Shadow of the Templar series comments and questions

[eliyes]

I started reading these books at the suggestion of hybridhelen. I loved the first one, the second one was even better in some ways and in other ways thoroughly pissed me off, and now I'm in the midst of the third book and I'm not sure I'll finish it. You see, the first two books are from Simon's perspective. The third book has been from the perspective of the rest of his team, alternating. I really, really never needed to see the inner workings of Mike's psyche, it just strips away all the hilarity. Also, I have the uncomfortable premonition that the point of the team's semi-dysfunction whilst Simon is down for medical reasons is to prove that he is running them like a cult of personality, paralleling the bad guy. (Also also, I'd like to fucking know what the bad guy did last time instead of all this teasing. I mean there's suspense, and then there's drawing things out too long.)

So, anyone out there who has read the whole shebang -- will I be totally boned if I just skip the rest of this book? Is Simon back as narrator in the fourth one? Also, where do the short stories fit in? I haven't poked them yet.

EDIT: Having being convinced via IMs to read some more, I finally hit the point where there's some Simon POV. And then some Jeremy POV WHAT. In fact, I have just opened the chapter which introduced Dave, about which I am psyched due to having found the author's devArt gallery with a picture of him holding a tiny sign that says "help!" on it, so I am saving him for tomorrow after work and going to bed now. However, I still remain suspicious.

Comments

[hybridhelen.livejournal.com]

What was it about the second book that hacked you off?

I agree, there is suspense and then there's dragging things out, and I did come periously close to just skipping ahead to read all the italicised stuff to find out what happened!

[eliyes.livejournal.com]

The violent sex, mainly. I mean, it wasn't non-con -- Jeremy, like Ian from Lady Slings the Booze, seems well aware that you can't be raped if you refuse to withhold consent -- but that entire scene just gave me a severe case of the icks and made me like Simon a whole lot less.

[hybridhelen.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I know. I flailed a little bit (in the bad way) when reading that. The icks were stong with that one.

And yeah, Simon's a dick. The way he treats Jeremy at times was just...no. I understand the logic of Simon's behaviour, most of the time, but I didn't really like him.

[eliyes.livejournal.com]

I could deal with Simon being a jerk better in the first one, but he got darker in tone as time went on, which is, y'know, understandable, I just wish that part hadn't happened.

At least Jeremy in a very small way got his revenge by letting Sandy know that, yes, Simon once beat the hell out of him. Made her think.