Oh, my dear reading friends. I want to say first that the Eli Monpress series has consistently defied my fondest wishes and hopes. This isn’t a series that takes itself seriously–Eli is absurd (from his motivations to his methods), his companions are ridiculously powerful (and equally angst-ridden over this fact), and his shenanigans would make lesser men weep.

Plus he’s charming, witty, and loyal. He takes nothing from anyone and won’t bend his ways simply because someone says “I said so!” I love him and adore him and would run off with him in a flat second if he asked me to. However, let’s put aside my “Eli is #1″ fangirl’ing; this book dug deeper into the mythology of the world and the twisted motivations of those therein. If I didn’t say it before, I’ll say it now–Benehime is a menace. A complete and utter menace.

Some of what is hinted at, but not definitively said, in Book 2 (about Eli’s parents) is said quite clearly in this book. I laughed. I really did. Eli’s family is such a disaster that even if Miranda knew, I think she’d doubt it. I suppose it’s what comes of three people who are all so strong-willed and stubborn. They can’t possibly be in the same room; it would implode (from their egos if not their one-upmanship).

This book was darker than the other two, as we learn about Josef and Nico’s partnership and the destructive power of a demonseed come to fruition. Though Eli is more somber then usual and the antics are kept to a minimum, the book doesn’t suffer. The heart of the series, as corny as this sounds, is the belief that everybody can be who and what they want to be if they try hard enough. When the characters hold onto that belief, nothing and no one can stand in their way.

We learn more about Josef’s sword (The Heart of War), including some very disturbing notions involving Benehime (which make me wonder at the coincidence of it all) and the Great Demon from which the seeds came. We also learn that while Eli is currently wanted for more money than his crimes warrant, he’s underestimated to a great degree. It’s a very costly mistake for a number of people, but it brings him closer to his goal. He also is kind of a Robin Hood-like figure.

Aaron still spends more time building the characters and the situations than flushing out the details of the world, but this isn’t a real problem. The books are primarily about Eli and his shady adventuring; what details we need are provided, and what details are unnecessary are left out. This makes more a more streamlined reading, but frustrates readers like myself who like to know everything.

The one drawback I’ve come across is that while the road to victory is rocky and filled with obstacles, the victory is still an absolute certainty in this series. There is no true permanent damage done, no one dies or is injured to the point where there’s a shred of doubt cast upon their continuing presence. Evil Rises, Eli (and co.) Vanquish, and then they make off with more bounty on their heads. It steals some of the tension from otherwise oppressive moments (such as the ending with Nico and…).

The book also included an excerpt from Book 4, The Spirit War. I find the titles an interesting trend. We went from the intriguing The Spirit Thief to the mildly worrisome The Spirit Rebellion to the alarming The Spirit Eater and now the fear-inducing The Spirit War. What’s Book 5, called The Spirit Annihilation? (I have no idea, this is random curiosity.)
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This third volume in the series continues and deepens the dark turn that volume two began to take with the further development of Nico's battle with the demon who speaks in her mind, through the medium of the demonseed. Finally we learn how Nico was used as an incubator for the seed, a fate befalling other wizards, especially children. We also see how she is manipulated by the demon who seeks to drive a wedge between her and Eli in particular.

As the story opens, Eli Monpress has decided to lie low for a while, and he and Josef and Nico travel to the remote village in the plains where we finally learn what he has been doing with all the wealth he has been stealing. But the chance for a holiday (and not a seaside holiday as the blurb has it) is lost when Pele, daughter of the Shaper wizard, Slorn, arrives to beg their help. Her mother has been murdered for the demonseed inside her, a seed which Slorn had fought to help her contain for the past decade, and Slorn has gone after the murderer. Now she fears something awful has happened to him.

Meanwhile, Spirtualist (a type of wizard who forms contracts with the spirits in nature and inanimate objects - not the spirits of the dead as the name might lead readers to expect) Miranda has been offered a job in charge of a branch of government dealing with Eli's capture. However, she and her ghosthound Gin are soon co-opted for a joint team to go after him in person, at the instigation of Sara, the eccentric head of the Council's wizards and someone who has many agendas. They have a side mission of finding Slorn, and this will bring them to the same area in which Eli begins the search.

It soon becomes clear that the men whom Sara assigns to accompany Miranda have their own orders, kept secret from her. I do also wonder if one of them could connect with a late revelation in the book, so it will be interesting to see how that develops - certainly his abilities do seem rather more than the normal human ones.

The positive aspects of this book were the focus on Nico and the various revelations about aspects of the back story which are now coming into focus and becoming interesting, including the story of the previous battle against the Master demon and a greater insight into the League whose job it is to contain his seeds. There are a couple of good revelations at the very end, including surprising news about Eli.

The less good aspects are firstly that Eli is even less of a character than ever. His main role in the story is to be pushed around by various people who want to capture him, either to bring him to justice (Miranda) or to obtain the reward for him (Bandit Izo) or to satisfy Sara's secret agenda. He also acts like a stroppy teenager at one stage. Similarly, Josef doesn't do any more than we have seen him do before, although he does now have a better relationship with his Awakened sword, Heart of War, and the sword's true nature is finally revealed. But there have been rather too many occasions now where Josef has been seriously, even fatally, wounded and then brought back from the brink. And Miranda, who was the strength of the previous books, has a very minor role in this.

However, given the various interesting revelations and the focus on Nico and her struggle against the demon, this volume is an improvement on the first two, and I therefore rate it at 4 stars. ( )

Goh.

I did not expect that. It was... Slow beginning but when it came to the action there was action!

A few notes on the characters:

Miranda is a TSTL character. She never listen to others and sees the world very much in black and White. Still I admire her. She acknowledges when she is wrong even if it hurts her pride to admit it. Loads of people who won't ever do that. Also she is funny n the same way I found Minerva McGonagall funny.

Nico broke my heart. She is weak. And she knows it. But she has a core that won't break but it took a while for her to realize that. And even then she will continu being weak because of what she has inside of her. It's... tragic. So her story arc is very well done although a bit...aahhh how do you say it, easy? Like the right comment on the right moment making you realize something in no time at all, while in real life... people will never realize something elemental about their character just because somebody else says it.

Eli is a bit of a twat. For some reason he feels like a spoiled child, while every hint you have about him suggests the opposite. Still it's interesting to see how his character develops because I don't remember being interested in somebody whom I not even sure I like.

Joseph:

Never admit defeat and ask for a quick death! Die first, then admit defeat! If you are defeated but didn’t die, it just means you were lucky! At those times, think only about survival! Survive and think only about killing the one who failed to kill you!
~Zaraki Kenpachi~

Seriously I just can't help myself comparing these two characters. ( )

Oh wait -- this is not a trilogy! Still intriguing. The world is in peril and the supernatural guardians are coming to the fore. I was really looking forward to finishing the trilogy but am fairly cheerful about reading the next two. It's a pentology?

Things I may be getting tired of:
Josef fighting while grievously wounded.
Gin the ghosthound changing size.
Nico being at such low ebb. This may have been resolved. ( )

(My video reviewing the whole series can be found here: https://youtu.be/5pTfKp2QW-o )

I greatly enjoyed this installment of the series, particularly because it focuses a lot on Nico and her special predicament. Nico is one of my favorite characters and I think her situation is perhaps the most interesting of everyone's.
The primary complaint that I have about this is that, by the third book in the series, I'm starting to see some major patterns going on as far as how these books tend to go. Miranda tries to catch Eli but something ends up going wrong, some maniac becomes obsessed with the idea of not only fighting Josef but getting the best possible fight they can under the exact circumstances they want, Josef should by all rights get killed but survives because he's a main character, Nico goes too far with her powers but somehow remains a human to some extent, etc. I'm enjoying the series a lot, but to some extent it does feel like reading the same book over and over. ( )