Blackflame (Cradle series 3)

I’ve read this entire Cradle series more times than is justifiable, particularly the early ones. This is my first time listening to Blackflame as an audio book, which is an entirely different experience. The Cradle books are pure brain candy – it’s like reading through a role playing video game. There’s nothing truly interesting, but for whatever reason I find it relaxing to watch the characters get more powerful, which is pretty much the entirety of the plot.

The main characters are mostly just fine, although Will Wight does a good job of making other side characters have intriguing back stories. The writing is solid but unremarkable. The plot for this book, the third in the series, is particularly bland. For pretty much the entire book, the main character is just learning a specific type of magic. I also found the experience less enjoyable through an audio book, as I skim through these Cradle novels extensively when reading them, and was instead stuck listening to even the more boring parts. It turns out that there are a fair amount of them that I don’t notice when I am subconsciously skimming.

When I break it into pieces, this book has a 4 or 5 written all over it, at best. For whatever reason, I greatly enjoy the arc of the entire series, which is the main character group getting more powerful. This is enough to get me through some of the weaker books, like this one. I’m giving it a very generous rating of 6, and am sure I will end up reading it again in the future anyway.