lanko's review
3.0
Some good moments and development, but extremely rushed conclusion, main character and driving force of the first book completely sidetracked (and that's being generous), antagonists that kill, plunder, rape and wage war just because, group of teenagers turning into the strongest/wisest group the clan has/will have in their whole history...
But it did have some good development, specially how Caswallon teaches Gaelen, those little tidbits of information and knowledge, specially about survival and life, and that I didn't know always get points with me. Some curious things with the time travel that you can backtrack on the previous book. The godlike powers of the druids felt amazing.
But while they are not bad characters in any way, there's no way Caswallon and Galen stand up to Sigarni, Obrin, Ballistar, Asmidir and Ironhand, and we never hear (except for tidbits) from them again or what happened.
ianbanks's review
3.0
Entertaining sequel to Ironhand's Daughter with more timey-wimey shenanigans. Sigarni features as a very minor character in this one as it is set several generations prior to that book, using characters and settings mentioned fleetingly there.
It tells a similar story, too: the Lowlanders are replaced by ersatz Vikings who are building an empire for themselves. They are portrayed in a way that doesn't generate much sympathy for them and their backstory is dealt with far too perfunctorily to make them feel like real characters.
That's really a problem across the whole book, to be honest: the main storyline and characters are portrayed in a way that makes you are about them and become invested in them, but the time travel and alt-universe subplots - which are really important to how the story is constructed - feel rushed and incomplete and I didn't understand why such crucial elements were being dealt with so abruptly.
But the adventure story, the growth of people over the several years of this story, as well as the sense of community you get from the characters, are vintage Gemmell.