Lindholm, Megan - The Windsingers

[oyceter]

While Vandien has taken up a job to recover a legendary chest from the Windsingers in a local village festival, Ki gets a seemingly easy job to transport a few boxes. Vandien soon discovers that his job is more or less a prank, and Ki gets into a lot more trouble than she thought she would. Both of them end up going against a wizard and the Windsingers.

I hate plot summaries. Much of what's interesting in the book is seeing Ki and Vandien dealing with their increasingly strange circumstances. My previous write up of Harpy's Flight doesn't adequately convey just how much I love these two characters, but I do. So much. I think in this book, they're friends, companions, and sometime lovers, which is a big change from the first book.

I was going to complain about how much of the book they spend apart, but once they meet up and their two plotlines converge, there is so much of the awesome in their interactions that I do not begrudge the time apart at all. That said, reading the two plotlines isn't a drag; there's a lot of interesting worldbuilding, particularly with Vandien and the village he's in and a bitter, hurt girl named Janie. I had a harder time making heads or tails of Ki's plotline, but a lot of that is because there's intrigue and because I kept wanting to whap her traveling companion.

Anyway. Ki's much less overtly damaged than she was in Harpy's Flight, and Vandien is less of a mystery, but Lindholm manages to show this to us in a way that implies they've been together long enough to smooth out some of the rough edges, and she does so in a way that takes up on the emotional threads from the first book.

Again, I'm having a hard time conveying just how much I love the two characters, both apart and together. I love the feeling of familiarity between them, the mutual respect and the carefulness both have for each other. Lindholm manages to do that writerly thing of having the characters say very little and still say volumes with subtext, and it gets me every single time.

Much love. Also, am now grumpy that I do not have the third or fourth books yet, so I cannot start on them rightthissecond. Also also, I would kill to have the story of their relationship between this book and Harpy's Flight.

Comments

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

I loved the first three books of this series and HATED the fourth. The specifics of why I hated it are lost in the mists of time (I read the series about 10 years ago), but my hate of it was so great that I remember it until this day.

That is probably not the best lead-in to saying "I probably have book 4 around somewhere and will gladly give it to you" but I felt I ought to give fair warning.

[oyceter]

Is the fourth on The Luck of the Wheels? I managed to order that used from Amazon, so I've got that one coming...

Huh, also, interesting! Rachel's been saying 1 and 4 are her favorites.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Also, there is a disembodied head! In a box!

[oyceter]

Yes! I didn't forget about that, but I forgot to comment on it!

I keep forgetting that Ki basically goes through 2/3 of the book with a disembodied head under her arm or something.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

With a head tucked underneath her arm, like the ballad goes,

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

I am fairly certain that Luck of the Wheels is #4.

I wish I could remember *why* I hated #4 so much, because I don't like hating something with no justification beyond "I hated it 10 years ago," but I have no idea. Maybe when you read it and write it up it'll spark my memory.

[oyceter]

Hee! I know what you mean, though.. especially because I tend to forget about books two days after I've read them.

[keilexandra]

Out of curiosity, have you read the YA novel THE WIND SINGER?

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

There is a very cool Ki and Vandien story in Amazons! ed. by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, which was my introduction to Lindholm/Hobb.

[oyceter]

I don't think so? Who's it by?

[oyceter]

Oh yes! You told me about it. I can't find it in the library, so I think Rachel is going to lend me her copy via mail. And Lindholm's website says there was another short story, but it looks like it was never anthologized.

[keilexandra]

By William Nicholson, part of the Wind on Fire trilogy.

[oyceter]

Oh, huh, nope.