Saturday 28 June 2014

The Oracle (The Gateway Chronicles #2)The Oracle by K.B. Hoyle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The second novel in the Gateway Chronicles, THE ORACLE continues to lay the foundations for the story-arc. In the first book (THE SIX), we met Darcy, Sam, Amelia, Perry, Lewis and Dean - six humans prophesied to save Alitheia, a land with parallels to a Earth, from the evil Tselloch and his minions.

In THE ORACLE, Darcy continues to struggle with her role in Alitheia's emancipation. Following a year spent in their normal lives, the six companions embark again into their other world and resume their adventures in magic and swordsmanship. Relationship are cemented and prophesies followed. Darcy, in railing against her fate, compels a journey for half her companions, the end result of which only serves to deepen the mysteries of her fate.

I had a little trouble with the pacing of this novel. Second books are hard, particularly where the arc encompasses six sections. In THE ORACLE all the tenets of a second book are covered - the scene is being fleshed out, the world building continues, the characters develop, there is a journey, questions are answered, yet more are uncovered, characters come, others go. There is sorrow, pain, joy and laughter. However, I felt there were certain sections of the novel where time, because of a literary device, simply moved too rapidly. Without wanting to give away spoilers, at one point in the novel a significant amount of time passes, and the only indicators for one of the characters that this time has passed are a few physical cues - long fingernails, a bit of peach fuzz on a teenaged cheek ... But not ENOUGH to cement the new reality. Granted the action moves very rapidly in the period following the temporal glitch, and there are references later to further time passing to allow for additional adjustments, but all in all I was dissatisfied with how this part of the book played out. There were so many other parts where time felt adequately spent, yet this period was empty, both in substance and in later impact to some major characters - a lot happened, it should have resonated more.

That said, a good solid second novel. I think it could have been longer.

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