Andrew's Reviews > Mountain of Black Glass

Oh he does. I think you just don'T know him well enough

You're going to have to offer more than terse disagreement to be persuasive. There's very limited character development or forward movement in the storyline for the quantity of prose generated, to a large degree making this installment a rehash of the previous one. Williams is caught up in the fantastic worlds instead of making them relate to the core themes and mysteries of the series.

*Spoilers below...*

Also, he cuts off the metaphysical elements that he hinted at in earlier books (the "angelic" entity communicating with the boy on entry, the Other as a devil-like entity) and curtly dismisses the philosophical issues of virtual immortality central to the motivations of the antagonists ("you won't be here if you believed in a soul").

This is my 3rd reading of the series, so no worries about spoilers. I am still wondering about your comment. No character development? Hmmm. Williams does get bogged down with TONS of story forks and ties and keeping everything straight is sometimes no enjoyment, but the characters continue to reveal nuances about themselves, especially with Paul Jonas who bit by bit is remembering his true past. Renie and her growing feelings for !Xabbu, and the more 2-dary characers such as Florimel and the Gypsy guy and many of the Brotherhood. volume 3 is not in any way the BEST volume in the series and I dislike the Troy world (but love the house) but it gets me to volume 4. :D Sorry if this was too rushed, but am going to go back to reading v. 3