Colors of chaos Book

This book concludes a sorta-trilogy of Recluse novels. The first one the White Order follows the story of Cerryl a white mage (turning grey) as he grows up and joins the White Order. The second, the Magic Engineer, follows the story of Dorrin a very black mage who is exiled from Recluse and goes through tribulations before returning to Recluse and being granted a small part of the island where he founds a new city. The Colors of Chaos, returns to follow the story of Cerryl and covers almost exactly the same time period as The Magic Engineer.

This is my major problem with the book. It felt like I had already read this book just from another point of view. If I had read this without the Magic Engineer in-between I would have likely rated it much higher than only two stars.

In addition to my emotional reaction to feeling like I'm rereading what I just read, I also think that the first two thirds of this book is just paced to slowly. We already know that Jesslic and Anya are bad guys. Having to spend so much more time reestablishing their bad credentials just bogged the story down.

The final third was enjoyable as it moved back into more action and less belly gazing as well as filled in some details that were never covered in the previous book. I was disappointed by two things, that this would have been a perfect book to wrap up from the pervious ones. 1) Did someone ever help Dorrins horse after he escaped on his new boat headed to Recluse. I don't even like horses but I felt bad for that one and wanted to know that someone helped it back to shore and didn't leave it to drown in the ocean. 2) What happened to the little amulet or badge that Cerryl hid inside his room when he was a scriveners apprentice. That was never retrieved or dealt with in any way, not even when Cerryl went back t o meet with the scrivener.

I did enjoy the foreshadowing of what happens in the future to Fairhaiven and to Recluse, and will continue to read the stories in internal chronological order. The next one takes place after about a 300 year gap so I expect I won't have similar complaints about that one.