Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🌟
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 856 pages
Format: Library Borrowed Ebook
Published: 2004
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I am thoroughly enjoying the ‘Obsidian Trilogy’ so far. ‘To Light a Candle‘ marks the second entry into the series and the story continues to deliver nostalgic, epic fantasy vibes. We have a chosen one and all his friends. We have legendary creatures appearing. We have fantastical creature bonds and magic. And a little bit of a side character romantic sub-plot that the main character wishes would stop. (It is between his sister and his new friend after all.)
Continuing with Kellen’s adventure, he is continuing to grow into a strong knight-mage and his training has helped him to progress further in that endeavor. Some of his growth in this book feels slightly rushed but it is also explained that the Wild Magic fuels a lot of his knight-mage “powers” that he has developed. While this is an okay explanation, it sometimes still feels as if the events happened for no reason and he’s just instantly amazing at all of the fighting and sword skills that he tries.
He isn’t quite a “Gary Stu” however; the plot doesn’t always lend itself to his instant-success — he does cause battles to go awry and he causes the armies to have heavy losses at times because his knight-mage “battle sight” fails him in actually predicting disasters accurately and helpfully. Sometimes, it only shows him that disaster is coming when it is right upon all of them. Other times, he is able to save the elf armies from losses. It wasn’t always clear when this was a narrative choice that made sense so it felt arbitrary at times. Otherwise, I love this series.
The atmosphere is incredible. I love the pacing and the world-building. The elves are this interesting race of people with their traditions and their manners that make sense for being long-lived people, but they still have a cozy acceptance for the differences of others that also makes sense for everything they have seen and know about humans and other races like the centaurs.
Kellen is hilarious towards the end of the story when he and Cilarnen have to pair up. He becomes like an incredibly petty older brother to Cilarnen even though Cilarnen is older than Kellen. It makes sense for the narrative with the history between the two of them at the beginning of ‘The Outstretched Shadow.’ The experience that we see through Cilarnen’s eyes also further validates the growth that we see Kellen undergoing, which is part of why I don’t feel that he was completely written as a “Gary Stu” type of character. Kellen has undergone growth that becomes more apparent when Cilarnen sees him and how far Kellen has departed from the boy he was when he left the city Armatheleah.
Overall, 5 🌟 for the story, atmosphere, world-building, and humor between the characters. I am looking forward to reading the next and final book of the trilogy: ‘When Darkness Falls.’
