wraeththu

Yup, still rereading. I´ve finished the first three books, and, tadaa, still did like them.Then I started with The Wraeththu Histories and immediately noted: Character developments suck after such a long writing hiatus. The Wraeththu Histories do not have much in common with the original books. Storm Constantine wanted to give her characters more depth. What she did, was change them. Pellaz was a pleasing, albeit sometimes pensive person, mostly Thiede´s plaything. All Thiede needed was a personified manifestation of his own will. Well, Thiede had to take leave, but he never abandoned his goal.Pellaz´s attempts at gaining more grit are hilarious to watch, if you aren´t a stedfast devotee of his persona. Velaxis was kind of Madame de Pompadour for employe(e)s, witty, but nothing special. In the Wraeththu Histories his influence began to grow, no, not only to grow, his role got bombastic then, while characters, thoroughly constructed in the first books, ran around like dimwits, a sudden accumulation of unwanted character traits trailing behind them. For future readers, I only can recommend one single way of proceeding: read the first three books, enjoy them, wait a looong time, at least as long as you have forgotten most of the content, then start with the Wraeththu Histories. Only then these are worth a try.