Review: The Rogue

The Rogue by Trudi Canavan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Let me start out by saying this was a vast improvement over the first book in the Traitor Spy Trilogy. In The Rogue, events finally start moving beyond reminiscing about the past and setting the stage. Sort of. The stage is still being set, but it's a wider stage than in The Ambassador's Mission. The focus is less on how Imardin has changed in the last 20 years and how Sonea has been a virtual prisoner and more on current events in Imardin and Sachaka. That alone made it more interesting to read, and I didn't struggle through this one.

But, this is still a slow mover. There's not much action. It's still very much an exploration of the characters, their daily lives and their thoughts and feelings about small events. It's also still very much a two-track plot. I'm not sure if the events in Imardin and Sachaka will meet up at some point, but right now they seem to be very separate stories.

It was good to see Sonea making some of the changes that I'd wished to see in the last book (less emphasis on the over-protective mother hen), and to dive back into Cery's underworld again. I had a hard time with Dannyl's part because I was still stuck on not liking what happened between him and Tayend (I like to believe in true and everlasting love - silly me), but his research did add something of interest.

The new characters get more interesting as well. Lorkin is no longer a fuzzy character. He gains a personality and opens up a new world by letting us see the Traitor's colony. We also meet a naive new Novice to bring crisis back to the Guild.

Probably only true Canavan fans will be pleased enough to stick it out to the final book of the trilogy - and they are probably the only ones who will read this book anyway. I am one of those. I persevered beyond the first book myself because I had to believe it would get better. And it did, but it still doesn't match up to her previous two trilogies, both of which are among my favorites.





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