Wind on Fire Trilogy, The: Slaves of Mastery - Book Two (Book Two in the Wind on Fire Trilogy, 2)

Rating:
Summary: An enjoyable follow-up to "The Wind Singer"
Review: While I liked "The Wind Singer", I found this book to be a much better read. The writing style the author uses has changed for the better. I thought the writing in the first book was very simple...too simple, actually. I think that Mr. Nicholson expanded his horizons, and this book was much more impressive than "The Wind Singer". The story in this book was also much more complex, following the separate paths of many different characters, where as the first book in the series only followed Kestrel and Bowman. It was a nice change of pace to be able to understand what several characters were struggling with. Overall, I found this book to be entertaining and enjoyable.

Rating:
Summary: Really good...and different
Review: While the first book in this trilogy, "The Wind Singer", was very good, this one was much better. The Wind Singer was more of a childlike adventure, but still dealt with a not-so-utopic environment and the flaws in a government concerned only with overall improvement.
This book is different. It deals more with the philosophical aspects mentioned in the first book, and is a deeper sort of story.
Twins Kestrel and Bowman Hath are now 15 years old, and their baby sister Pinpin is now a spirited little 7-year-old, who now goes by her real name, Pinto. The city of Aramanth, free from their once-stifling government, is thriving...until an army invades and burns down the city. The Manth people are taken as slaves into a city-state called the Mastery.
In this book, Kestrel and Bowman are separated. Bowman is captured by the Mastery, while Kestrel, who managed to escape, tries to track down her family and free them...and unexpectedly gets caught by the royal family of another city, eager to make peace with the Mastery. Kestrel travels to the Mastery with the a princess called Sisi, an extremely beautiful, sheltered and naive girl.
The Mastery is a cruel government that holds a secret, and Bowman is determined to set his people free to seek the Homeland that his mother sees in her prophecies. But the question is whether the people truly want to be set free...and if the Mastery is truly the utopic city that the government believes it is. The people begin to question if the Mastery is really all that bad, and what "freedom" truly means.
This is truly a wonderful book, much more satisfying than the first one, that leaves you eager for more. The third book provides a satisfying conclusion to a remarkable trilogy.