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The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure The First Book of the Wraeththu Histories Storm Constantine 9780765303462 Books

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The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure The First Book of the Wraeththu Histories Storm Constantine 9780765303462 Books

Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.

Rating: 9/10

PROS:
- The world-building in this series is amazing: detailed, beautifully written, and unique. Constantine is particularly good at using concrete descriptions to bring abstract ideas to life.
- Events related in this volume serve to illuminate incidents and characters introduced in the original Wraeththu trilogy. When I read the trilogy, I wished on numerous occasions that I could see more of what happened between certain characters, and in many cases, that background information I craved is present in this book.
- There are a couple of teasers at the very end of the third book that suggest an entire world separate from but related to that of Wraeththu. Those teasers are, much to my delight, developed (and even focused on) in this volume.
- In spite of the magnificence of the story idea and Constantine's actual writing, my favorite thing about the Wraeththu series is the characters--especially the romantic relationships they form with one another. There are several new relationships in this book, one of which involves a character I liked very much in the original series.

CONS:
- This volume is told in third person, whereas each of the original stories is narrated from a different character's perspective. The plus side of the third-person POV here is that we get to see a lot of different characters' experiences, which gives the story a broader scope than the original Wraeththu stories have. The down side is that this story doesn't feel as intimate as the earlier ones, because the comments we're prone to are those of a removed, omniscient narrator rather than a character who's actually participating in the action.
- I thought the story was a little slow at first. It took almost a hundred pages for me to get really interested in it, even though I already knew and liked one of the main characters from the previous stories.

Overall comments: I think if you've read the original trilogy, this is a must-read as a follow-up. The background it provides for several of the main characters is wonderful, as is the expansion upon ideas only briefly touched upon in the first books. If you haven't read the original books, the story here is probably engaging enough to catch your attention; however, you'll be missing out on much of the emotional impact of the events related in this volume.


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The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure The First Book of the Wraeththu Histories Storm Constantine 9780765303462 Books Reviews

Pros Interesting characters, significantly improved writing, fills in lots of gaps in information from the first series, a good storyline in its own right.

Cons A few slow passages, a little too much focus on the "dehara".

I was a little bit skeptical of this book. A sequel series can often be a disappointment in comparison to the original and when I read some of the reviews on here, I wondered if a switch to third person point of view and a focus on minor characters wouldn't detract from the book.

I enjoyed the original series so much that I bought this anyway and it turns out that I need not have worried. "Wraiths" is just as good as the original series and in some ways better. It follows and develops some minor characters that you always wondered about from the other books -- Flick, Ulaume, and Seel -- as well as a new character Lileem who is Kamagrian. All the characters are beautifully done. I must say that one of my issues with the original series was that all the meaningful relationships were underdeveloped, passed off as love at first sight. In this book, the author proves that she can write a slowly developing romance with Flick and Ulaume and I must say that I quite enjoyed this relationship. Ulaume, who previously was a one-dimensional "femme fatale", in this series is shown as a character with a lot of depth. Seel is given a much darker edge than in the previous series. In general, these minor characters are just fleshed out beautifully. If you really want to read about Pellaz and Cal, they do make appearances in this book, though they are not the focus.

I feel that a lot of issues that I had with the original series are addressed in this book. One of the things that always bothered me about the original Wraeththu books was that women were going to be wiped from the face of the Earth. In "Wraiths" this is partly remedied through heavy emphasis on the "Kamagrian", an offshoot of Wreaththu which can incept females into their species. Much of the storyline focuses on Kamagrian and Lileem's struggle to find herself or define herself in terms of male/female or har/non-har is very fascinating. A lot of things which were inadequately explained in the original series are expanded upon here -- Wraeththu physiology and origins among them.

Constantine's writing is also signficantly improved. She always showed promise with her style and dialogue, but this book has much less purple prose and abuse of exclamation marks. I thought that I'd dislike the move the third person, but it didn't bother me at all. To be honest, the series has probably become too big by this point to be narrated by a single person. There are just so many characters and cultures involved that it would be limiting.

The only problem that I had with the book at all was that I didn't find Flick's search for the dehara who are Wraeththu deities at all entertaining. They didn't seem to tie into the plot -- these chapters felt like a sidetrack -- and I often felt that Constantine was more interested in getting across some sort of spiritual/religious message with them than with developing the story or characters.

With the original Wraeththu series, I felt that I was reading an author who was in some ways brilliant and creative, but who was a bit immature as a writer. With "Wraiths", I feel like I am reading a work by an author who is confident and in her prime. Highly recommended to any lovers of the series. 5 stars.
Warning This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.

Rating 9/10

PROS
- The world-building in this series is amazing detailed, beautifully written, and unique. Constantine is particularly good at using concrete descriptions to bring abstract ideas to life.
- Events related in this volume serve to illuminate incidents and characters introduced in the original Wraeththu trilogy. When I read the trilogy, I wished on numerous occasions that I could see more of what happened between certain characters, and in many cases, that background information I craved is present in this book.
- There are a couple of teasers at the very end of the third book that suggest an entire world separate from but related to that of Wraeththu. Those teasers are, much to my delight, developed (and even focused on) in this volume.
- In spite of the magnificence of the story idea and Constantine's actual writing, my favorite thing about the Wraeththu series is the characters--especially the romantic relationships they form with one another. There are several new relationships in this book, one of which involves a character I liked very much in the original series.

CONS
- This volume is told in third person, whereas each of the original stories is narrated from a different character's perspective. The plus side of the third-person POV here is that we get to see a lot of different characters' experiences, which gives the story a broader scope than the original Wraeththu stories have. The down side is that this story doesn't feel as intimate as the earlier ones, because the comments we're prone to are those of a removed, omniscient narrator rather than a character who's actually participating in the action.
- I thought the story was a little slow at first. It took almost a hundred pages for me to get really interested in it, even though I already knew and liked one of the main characters from the previous stories.

Overall comments I think if you've read the original trilogy, this is a must-read as a follow-up. The background it provides for several of the main characters is wonderful, as is the expansion upon ideas only briefly touched upon in the first books. If you haven't read the original books, the story here is probably engaging enough to catch your attention; however, you'll be missing out on much of the emotional impact of the events related in this volume.