Thread Slivers focuses primarily on Ticca, a new(ish) Dagger
[a sort of elite mercenary] and Lebuin, a Journeyman mage with a fashion
fixation. The pair is brought together by chance when they both end up
embroiled in a nefarious plot by a group that murdered a magus.
There’s rather more description than I’ve become used to,
but this doesn’t slow the pace as might be imagined and I quite liked it
(fashion descriptions aside). Ticca and Lebuin are likeable, and I thought the
story was at its best when following them (which it does almost exclusively for
the first half).
The author does have a tendency to info-dump through
exposition (whether dialogue or inner monologue). It’s not done in huge slabs
of text, thankfully, but I do prefer a show-don’t-tell approach.
The world is well-realised and it’s clear (from both the
appendices at the back and some discussion on the Indie Book Club forum) that a
lot of thought and work went into making it a coherent, detailed world. Strangely,
therefore, certain terms did stand out as incongruous, but later references
suggest that they will actually fit in and make sense once more of the history
of the world is revealed (in later books).
When the story drifts from Ticca and Lebuin some of the
focus was lost, and I think a bit more of the central plot (ie why the gang of
nefarious fellows were doing what they were doing) could have been revealed.
The writing style is easy to read. The only time I found
myself going back to check something was when someone’s name unexpectedly
changed, but that was entirely deliberate and explained shortly thereafter.
On the whole, I liked Thread Slivers, particularly the parts
that focused upon Ticca and Lebuin. The pace seemed to slow in the latter half
and when those two weren’t the focus the story drifted a little.
Thaddeus
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