I just finished reading After the Crown by KB Wagers.

I enjoyed this book more than Behind the Throne, the first in the series. Whether that’s because I’m getting used to the peculiarities of the writing style or whether it’s genuinely a better book, I really can’t say. It still has a lot of the problems of its predecessor novel:

  • There are a few scenes that have a lot of build up to something that is skipped over in less than a paragraph (the arena fight introduction for a major character that lasts for maybe three sentences, for example, or the execution of a major villain from the last book that occurs off-screen and is offhandedly mentioned once in conversation just to confirm that it actually happened).
  • Every single character has a tendency to pivot from emotions like grief, rage, and horror to smiling and laughing with a speed that can only be described as unnerving.
  • The villains are, almost to a man, two-dimensional cackling monsters, with the only exception being a lone enemy shock trooper who the protagonists end up capturing at one point.
  • The dialogue is still not as good as I’d like.

After reflecting on the bullet points above, I’ve reached two conclusions. First, despite the points I just made I still think it’s better written than the first book in the series; second, I think I get the series more now. I thought at first it was fish-out-of-water political intrigue, and was looking forward to a more sweary sci-fi version of Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor (side note, if you haven’t read The Goblin Emperor, holy shit go fix that right now, that book is incredible). Instead, it’s high melodrama. The political details that I was looking for in the last book don’t matter as much as the clash of personalities and the speeches to believe in yourself and the power of loyalty/friendship/the Empire/whatever. It’s way more cartoony than it looks at first glance, and once I got into that high drama mood I enjoyed the story a lot more.

Unlike the last book, I have very few notes that I’d send to the author about the plot in After the Crown. There were a few betrayals that were telegraphed way too much, but that’s about it for my story criticisms. These books aren’t exactly what I’d call high literature, but they’re fun, and that’s definitely going to keep me with the series until the end.

I’ve already started the final book in the series, after burning through this one in way less time than I expected.