Now what am I supposed to do? Seriously, how am I supposed to live without more ICOS books? Get these things published already so that I can buy them and read favourite parts without getting lost in 80 000 locations on my Kindle! Book four is, in certain ways, less intense than the previous books, at least up until a certain point. On the other hand, I found it impossible to stop reading because whereas I don't give a shit with many books, I constantly HAVE TO KNOW what will happen in this series. I get seriously pissed when someone interrupts me as I read, and usually, I'm fine with being interrupted. Something is different with Hassell and Ais's books though, and if they don't continue writing stuff I will be seriously pissed for other reasons!
Part of the I-have-to-continue-reading and I-desperately-need-more may stem from the fact that Hassell&Ais simply do not follow those unwritten rules of what the author is supposed to give the reader. Readers expect certain things, they suppose that after A has happened, there are possibilities B, C and perhaps D that could be the follow-up, and they'd be fine with all of those because within traditional story-telling, they are all acceptable. So Hassell&Ais give us variant W instead and you're all "wait, whaaat" and you must continue reading to see if there is any possibility of ending up at B, C or possibly D in the end. This happens over and over in the series, and I'm equally surprised every time, and I love it.
We need more words of praise here. Emilio is, yet again, the most awesome character ever. I kind of expect the authors to run out of horribly inappropriate and hysterically funny stuff for him to say, but they don't! There's always more! He should meet up with Toreth and they could break every rule of etiquette and propriety ever thought up.
I am very grateful for the fact that Boyd is not being an idiot in this book. He has previously been retarded, but he improves greatly here, perhaps it has something to do with age, and it does make sense. Thank you. Also extra points for more insight into Vivienne.
The advantage of writing what to some people may look like ridiculously long books (personally, I'd like them to be twice as long) is that you can get the pacing right. Few things ruin a story as much as rushing developments. In ICOS, all inter-personal relations have the appropriate time to develop. It takes a couple of years for Boyd to become close friends with someone, and it takes the same amount of years for Sin to start being civil with them. People aren't just magically soul mates after one month, stuff is actually allowed to take time, and therefore the sacrifices people are ready to make for their friends seem much more logical. Since in the world of ICOS, whatever you do may end up getting you killed, this is actually very important.
Now I need some serious rebound literature. 10 or so books to pick me up.
