Valek was so cold and calculating in Poison Study, it seemed silly that he took careless moves. His skill is in tactics, and he's in charge of the entire intelligence force in Ixia. To top it off, the love between him and Yelena built so slowly during the first book it seems a cop out that he is so worried, knowing how capable she is and she's with the one of the best magicians in the world. The reason he seems to make such foolish choices? Maria Snyder let readers vote on what course of action to take. I know it's just a short novella, but you sacrifice character development and consistency when you do this and it was so entirely disappointing. The principle more then what became of it. I don't know, I guess I was just expecting more. It seemed more like a filler than anything else, maybe even a chapter the author decided to delete because it was too excessive and unnecessary to the story. I think I would have liked it better if Valek did something completely unexpected, to really show how much Yelena had changed him. Heck, I would have even loved to see a simple seen of Valek sitting alone carving one of his statues, letting his thoughts take him away, or maybe even recall memories from the past to answer a few more questions that were raised in the first book. All this aside, it could have been better.
What do You think about Assassin Study (2008)?
Didn't really add anything to the plot but...MORE VALEK! xxx
—helen
Valek, I love you more because of this novella.
—ArsenalQueen04
