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A review by sniperpumpkin
House Name by Michelle West
4.0
I found House Name to be a bit of an odd duck, compared to West’s other books in this series. In many ways it is a return to form, due, I suspect, to the position that this book holds bridging so many series. The previous two books in this series (Hidden City, City of Night) felt different in tone than other West novels. They didn’t feel like Sagara novels, but they were clearly influenced by her experience writing those books. This novel, as I said, is more of a return to form, as the scope of the difficulties increases, the language broadens and becomes very similar to the language of the Sun Sword series. This is not altogether a good thing, the Sun Sword novels are many things, an easy read is not one of them. When we rejoin the timeline post SS, I hope that we can keep the increased clarity of prose, without sacrificing the complexity of the plot.
There were some issues with the pacing of this novel, mostly because none of the den were really involved in the ‘action’ climax of the novel. This is probably due to the existence of the Sacred Hunt duology, which I have not yet read, which I believe also contains this book’s climax. I think that she may have had some difficulty working through the elements of the book that are already published, and therefore fixed. That said, this book does work, and I enjoyed it. I do not recommend that people start their Michelle West journey with this book however. Start with Hidden City (the first book chronologically).
There were some issues with the pacing of this novel, mostly because none of the den were really involved in the ‘action’ climax of the novel. This is probably due to the existence of the Sacred Hunt duology, which I have not yet read, which I believe also contains this book’s climax. I think that she may have had some difficulty working through the elements of the book that are already published, and therefore fixed. That said, this book does work, and I enjoyed it. I do not recommend that people start their Michelle West journey with this book however. Start with Hidden City (the first book chronologically).