Hi, all, What a surfpise--I write to the list just one day after Steve(?) does also, so it's being resurrected from multiple directions at once :) I'm still on vacation and about a week and a half behind in reading my email; it's going to be a while before I read more than the first digest of the new list. "Whispering Nickel Idols": As usual with Garrett novels, I read this very quickly. I agree it's an improvement over "Angry Lead Skies", which I saw as the weakest in the series. Once again, Cook has managed to include just about all the new female characters introduced in all the preceding ones: The ratgirl Sular Pinge is a major character in this one and shows every sign of developing more in the future, while the pixies from some book back are now established minor characterers as well. It doesn't have a Major New Twist like some few of the series have had; I'd rank it as about average. Off hand comment: The strange weather mentioned--an ice storm that coats everything and is followed by several inches of snow, making travel very hazardous--is an accurate depiction of a winter about 5 years ago here in St. Louis. "Tyrany of the Night": I'm about 2/3 of the way through this. Yes, a lot like Dread Empire in that it's main focus is political intrigue. But it is much more realistic in that there is no super-character in the Bragi mold or clown-character in the Mocker mold. All the people are highly believable. It's almost as if he decided to go back to the Dread Empire type of story-telling, but decided to do it right this time. (Yes, I like Bragi and Mocker, too; no, they're not believable.) One thing that's annoying is his penchant for sentence fragments. Like this. And also like this. The geopolitical map is difficult to understand because there is such a proliferation of empires, kingdoms, principalities, regions, and city-states, and it seems to be important to know which neighbors one which (and which includes which), but he doesn't provide a map or give any succinct description. I'm planning on rereading it again immediately with an eye towards taking notes so as to be able to get as clear a picture as I can. (Or maybe I should just call up Glen and ask if he has a map he'd be willing to share?) This being the first book of a trilogy, it would be Really Nice to have a sounder understanding of the geographical relationships for the forthcoming books. Oh, yes: It's entrancing reading. MINOR SPOILER WARNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The fantasy elements are unusual in this respect: Generally speaking, I'd say there are two basic types of fantasy novels: Those where the fantasy elements dominate the nature of events in the world, and those in which the fantasy elements are a minor fillip. Generally Cook is the first category: In the Black Company, although we see a lot of Really Neat magic being wielded, its effect on the world is around the margins, except when things come to a climax in the South of the world. That's basically the case in this novel as well: The Instrumentalities of the Night are about as serious as wolves--something you have to watch out for, but not anything that affects the course of civilization (that we see, anyway). But there's a huge departure from that norm that forms a crucial plot element: A few of the gods have decided to take a very active hand in the mundane world. I have a suspicion that this is the crucial element upon which the entire series may be built: The reason Cook is telling a story from this particular moment in his world is not only the baroque politics coming to a fore, but also a dramtic change in the way in which the fantastic impacts the mundane. Steve/Stacey