The Witness for the Dead

I quite enjoyed this, the story moves along, it's varied and intricately drawn with gritty details. I felt at times like i was reading Dashiell Hammett, but with ghouls and elves and goblins. i think some of the subtleties of the world Addison creates were lost on me because i haven't read the Goblin Emperor. (can't say i wasn't warned.) I liked the names and titles of the characters; they have a nice musical ring to them, but again, i felt a like i was in the deep end of the pool trying to keep all of them straight in my mind. I think it'd be worth reading again this after i read the GE.

Addison does a wonderful job of world building. The slice of life moments in particular are great and Pel-Thenhior, the goblin director/composer is wonderful. Unfortunately the book has far too many subplots to give any of them the attention they deserve. There were also weird pacing issues and characters seem to do things so that reveals happen at the right time rather than for any organic or logical reason.