Voin pyati Podnebesnyh: Sud'ba

While I practically flew through the pages in book one, its sequel kept insisting to develop its plot at a snails pace. Too many character introductions in Jians and Taishis parts without distinct differences. The non-existing training arc, where we spend more time between characters talking instead of actual training scenes, didn't help. Salis part was okay but couldn't captivate me either. The furry suits mentioned in one chapter really took me out of the story here. And don't get me started on Qisami and her band of incompetent assassins. While slightly annoying in book one, here they take up more pages and boy did I hate it. It didn't help that neither the characters nor I as a reader really knew what they were supposed to be doing and so the chapters felt more of a chore instead of a build-up towards something great. All in all it took my buddy reading partner and me three month for half of the book before deciding to dnf. It is a shame for sure.