The third in the series of Isaac The Fortunate, this one follows both The Winter and The Spring.

“Anyway, a far less stupid Pope said this entire continent belongs to Spain. Some of it belongs to the Portuguese, but they’re just Spaniards in denial anyway.”

page 22

While those two told the backstory of Isaac and his wife, this one describes the genesis of the antagonist, simply known as “The Nameless One” (Voldemort, anyone?)  Instead of remaining in Europe, this section of the story jets us to Central America, following conquistador Alvar and his Moorish slave Esteban.

Why is this on our bookshelf?

It’s the third of the Isaac the Fortunate series, and still stays firmly put in almost-but-not-quite-Reality.

Rating (4 stars)

Somehow this third part of the Isaac series seemed a lot farther removed from the first two then they did from each other, sort of the Empire Strikes Back of the current three books.

Part of that may be the fact that we’re not following a character we’ve been directly introduced to before, and part of it may be the jump into Mesoamerica. The decision to shift globally is actually one of my favorite parts of the book. Seeing the inclusion not only of Mayan myths and ideas but also the input from the Middle East really sets up some interesting expansion room for the world of the Darkness.

Again, I keep feeling like I’m missing something really big in the middle of the series, but at the same time, I’m pretty sure we’re circling in towards it with three books to go.