The Edge of the World

[hollyking]

Last night I finished reading Terra Incognita - Book 1: The Edge of the World by Kevin J. Anderson. I bought the book after hearing some music by Roswell Six which created an album to go with the book. This of course reminded me of something I learned from buying the soundtracks to Star Wars movies I hadn’t seen. Never listen or read the liner notes for an album that goes with a book before reading the book. Spoilers!

I loved and hated The End of the World. The part of the story involving exploration and the journeys of Criston, Mateo and Aldo are very good and make me want to read the next book in the series. For me the religious intolerance and stupid demand (from both sides) to wipe out the sinners really detracted from the book. So much so that I almost put the book away a couple of times. A couple of characters could have died in the initial fire and I would have enjoyed the book more.

That being said I think that Anderson did well representing the Urecai and the Aidenists as people. While one side has more “villains” they weren’t all scheming, backstabbing, lying cheats. There are other groups of people I thought were more interesting and I hope we get some more detail about them in the upcoming books.

Next I started reading Devices and Desires, the first book of The Engineer Trilogy by K.J. Parker. I’m only fifty pages into the book so far, but I’m hooked.