Its taken me a while to gather my thoughts on this book. It was okay. I thought the writing had really improved over the first book, but I don’t think the story was better.
There was one big problem with the book. It didn’t feel like the story went anywhere. A lot of pieces moved around. New information was given about the Game, Tygon, and the characters. New characters were introduced, new abilities surfaced, etc. Despite all that, it reminded me of books 7 and 8 of The Wheel of Time series. Lots of movement, but no progression.
There were some parts that were really interesting. The effect that the Game has on Tygon is shifting. In the first book, it was mostly for entertainment, and the center of the economy. In this book, you start to see that it has an even greater effect. Religions from the Game start to bleed into Tygon. People start taking the names of their avatars. The two worlds are starting to merge, which could lead to interesting developments.
The character development in this books wasn’t as compelling as the first one. One of the things I liked about the first book was that Trew and Dani were actually two characters. The people on Tygon and the Avatars in the Game. In this book, we don’t see that. The two aspects merge together or one of them is ignored. That left me feeling like the characters had stagnated.
One big change was the introduction of Shane, and I’m not sure I liked it. It made me think that the Game was introducing a supervillain, but that role wasn’t needed in the story.
I’m not quite sure what to make of this book. It was good. Better than the first, even. The issue I’m struggling with is that it didn’t increase my desire to keep reading the series. Maybe I picked this one up too soon. I may wait awhile before I start into book 3.
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