Dark of the Gods - P.C. Hodgell

Finished up the second book in this two-volume + short story collection.  I hadn't been terribly impressed with the first book, God Stalk, as it was very (very very very) rushed and introduced about a million concepts that only got the thinnest sort of resolution or explanation.

Dark of the Moon was much better in this regard.  The story starts shortly after the end of God Stalk, with Jame, a young woman from a not-exactly-elven race called the Kencyrath, travelling across inhospitable territory to reunite with her twin brother, Torisen, who has gained command of the entire Kencyrath people in the many years that they've been separated.  Two stories run parallel to each other as Jame and Torisen move towards a fateful meeting, with Jame facing various challenges and pitfalls in her travels and Torisen maneuvering through the complicated and very hidebound heirarchy of Kencyrath politics.

The stories themselves were much better structured this time around, with a steadier pace and fewer plot threads competing for attention.  The Torisen section of the storyline, in particular, intrigued me, as we got more detail on several aspects of Kencyrath civilization that were only vaguely mentioned in the first book.  I thought the author did a pretty good job with the world-building here, as the civilization is one that I at first found quite unappealing and rather lame, but she managed to make it work for me by the end of the book.  Jame's sections didn't fare so well, as I was kinda bored with her and her companions before even starting this volume and nothing really happened here to make me like her any more than I already did.  We do get a much better fleshed out look at her backstory, but as with the first book, there just wasn't a lot for me to hang my interest on with her character.

That being said, the story does end on an interesting note, with Jame reunited with her brother but not really in the happy-happy-joy-joy environment that might have been hoped.  We're left wondering how the very self-sufficient Jame will manage now that she's returned to a Kencyrath society that tends to lock women away for their own protection, and how Torisen, plagued by personal demons, will deal with the return of the black sheep of his family.

I see that there is at least one more book in this series, and I may pick it up someday, as the ending has intrigued me to some extent, but it's not high on my must-buy list.