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Welcome to the second book in the Erevis Cale trilogy. So far we've had the newly transformed Cale getting used to his new...self. Riven undergoing some sort of change. Magadon having become a regular member of the party, it seems, is also changing. And poor Jak is feeling all left out.

There are some GREAT scenes showing what the plane of Shadow/Shadowfell is like. As I read this I felt like the authors of the recently released Shadowfell book must hvae used these chapters as source material. That said, I do feel a bit like they spent the first 1/4th of the book walking around.

The one really cool event of this section was the interaction with the Shadow Dragon. First, it's nice to see one used without it having to be a reference to the first novel-usage of the creature in a Drizzt novel. But more so, it was a really cool way to show us a bit more about what's going on with Cale and Riven while also reminding us about what we already knew.

I also really enjoyed the parts that set up the plot with our villain, Vhostym and the slaadi. One, it was a nice break from "and they wandered around the Shadow Deep and felt sad" scenes, but is also gave me an idea of what the larger plot was even though the main characters were not interacting with that plot at all. It also helped fix some things that bothered me about the first book, namely, the slaadi. They didn't quite fit my idea of what a slaad was in book 1...this book opens with a prologue that fixes all that for me and explains that that was intentional.

What do you think so far? Are they EVER going to get out of the Plane of Shadow? And what about Cale's sword? I didn't even mention that...it has a name now, Weaveshear. Is this another incident of Mask hiding in the form of a sword (he's done that before...Godsbane)? Or is it something else entirely?