Sean's Reviews > Infernal Devices

This "sixteen-years-later"-quel suffers from the main problem of letting your characters grow up off screen: when you get back to them they are no longer the people you grew to love or hate or (at least) know. Hester, the grumpy-but-lovable urchin from the previous books, has become a hardened, hateful and hate-filled grown-up with next to no good qualities. She has also who has somehow turned into a warrior extraordinaire in the years she spent in the sleepy backwater of Anchorage-in-Vineland, which strains my credibility in a different way. Her husband has changed from the cerebral-but-lovable former Apprentice Historian into an ineffectual, balding middle-aged man. In fact, the only characters who resemble their previous incarnations were the Stalkers, which are basically Reeve's take on Doctor Who's Cybermen.

I'll read the last volume in the series, if only to find out what happens, but while I can recommend the first two books I don't see any reason to continue reading after the second book.