The Mongoliad: Book 2

The second book of the Mongoliad is an interesting read.  It definitely continues the promise of the first book with vividly realized and described combat.  The historical era that the books cover is one that is rarely discussed in mainstream history, the point after Genghis Khan died but before the Mongol tribes splintered.  I like it for that reason too, the books make a rarely discussed era of history exciting.

Even though this is a collaborative work between many authors, it works very well.  It gives each character (or group thereof) their own unique feel without each section being jarringly different like some collaboration novels (I'm looking at you, Wild Cards).

I was totally understanding of the last novel ending on a cliffhanger, however, I was vastly less understanding of this one leaving that cliffhanger open for the first 80 pages.  Plus, I am sure that the storyline that took up most of those 80 pages will eventually tie into the ones introduced in the first book, but at the end of the second book it seems pretty mysterious how it is going to do so.

Since it had been a while since I had read Book 1, it was a little difficult to be sure that I was making all the connections I was supposed to be making.  The names are also not the type of names that are easy to remember and distinguish so that didn't exactly help.

Like in Book 1, the sword fighting was excellently written.  It was taken to a basically unique level of detail.  There was a little less of it in this book, but that is because the series is headed to (I believe) a big climax with much sword fighting and that takes some non-swordfighting plot bits to be set up.

After reading this I read a couple of short stories set in the Mongoliad universe before this main series.  They are short and don't cover what I want out of Mongoliad stories: swordfighting and cool insight into that era of history.  They are more character pieces, giving the reader a bit more insight into some of the characters.  I think together the two stories might come to 150 pages, so they are pretty short but fun little reads.

Overall, I would give this book an 88%.