Book Reviews & Other Ponderings

⭐⭐⭐.5

An Echo of Things to Come is the 2nd book in the Licanius Trilogy by James Islington. Picking up immediately after the end of The Shadow of What Was Lost, AEoTtC again features the perspectives of four primary characters—Davian, Asha, Wirr, and Caeden. The Will of the Many, also by James Islington, was one of my favorite reads of this year, and this series, while enjoyable, is not quite up to that standard. This is understandable for it being the author’s first published work.

I ended up enjoying the first book in this series more than AEoTtC, and the biggest reason for that is because of how dreadfully boring Caeden’s flashbacks were. I will elaborate more by discussing each character’s PoV individually and then discuss the book as a whole.

Davian: Davian is who I consider to be the main character of the series, despite his PoV being split rather equally with everyone else. The first part of AEoTtC finds him at Tol Shen with Ishelle, trying to convince the council there that they must pay attention to the fading boundary. This storyline, while matching the political undertones of Wirr’s section rather closely, was not particularly engaging until Rohin showed up. Davian’s arc became much more interesting headed into the second half of the story, although I feel he lacked a bit on the character development front. Most of his power progression thus far occurred in the first book, when he went back in time. I would have liked to see him become stronger in this book, but he seemed to stagnate and the Augurs around him managed their abilities much more successfully.

Asha: Asha’s storyline was the most interesting of the four. Though she is supposed to be a fiery, driven character, she often comes off a bit bland because she seems to adapt to every bad situation perfectly fine. For example, when she became a shadow in the first book—effectively altering the rest of her life, she basically shrugged and moved on, and did the same thing with her situation toward the end of this book. While this can serve as a strong character beat, it also makes it hard to fully connect with her. Her friendship with Breshada (no spoilers to how that turned out) was the most intriguing bit of character work across the whole book. Unfortunately, her relationship with Davian falls rather flat given that they hardly spend any on-page time together.

Wirr: One of the most interesting characters is Wirr’s mother and his relationship with her. I find her extremely complex and well-developed and I think Wirr has the strongest, clearest personality of the four PoV characters. His politicking sections as Northwarden manage to not be repetitive or dry which is refreshing compared to some books that really struggle to convey engaging politics.

Caeden: Arguably the most important character, I also find Caeden to be the least engaging. More than half of his PoV sections are dedicated to flashbacks—of him reliving his past and all the bad deeds he’s committed. Sadly, these flashbacks were utterly boring and only served to slow down the plot. Every time I opened his chapter and saw a big wall of italics text I groaned and wanted to skip forward. It felt like most of his flashbacks could have been a TLDR and we wouldn’t have missed much, if any, emotional connection.

Overall: Overall, I am eager to read the last book and see how the series ends. I struggle a bit with understanding the timeline of Caeden’s past and what his deal with the Lyth really means, and how the rest of the Venerate and the two ‘Gods’ fit into the overall narrative. The day-to-day actions of the characters, the magic system, and the mystery behind the boundary are more interesting and easy to comprehend, and that is ultimately what pulls me forward.