This sequel to The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, which I so loved, picks up immediately after the close of Glass Books and follows the same alternating chapter structure. Miss Temple wakes from a fever to find herself seemingly deserted by Chang and Doctor Svenson and the villagers sheltering her rather urgently wanting her gone. Mysterious deaths abound as she makes her way back to London, struggling with the changes that reading a glass book have wrought on her.
We switch to Chang and then to Svenson, moving back in time to see why each of them in turn felt obliged to leave and developing the new plot which involves a second tier of conspirators who are moving into the power vacuum left by the destruction of the original cabal.
There a couple of problems with this sequel which make it somewhat less enjoyable than Glass Books. Firstly, the ending of that first book left our three heroes stranded far away from the centre of the action. Therefore the first part of the book has to be devoted to getting them back to where the conspiracy is taking place. Dahlquist does his best to raise mysteries to keep the reader involved, and to a certain extent that works - except the back cover blurb gives it all away (tip: do not read the back cover blurb for this book). Also, it never does become entirely clear what exactly has happened in the smaller details. I can guess, but unlike the first book, guesses are never properly confirmed.
Because of the time spent moving the characters into position, there is less time to introduce the new swathe of villains. One of the pleasures of Glass Books is that it never moves slowly but because all three heroes encounter the villains individually, they are introduced three times over: the reader has the space to see where alliances and motivations lie. However, with The Dark Volume, villains are switching sides and plans before you’ve even had time to work out whose side they’re currently on or what they were intending to do. It’s much, much harder to keep the intricate backstabbings straight.
And lastly, the Process and its related elements have moved from being enticingly mysterious to annoyingly vague. Turns out indigo clay, which is used to make the blue glass, can do just about anything, from brainwashing and mind control to powering airships, and lord knows what the Process actually does…I’m coming at the book from a fantasy perspective, so it doesn’t bother me too much. Someone reading with a SF perspective would probably be put off by the imprecision.
All this is not to say I didn’t very much enjoy seeing these characters in action again, and watching their relationships evolve. In fact, the main disappointment to me was that they spend even less time together in this one than they did in Glass Books. Once again I’m hoping for a sequel, because if it’s left where The Dark Volume ended, our heroes are in a bad, bad place indeed.
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