Redoubt

Mags' story is finally picking up. I love that we are clearly going to get some answers about his past, although I would have appreciated them coming before this or at least being actually *stated* in this book instead of just apparently living in his head now without us getting to share them. I really hope the payoff is great, because the pacing of this whole series is terrible. There were a completely unnecessary number of flashbacks/"drugged" dream sequences in this book. They were overly detailed and honestly felt like the sort of thing added to a book to stretch it out to "full length", and I resented the flashbacks in particular since they were (as far as I can tell without actually having compared them) word-for-word what was written in previous books. I feel like this particular series is too long and I *still* don't think that what happened in those scenes was so long ago that we need detailed flashback sequences. Firecats are always welcome characters. The whole section in Karse was interesting, actually.Bear finally getting a showdown with his father was nice, if only because his father has no redeeming characteristics whatsoever. The marriage between he and Lena was moderately unexpected, but prevented from being shocking by virtue of my complete apathy for the two of them. It is something I am beginning to feel (or not feel, as the case may be) for the whole "cast".I will read the next one, but I hope it is the last in this series, because the characters are all getting less and less fun to spend time with, and I just don't know that the ending is going to be good enough to make up for that.