The Lizy Reviews--'Five Kingdoms: Death Weavers' by Brandon Mull

Spoiler alert: everybody dies but not really.

No, seriously. That’s the plot. In the land of Necronum inside the Five Kingdoms, you can visit the afterlife without actually dying. The dead, known as echoes, can go back and forth from Necronum as well. That’s a gross oversimplification of how the magic of Necronum works, but it’s interesting.

We will be delving into spoilers for this post so if you don’t want spoilers, come back later. Cole Randolph arrives in Necronum with Mira, Dalton, Jace, Joe, and his brother Hunter (I think that’s everyone--his crowd of companions is getting bigger) to find Mira’s sister Destiny. Cole makes a deal with an echo named Sando who turns them over to the followers of the arch-villain Nazeem. (I was totally going to write something about the plot being motivated by the hero doing something stupid but it’s been a few weeks since I finished reading). Cole escapes and then enters the afterlife, known as the Echolands, to save those who crossed over. Most of Death Weavers actually takes place in the Echolands, which is a little disappointing since I wanted or rather expected to see more of Necronum. I expected the Echolands to be dark and creepy, but then I guess everybody did, Cole most of all. It is a paradise, in some ways, but a perilous one. If the series has been about finding and saving Mira’s sisters, then I imagine most of the actual revolution will be in book 5, which comes out next year. So for Death Weavers, sit back and enjoy the ride through the Echolands.

Kernel's Corner

Typical of Brandon Mull, there are lots of random characters that are supposed to be cool. The weavers and magicians on both sides of Necronum are appropriately mystical and mysterious. The horse Thunder is amazing. I am also a huge fan of She Who Stands at the Summit. I wanted more Nandavi--why waste a villain with such an awesome name? Sando wasn’t terribly convincing as a villain, since the way he deceived Cole at the beginning I still expected him to not pan out. Nazeem up close and personal? Definitely worth the anticipation. As for the main characters, we get a little bit of development for Mira but I’m still not terribly attached to her. But Cole is getting more interesting, especially as he deals with his broken shaping powers and with his internal conflict.

But my favorite thing about the Echolands is that Mull wrote it to cross over beyond the Five Kingdoms, even to other worlds that he’s created. In other words, he finally delivered on that Beyonders crossover, but that’s all I’m going to say for now. While I regret not going to see Brandon Mull at Comic Con, I was worried about spoilers and I’m glad I avoided those, if any.

Yes, I know the first book in the Fablehaven follow-up Dragonwatch is coming in Marc h, but it could be a while before I get my hands on that. I the meantime I will see if I can squeeze in the time to reread Fablehaven, and of course I am ready for the conclusion to the Five Kingdoms series..

Note: the post originally stated that Dragonwatch had already come out but the author was unaware of the real release date at the time.