Sense (A Touch of Power #3)

I\’ll begin with a TL;DR. Jade bullies or completely overshadows most all of the other characters once again. Being nice to people who are nice to you is easy, but being polite to people who aren\’t being polite to you is difficult, and is a piece of maturity Jade completely lacks, and shows little effort to learn. The royal family should really stop indulging her so much. Her skills and the her general power creep are still expanding at a ridiculous rate as well, making the book quite silly at times with Jade getting closer and closer to being some kind of supreme entity in a world of otherwise near regular humans. The world building and secondary characters were much better this time, however, which is why it\’s better than the second book. More thoughts with some spoilers below. Jade returns to Andara with yet again more roles to play – veteran guerrilla super soldier, combat engineer, politician, diplomat, gene splicer, partial fountain of youth, and most curiously somehow also a private jet. She\’s still essentially the same as in the previous book, a judgmental and condescending person from a superior world that struggles valiantly to deal with the backward world she\’s been placed in. She has to continue to preach to and berate others on how best they should or should not practice their skills, despite the fact they\’ve been doing so for well over a decade, and she\’s barely done it two weeks. Her wrath was tempered somewhat in this book, however, as long as you\’re considered friendly to her. If you\’re not friendly to her and you do anything she considers hostile, whether it actually is or isn\’t intended that way, she\’ll be quite quick to put you in your place, and force you to play by her rules, as she is quite obviously the morally superior person that everyone else must bow to. She was more tolerable in this book, her attitude felt more like a return to the first book, but the character as a whole is still quite unlikable given how hypocritical she is. She goes from being disgusted and distrustful at how other people used compulsion magic on her to freely using it on other people without even giving it a second thought. She does this without any justification in the book as well, at times for petty reasons such as even just feeling embarrassed. She doesn\’t even regret doing it after, doesn\’t even put a single thought to how hypocritical she\’s being regarding something she felt so terrible about being done to her. If someone does the same to her or her friends she blows her lid, and doesn\’t even give them a chance to discuss it properly, just barking commands at them. Meanwhile she can do it, and everyone else just has to shrug it off – they know she\’s a loose cannon, and are forced to deal with her because she\’s a traveler. \”Anything done in secret and without permission of the other party is trickery, simple as that.\” What a great line from Jade. A shame she doesn\’t follow her own thought pattern. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? No no, Jade does unto others, and they\’d better not even think of doing the same unto her. Another great line from Jade is, \”I have no use for fools without basic common sense,\” which she says \’menacingly\’ to a guard that dared even slightly question her thoughts. Could she have been polite, and explained why it works better? Even impolitely, what about a basic explanation, like her bond with her fellacai helped show how planned captivity would produce better results? Nope, not Jade. Listen to her, or shut up and go away, you fool. Just goes to show there\’s nothing common about \”common sense\”. Yet you have this entire kingdom putting up with her foolish ideas, what seem foolish to them at least, as what she thinks goes completely against their common sense, and she just expects it because she\’s obviously an enlightened, uplifted being that they have to listen to and believe – or face backlash from her at their own foolish peril. Her skills and stats also continue to grow to the point of absurdity, and the logic established in world is not even always seemingly consistent regarding them – such as getting a combined skill which included lockpicking, which was at beginner 1, yet it had been established that all skills needed to be intermediate to combine. She spent a little bit of time trying to lockpick, but it was beginner 1, and she barely put any time into it. Meanwhile other things she put more time into, and they stayed at beginner the whole time. This wasn\’t even touched on either, the skill just got rolled into a new one and she didn\’t even make an exclamation along the lines of, \”How did lock picking get combined even though it wasn\’t at intermediate?\” It\’s pretty obvious the author is just trying to reduce the skill list down via the combined skills, but these things need to maintain a consistency, or at least explain why they\’re not consistent. If lockpicking was intermediate, why did it seem to take so much less time to level up? If it wasn\’t, why did it combine, and why was no mention made of it? Another problem is her ring of holding which is perpetually growing in size. The author notes quite a few times that Jade is constantly expanding the ring, but is there really no limit to this thing? It feels like it\’s going to end up at whatever size the plot requires at any given point, which happens multiple times in the book. She can also make an entire underground bunker with several rooms, ventilation to the outside that\’s masked through trees in a large area around it, lighting for each room, and more, all in about 15 minutes. She can make someone look 20 years younger via her healing magic, or permanently alter their cells so they\’ll heal faster and grow stronger. Magic for her is extremely loosely defined at this point, it seems to just do whatever it is she wants it to do without any limitation. If a character has no limitations, how is there ever any tension? Any struggle? Especially given the ridiculously small time frame which is repeating problem in this series. If she were accomplishing these things via practice and training over weeks, months, or years, it could be understandable. Instead she just accomplishes whatever she wants near instantly, and if she doesn\’t the net result still ends up working out in her favor extremely quickly, especially with her now combining skills. If your character goes from being kidnapped near helplessly by Mesmers, and a little over a week later being able to kill hundreds nearly without effort, while protecting other people, how is this compelling? The power creep is simply too ridiculous. What will she be like in a full month? A year? A decade? She\’s already quite nearly inhuman at this point. The world is expanded on with delegations from other countries arriving. I believe the characters were written well for each. The Caoi people continue to be bumbling oafs regarding their own magic, just like the previous book, and Jade, with her two whole weeks of experience with magic, has to make yet more military recommendations for them on how to best use something they\’ve had for hundreds of years. The returning side characters in Caoi continue to make Jade feel better about herself, but otherwise contribute very little outside of providing history lessons, which is admittedly still better than what they did last book. They can\’t even be trusted to form their own political decisions in this book, as Jade has to step in and play diplomat for them due to an incident in the book. Could she have helped out via pitching suggestions? Absolutely. Did she has to be the one to find the incident (something that had been going on for years which the royal family was too dense to notice), bluntly call it out, propose a solution that amazed and shocked them? No. They\’ve been diplomats and politicians for decades. She\’s been browsing the Internet for over a decade. She could have accompanied an actual trained diplomat to help smooth things over via providing protective magic, not go stomping about the situation indelicately while proposing more ridiculous contracts (seriously, she wanted the affected parties to lose ALL their magic if they broke the terms. Not just lose ability to use magic in Caoi, but flat out \”lose any magical ability I have\”. It\’s basically a death sentence in this world. How was this possibly approved by the royal family?) to people who are nearly forced to sign it because otherwise The Traveler will hate them. I almost have to wonder if the royal family felt compelled to go along with it as well, lest they anger Jade. It\’s been strongly established how unreasonable she is when people don\’t bend over backward to agree with her.

Finally ACTION! is what i\’d say but i keep remembering it\’s been so thoroughly sprinkled here and there throughout the series that i keep having trouble keeping track of how many days she\’s existed in this world. So if you\’re like me and have trouble keeping track of the shenanigans that have happened in the last 2 books, then fret not. Jay has kindly provided a wonderful summary from a different perspective of the last 2 books for you in the prologue. This book does what it promises from the last as Jade goes off to rescue the royal family and her friend. Along the way she meets some new people, some old acquaintances and some enemies. She finds some information and sings some songs. actions were done, hearts were won, and the inventions begun. Sorry i kinda slipped off onto a tangent there. Overall: 10 (I\’m still liking the direction ) Story: 10 Plot: 9 (I\’m still able to follow along, but Jade just remains a mystery at times.)

Really enjoyed the story. The world is great, and I enjoy the complex characters. Only two things kind of bothered me and took me out of the story in a few parts. First, Jades trip into the forest which opens the book. I feel a girl whos been in a hospital her whole life would be a little nervous about a forest, not to mention a forest full of creatures that want to kill her. Second, the relationships feel a little forced and rushed. Jade has only been in the world for two weeks by the end of this book, but her relationships feel like theyve been developed over months and years.

In previous books, we have seen Jade learning and discovering her power(s). In this book, we see her taking her first true steps towards mastering her power. She still has an awful lot to learn, but every day that passes, she gains even more understanding of her own abilities and the new world around her. The author has taken strong and creative steps to make Jade\’s skill sheet more manageable. This provides enough crunch to satisfy while integrating it into the story well enough to be nearly seamless. I anticipated this book greatly – now I anticipate book 4 even more so!

This is a very solid addition to the series and in all honesty this book is probably my favorite of the 3 so far. The world building continues a bit and you learn a lot about the lands around the city. There is great action and the mc is a compelling and fun character. I would highly recommend this entire series to anyone who like fantasy books. Can not wait for the next book.

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