For everything I liked about this book there where 10 things I hated, mostly the abrupt ending. I hate when writers assume a reader is so into their book that they will automatically buy the next one. The main character is Ray and he was likable but he was a one trick pony. I didn't like his boss Annalise. She was too strange. The magical concept was the best part but it couldn't save it for me. There is a point where a writer has to cough up enough meat to fill the reader. It is clear that Annalise and Ray met before but it's never explained. I felt like I missed a book. It was not cute and it was not necessary. I would have read the next one because I liked the narration but I can't trust the author to put enough meat on the bone of the next one. I can't scratch my head at the end of another one. This is the first book in the "Twenty Palaces" series. The story is told from the point of view of Ray Lilly, a former small-time criminal who finds himself in trouble with a group called the Twenty Palace Society. The Society's mandate is to hunt down and kill people who misuse magic; Ray, who has done exactly that, agrees to be a "wooden man" for a powerful sorcerer called Annalise Powliss in order to avoid being executed. At the beginning of the story Ray has no idea what a wooden man is, assuming it's a driver / bodyguard role, but it isn't long before he finds out the truth.Ray and Annalise are sent to investigate a town called Hammer Bay. Children there have been disappearing but their parents and friends lose all memory of them after they are gone. Annalise suspects the presence of a "predator" in the town. Predators are supernatural creatures from a dimension known as "The Empty Places"; they can give the humans who summon them strong magical abilities but always at a cost, usually the very life and sanity of the summoner. If left loose, predators would eventually consume all life on the planet, so destroying them is a priority for the Society, and as such they have a pretty relaxed attitude towards collateral damage.I thought this was a very solid first book in the series. Ray is a good main character, witty and often brave but also very human. His emotional responses to the horrors of Hammer Bay are shown in stark contrast to the coldness of Annalise, who has been hunting predators for many years and has become completely desensitised. Their relationship is interesting; at the start of the book she can barely bring herself to talk to him, but as he proves his usefulness she begins to open up a little, filling in some of Ray's blanks regarding the nature of magic and the enemies they face.The monsters are also quite different from the usual UF tropes. The predators are strange, abstract beings, whose intents and motives are very obviously non-human. The cost on the caster of using magic is also made clear - even simple spells cause intense pain to the caster, so magic isn't something to be tossed around casually. The spells invariably have a drawback; a tattooed spell that protects Ray's arms from physical damage causes the flesh beneath to permanently lose all sensation, and a spell that enables Annalise to live an unnaturally long life requires her to consume raw meat to fuel it.On the downside there were one or two areas of frustration for me. Early in the book a large number of secondary characters are thrown into the mix in a short space of time, and I became somewhat confused as to who was who (for example there is a character with the surname Lem and one with the surname Lemly, plus four brothers who all work for the local PD). I would also have liked a little more background on the Society and what Ray did to earn their - and especially Annalise's - anger, which is hinted at but never explained. Some more world-building detail about magic and the predators wouldn't have gone amiss either. Lastly, I thought that the ending was much too abrupt, with a few loose ends left noticeably flapping.In all though I enjoyed the book and will certainly check out the sequel, if only for some answers to those questions...
What do You think about Les Enfants Du Feu (2011)?
The Twenty Palaces Series is one of those hidden gems and I am really glad that I read it.Let's get the negatives out of the way: Conolly's first entry in the 20 Palaces series certainly has some rough edges: The dialogue can be clunky at times, the characters can be rather flat and the plotting could use some work.What you do get, however, is an action packed Urban Fantasy Novel that is set firmly in the Lovecraftian Tradition. The Universe is endless and humanity is but a speck in it. Magic is *weird* and everything that is not from this world is unfathomable and out to kill you. In most gruesome ways. Adding variety to the story, the protagonist soon finds out that in order to fulfil his mission he has to unravel the dirty little secrets lurking behind a town that is determined to shield a Sorcerer from him and his boss. Give it a try and if you don't mind some flaws in the story, head over to the second book, it gets even better.
—Natalie
I loved this book. That said, I've told Harry on his blog that there was one large issue with it, in that when it came out it felt much like a sequel that was hanging off the ledge of it's preceding book. You felt as though you should already be familiar with the 2 main characters but are missing information. And this was actually true since it was the 2nd in a series he had written. After the publisher yanked the series out from under him, he self published the first book (named "Twenty Palaces") which is also excellent, although it didn't get the editing polish that it deserved. Check it out though. He makes it available for pretty dern cheap as an ebook.
—amira
I just couldn't get into it. I may try it again later but the hook wasn't there for me.
—Asha
