Have you noticed that the second book in a series is often weak? I read Mortal Coils by Eric Nylund and enjoyed it enough to purchase the second book, All That Lives Must Die: Book Two of the Mortal Coils Series.
The premise is interesting, with enough twists to make the book readable and enjoyable and it includes most of the same characters. Even so, All That Lives Must Die felt flat. Book 1 was quirky, with oddball characters like Uncle Henry (aka Hermes), Grandmother’s strange rules, plus the ongoing sibling fights and vocabulary insults with Fiona and Eliot. It was a fun read.
Book 2 still has a little but Uncle Henry is almost invisible, the Rules are undone and even Eliot and Fiona’s rivalry feels old. Author Eric Nylund may have done the stale feeling on purpose, as it fits Eliot’s and Fiona’s moods and fears, but it didn’t make us readers feel anything except uneasy and a bit bored.
The premise of All That Lives Must Die is great. Eliot and Fiona are going to a most unusual high school, Paxington University, where duels are common, where gym class consists of defying death while causing mayhem to the opposing teams, where the one class is about myths. The students are from the Immortals, Infernals and long-time magical families. Only about half will graduate and the remainder may fail due to being dead.
The school scenes are the best in the book. I kept wanting to shake Fiona and Eliot and yell, “Are you insane?”, but of course that’s kind of hard to do with a novel. The other students range from vicious to vacuous with a skew towards nasty and mean. Kind of like everyone’s high school, right? Except the death and injury here are real.
The weakest part of the novel is Eliot’s decision to follow his supposed lady love into hell, despite her continual rejection, despite him knowing it is Hell, as in real, true, infernal depths. Before this we see him annoyed that no one recognizes him as Fiona’s equal, as a Hero, and he spends several boring pages sulking. I gave up trying to tell him to stop being stupid!
The weakness is compounded by Fiona deciding to help him help his elusive girlfriend, in her case made even dumber because she sees her father as also in the mix. (It is pretty clear that neither sibling ever learned Good from Evil as they continued to see choices in the present moment sprinkled with wishful thinking and ignored future consequences.)
Overall All That Lives Must Die: Book Two of the Mortal Coils Series is fairly good, a solid 3 star fantasy. It simply isn’t as good, as enjoyable as the first novel in the series which was a solid 5. The best part is high school, seeing Fiona and Eliot (mostly Fiona) deal with the murderous students and faculty and the weakest is Eliot and his gonadal-driven heroics.
By the way, this is not a book for kids.
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