We’re back with the 6^th book and the second half of the 4^th volume. When we last left off The Wandering Inn was the site of a dramatic attack by the Necromancer, Az-Kerash, who wanted to make sure that Ryoka absolutely would stay silent about the fact that he was still alive. People died, friendships and property were destroyed and Ryoka set off into the sunset for an indeterminate amount of time.

But, while a thrilling conclusion to the 5^th book, it wasn’t really what the volume was about as a whole. And as the second half of volume four, the 6^th book continues a lot of the themes from the last one. The Antinium’s continual search for what it means to be an Individual in a Hive takes up a large part of this book and it’s a joy to read. This is combined with the surprise reappearance of some characters who haven’t appeared since the third book and I don’t want to spoil anything but they quickly take centre stage.

We also get four chapters covering Tom, the [Clown] in Rhir. He had two chapters in the second book and his character and possible role going forward gets fleshed out a lot here. There was a theme in those chapters of what a clown really was and it’s added to nicely by the introduction of a [Fool], to compare and contrast the different approaches the two have. It’s a lot of fun and it reveals a lot.

However the real star of this book is the last 20% of it. It starts off by giving us the background on the Second Antinium War, through a book written by the same writer who covered the first one in book 2. What’s great about this though is that a wide variety of people all over the continent of Izril are reading it at the same time and giving their own opinions on it and why it sucks. It’s a fantastically dynamic bit of writing and has some just great scenes. I’m not going to spoil that either but let me just say that the line ‘Prepare for irregular reinforcements’ gets me incredibly hyped.

And then the book ends with a battle, the first proper one we’ve seen where the focus is on the battle itself. And it’s well described, shows the interesting ways that Levels impact the battlefield and is heartbreaking. Once again, a fantastic finish to the book and to volume four.

And after this we get into volume five and the three books that cover it are some of the best I’ve ever read.