Approaching the Dark Age; Orchestra - Matthew Chivers

I'm going to have a tough time doing this book justice as I'm reading it off the back of a series everyone in the world knows I love. Still, I will try to do my best at it.
 
Orchestra has both good and bad points like most books, I shall start with the good! The story is further developed through the novel and you get to see some genuine progress from the characters. They grow a lot more in this book than the last and I found myself interested in what happened to them. Maledream is no longer the spoilt rude brat he was at the beginning of Resonance and Angelite is a lot less irritating. Even the support characters have changed which is great. Not giving too much away, I think the one who grew the most was Crazy John due to some catastrophic events that happen. Keep an eye on him while your reading, he's worth watching!

The way the characters interact is good too, just like the last book. The squabbles and banter between Maledream and Neveah brings the characters to life. The teasing between them all shows how the relationships between the characters have changed. I hope this continues into the next book.

The world building is also very cleverly done. Chivers has put a lot of thought into this aspect of his writing and it clearly shows while your reading. I love how crystal energies are harnessed and found the 'learning' parts of the book fascinating. I keep wondering whether I should magpie it and do something similar for my own work but that would be cheating right?

OK, the not so good stuff: I know Chivers is dyslexic and for him to create a novel of this length is a true victory, however, saying that, there are more than a few words that are the incorrect one, example: pale and pail, weather and whether. I know its a small thing but it is distracting for a reader. It breaks immersion and lets be honest here, having someone else read through the work would solve this problem.

The next issue, and probably my biggest with the book was the use of other people's phrases. I spotted three in there and they bugged me. 'Make it so' belongs to Picard, 'I love it when a plan comes together' is from the A Team and 'At last we will have revenge' was uttered by Darth Maul. Rather famous lines said by big characters. Maybe it was a shot at intertextuality, I don't know, but I found it jarring.

The last thing I will mention that needs working on is dialogue. Some of it is OK, some of it really does need looking at. People just don't speak to each other that way. Some more clipped words and slang would be great. Although keeping the slang in speech is a must!

And that's your lot. I did enjoy this book despite the issues I found and I think Chivers works very hard to achieve this. It shows in his writing and long may he continue, it's a vast improvement on the first novel and it shows in the virtual pages! Keep it up!