Red Queen

Good book, great narration

"Red Queen" follows on the heels of "Alice." From its onset, it immerses the reader in an interesting world, promising new and different rules that will pose new and different problems for Alice and her companion Hatcher. There are menacing flying machines from the City, bright lights, and giants. Fates are uncovered, powers teased out, and the author gradually builds a sense of what is happening, although it is a long time before there's any inkling of why. The high point of the story in probably the night in the forest, which ends with Alice rather a ways higher up a tree than she intended. From there, it's all downhill. More happens -- much more -- but it's harder to reconcile Alice's interaction with trivial matters and the dire situations she seems to face. A voice in her head goes from mysterious to obvious without fanfare, and while her encounter with a Goblin is quite brilliant, the revelations brought about by the titular Red Queen are anticlimactic. Particularly as it relates to Alice's status as a magician, everything suddenly falls so into place as to make the story feel pointless. I listened to the night in the forest (in the middle of the book) no fewer than four times, but by the last few chapters, I was rolling my eyes and ready for it to just end already. Its conclusion felt much more foregone than the prior book, and what was great there is here merely tolerable. The narration was EXCELLENT.