★★★★☆ There's a great ending, but the story unfortunately continues

His Mortal Demise

Vanessa Le

His Mortal Demise is the second novel of Vanessa Le's Last Bloodcarver duology. If you've read the first novel, The Last Bloodcarver, then you'll recognize the dude on this cover : it's Ven Kochin, who appeared likely, at the end of The Last Bloodcarver, to be the last Heartsooth, which is the proper word for what Kochin and Nhika (the heroine of The Last Bloodcarver) are. "Bloodcarver" is a slur.

His Mortal Demise has a clever structure. The first chapter is titled "NOW" and begins with Nhika, who is supposed to be dead, having sacrificed herself to save Kochin at the end of The Last Bloodcarver. The second chapter is titled "SIX MONTHS AGO", and is about Kochin, who is trying to figure out how to bring Nhika back to life. The chapters continue thus, in rough alteration between "NOW" and "SIX MONTHS AGO," except that time creeps on in the past chapters -- before long it's "FIVE MONTHS AGO," and so on. Thus we know that Kochin will succeed in reviving Nhika. We don't know how, or if he will survive. Meanwhile we have Nhika trying to figure out what Kochin did and what happened to him.

It's a clever structure, well executed. I was intrigued by the mystery and satisfied when it all came together and the two time-lines merged. That occurs, I think, at about 80%

The merging of the timelines is followed by a big, action-packed, cinematic finale. One piece of advice short story writers often hear is, "Delete the last two sentences of your story. Is the ending better now?" I feel that Le would have been well advised to delete the last 20% of her novel, or to replace it with a brief epilog. Of course, tastes differ and some people may find the action-packed finale satisfying.

His Mortal Demise is the same sort of intriguing high-tech fantasy as The Last Bloodcarver. The book contains an excellent novel in its first 80%. That excellent novel is, in my opinion, marred by what follows. But it's still there!

His Mortal Demise on Amazon

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