy setup where you have a quest mapped out and just need to get through all the hardships and slay all the dragons in your way.

This second book is a smooth continuation from book 1, which I really liked, but somehow book 2 falls short of my expectations. All the reviews I could find online were very happy with it, so I almost started to doubt my reaction, but I can’t deny that I was disappointed with it and I don’t feel any strong desire to read part 3.

Somehow the sense of urgency, of impending doom, of great responsibility, has weakened. Even though the twins have two important quests, one of which is pretty much on the “save the world” scale, it doesn’t seem urgent. The tone of the book, the behaviour of the kids themselves, the pacing, all would fit a quieter world with smaller worries and smaller quests.

Pacing is the book’s greatest weakness. A third of the way in, Sunia and Wulf find themselves in a community of people of the Blood. These people are sticklers for tradition, etiquette, courtly manners etc. They assure the kids of their intention to help but explain that these things take time. And for some reason the twins accept this. Despite the urgent need for action, when the forces of evil are approaching and the kids have not one but two important quests to fulfil, for a long while – nearly a hundred pages – they pretty much just sit around and wait. Once they leave the castle where they’re kept semi-imprisoned, the pace picks up, and the plot becomes much more interesting again.

A few elements of the plot are a bit too predictable. When Wulf’s eyes first meet the eyes of a girl, his throat immediately feels dry, and of course we know some sort of romantic feelings will arise. The romantic feelings are rather clumsily adolescent, with repeated variations on the theme of “I was feeling things for her that I couldn’t express in words”. This makes the whole book feel like a YA novel, which is not what I signed up for.

Other parts of the book feel fresher and more interesting. The people of the Blood have pretty strict gender roles and neither Wulf nor Sunia fit into those. Wolf is the one who’s good with words, and with a sewing needle; Sunia has great skill with the sword. This theme is presented relatively subtly and un-preachily.

It’s not a bad book. Like Ondvinter, its great strength is the “feel” of its world, its inhabitants, its history. The series is not innovative in the way that makes you go wow; there are no wild flights of fancy. It’s just a world that clearly has its own character (Nordic and slightly archaic) and is free from the whole dwarves and elves thing. But while this made book 1 worth reading, for me this is not enough to carry a whole series.

Adlibris.