Better than the first book
I love a lot about this series so far, but I think the characterization is the highlight-in book 1, I felt like there were pacing issues, with too many time skips and *telling* is what happened after the fact, instead of *showing* it to us. But, while that still happens here, it’s much less often and less problematic when it does-particularly after the end of the dungeon arc.
I think my only real complaint at this point is how little screen time many of the side characters get-Amber, Spock, Freya get the most of the non-divine cast, but they’re just kind of *there* a lot of the time-they often don’t get to do a lot, or really shine (Spock especially), but it’s even worse for everyone else; Mark and Amanda barely appear, poor little Scolder is only mentioned a couple times, etc. Maybe the best solution would be to have “bonus stories”, like many Japanese light novels do, that give those otherwise neglected characters some attention without pulling attention away from the main narrative? Perhaps the author could post them online, with the publisher or on a blog or something, and have links at the back to these side-stories?
All that said, I must address one other thing-
I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS TOLKIEN SLANDER!!!
Taking the eagles to Mordor would have been the *worst possible option*-nevermind the possibility of one of them trying to take the ring for themselves, once they arrived, they’d have had to fly past a swarm of fell-beast riding Nazgûl (and all it would take is Frodo getting knocked off his ride in the chaotic aerial melee and oop! The world is fucked), land in front of the volcano with *hundreds of thousands of orcs* camped outside, all with bows and SIEGE weapons, all while Sauron bends every ounce of his will and magic to stopping them. Especially since he would have literally seen them coming from MILES away.
In other words, flying the eagles there would have been *absolute suicide*. Anyone who bothered to think about it for even a moment would realize that.
(oksorryfortherantloveyourworkcantwaitforbookthree#justiceforscolder)