This is the sequel to Grimsley’s “The Ordinary” which I thoroughly enjoyed, and I was excited to find this on the shelf at Shaman Drum a few weeks ago.  The first book had the same sense of “rightness” about it that I described in the review of the Jack Vance book — some people talk about it as that “flow” feeling you get when you’re reading a book and it is engrossing and the ideas work and the characters come alive, and you forget that you’re actually reading words on a page in a room somewhere.  I love that feeling, and I savored every minute of the first book.

The second one, not so much.  This book is much more heavily plotted and direct in terms of action, and thinner on ideas and character and internal development.  Its not a bad book, and it cleanly ties together many of the ideas and issues raised by the The Ordinary.  But I just didn’t find it as satisfying, as it felt like a very different kind of story.

Maybe that was Grimsley’s intention (I haven’t read Kirith Kirin, which is in theory the first book of this semi-trilogy, as it is out of print and hard to find), but I felt disappointed.  Maybe a re-read of all three together as a single work might make them fit better in my head.

Still, The Ordinary is such a good book.  I wish this were a little more like it.