The second half of The Clocktaur Wars is different to the first, but equally as good. The first book was the journey to Anuket City, with a side quest in Slate and Caliban falling in love but not saying anything because they’re idiots. The second book deals with what they find when they get there. They have to figure out how the clocktaurs are being created (hint: the clue’s in the title) and how to stop them. And at the same time, Slate has to stop the chickens she hatched the last time she was in the city from coming home to roost.
There’s a lot more of Slate and Caliban mooning at each other, something which is obvious to not just the reader, but everyone around them, except, maybe Learned Edmund. Speaking of the scholar, I think he became my favourite character over the course of the story. Starting off as a misogynistic prig, it’s easy to forget how sheltered he’s been for his, very young, life. Being out in the world opens his eyes and helps him grow as a character. He doesn’t just accept Slate as the leader of the group, but that women can make great artificers (everyone loves a good index) and gets fascinated by Gnole society, particularly the interplay between their pronouns and their castes, which was something that I’ve not seen before and really liked.
The one thing that I thought didn’t entirely work was the Grey Church and the threat from Boss Horsehead. I never really bought into Slate’s terror of the man and what he might do, and the whole sequence sort of petered out. The best bit of it was really Brenner fighting to stop Caliban from doing something stupid. I thought that worked really well and led up to the climax, with a really good twist that I was not expecting at all, that hit me right in the feels.
I really liked Grimehug and the Gnoles. When we first encountered him in the first book, he was accompanying the clocktaurs. I assumed that meant that he was part of the opposing army and wondered why the group didn’t sit him down and interrogate him. It turns out he was following them, rather than accompanying them, and we get a lot more on the Gnoles and their society here. I’m almost as interested as Learned Edmund to find out more about them.
The world is interesting, and you learn as much from what isn’t said as from what is. Names, for example, seem to have power. You never find out the name of the city that sent the group, it’s always just referred to as “the capitol” or “the Dowager’s city”. And gods seem to have titles, or descriptions, rather than names: The Dreaming God, The Many-Armed God, The Forge God, etc. I know there’s more books set in the world and I wonder if that will be expanded on later?
I thoroughly enjoyed this book with its likeable characters and an intriguing world. I look forward to reading more in the same setting.