I realise the irony of reviewing in English a fantasy book whose language is so elaborate that in all likelihood it will never be translated. Still, this is (by far) the best of French genre fiction, and this second volume (of 5 planned at this stage if I understand correctly) delivers, and then some. Where "Même Pas Mort" (the first book) spanned two decades of the life story of King Bellovèse, this volume spans maybe a week. It's very dense, very tense and just plain superb. Like with the first volume, it took me a while to get into the swing of things (lots of characters) but once I was into it, the language just wraps you around in the story in a truly unique way. And by the way I called this fantasy above, but this is fantasy in the same way the Iliad is fantasy. It's a mythical text in many ways, and there were moments of the gruesome battle scenes that really felt like the Iliad (but with a better balance between war and plot). A truly fantastic book, and part of a truly fantastic set of books. Good news for me is the next one just came out, so I can delve into that within a few weeks!
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