Harbinger by Wen Spencer is the fifth book in her Elfhome series. This book brings together a lot of characters from both Woodsprites and the short story collection Project Elfhome. Pretty much to the detriment of the overall work in my opinion. The plot is a confusion of abrupt revelations and point of view switches as the elves attempt to hunt down the oni while being seemingly unaware of the human resistance which is also attempting to hunt down the oni. (This was a part I found extremely annoying, slightly understandable as the Harbingers are supposed to be super arrogant and elite, but still extremely annoying.)
Then you have Tinker finding out about her siblings and trying to find the best way to take care of them. Then you have the kids trying to figure out what the bad guys are up to, and how to stop them. Then you have an extremely bad situation involving generational politics between Wolf Who Rules and the Stone Clan who won’t listen to him. Then you have revelations of all kinds, then we learn things about what the bad guys are up to, where you feel uncomfortably sympathetic when you don’t want to–or at least I did.
Then! (We have too much Then. Please, Wen Spencer, put some of the “Then” back. This could have taken up the contents of at least two much longer books.) The final “Then” is a cliffhanger. A huge, horrifying cliffhanger. With a huge, horrifying “The End” that just about made me scream. Given that the last book came out in 2016, and given that the world is somewhat on fire, I’m afraid we’re going to have another long wait for a sequel. (But I could be wrong. In fact, I hope I’m wrong. Due to the cliffhanger. The huge, terrifying cliffhanger.)
Leave a comment