An Echo of Things to Come

Paperback, 752 Pages
Epic Fantasy/ Adult
By: James Islington
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 1/4

“The people with whom we are friends should never affect our morality;rather, our morality should affect with whom we are friends.”

The Shadow of What Was Lost ★★★★
An Echo of Things to Come ★★★★ 1/4

I read The first book early in 2020 and the second book later toward the end of the year and I kind of regret that decision. I did understand most of book 2 and I thought it was even better than book 1 but there were a lot of small details that I missed and I think this is a series that should be binged or read as close as possible to each other.

I heard that book 2 was complex but I thought it had acceptable level of complexity, I found it kind of easier to follow than book 1 even! Maybe because in the time in between I read a lot of adult fantasy and I am now better at reading complex books. The beginning of the book has a summary of book 1 which is great, I love when authors include those in the books and I think if the author did not then I would have not understood the majority of the book!

The writing is good, I appreciated the writing style more than I did in book 1, just because I notice these things more now. I like Islington’s descriptions and although the books are huge, I think the size is justified and it is not one of those huge books that are big just for the sake of being an “Adult fantasy” book.

“The lesser of two evils, or the greater good. Get a good man to utter either of those phrases, and there is no one more eager to begin perpetrating evil.”

I like the different characters and I specially liked Wirr’s POV in this book for some reason. I think all well written but Wirr was someone I always cared about even from book 1! The criticism I had with this is that many of the character names and the places sounded the same and that made it a pain in the ass to follow sometimes!

I can’t say much about the plot but I can tell you it is a complex one, it includes time travel and shape shifting and characters with multiple names, it has a lot of things that indeed makes it a challenging read. This book needs a certain level of head clearness and the mood for something complex! There were fights and magic and all kind of cool stuff too!

Summary: I think this is a challenging book to read but it is worth it if you have the time! If you are a fan of time travel and epic fantasy stories then this is a must read for you. The characters are so complex and the writing is beautiful! The Epilogues are always the best thing in these books and they made me go WTF did I just read! I already read book 3 and loved it too!