So that was the second volume of the powder mage and I am... confused. 
 Tamas has managed to keep my attention through an interesting play on military prowess, but little else. Maybe Tavore's Bonehunters' trek through the Wastes spoiled me, but I just didn't feel the arduousness of the journey in the narration. "The men are grumbling" doesn't really cut it against such overwhelming odds. 
 Adamat lost my attention completely, even though I had a lot of expectations. I had hoped for him to take on some stature. Instead of being the Hercule Poirot that brings secrets to light and helps us delve deeper into this world's already paper-thin depth, he kept popping revelations out of his "perfect memory", being beaten up, and generally being watered down into irrelevance. And 8, 9 kids?! Why??!! 
 Thaniel pissed me off, with his oh so convenient godlike powers and his irritating condescension, repressed misogyny and self pity. His chapters were my only link to Ka-Poel, who has a much more interesting personae, that's being limited by her muteness. I wanted a guerilla leader, picking up his father's mantle, and just got a half-assed teenage hero who never finishes anything. 
 Nila... what the h... pit! That one just feels like a trump card kept to pull a Deus Ex Machinae when the going gets tough. All thorough her chapters, I kept asking myself: what does she bring to the table? and coming back with the same answer: zilch zero. Until the very laughable discovery of her super-duper no-one-ever-noticed powers, that strangely enough, never manifested, or were even hinted at, throughout the whole book. 
 Now, don't get me wrong. I enjoyed reading (actually listening to Ivona's Amy reading) this book. Something that I believe was very nicely portrayed, and must have been a hell to keep in balance, is the information lag and its consequence on the choices made by characters, giving us a nice birdseye view of the story and raising the tension. Another is the pacing of action scenes, which was lively and dynamic. The intrigue itself has real potential. 
 But this book was plagued with anti-climatic resolutions, glossing-over of portentous events, deja-vu boss fights, ridiculous find-and-replace colloquialisms, and generally badly executed dialogues. 
 I'll move on to the final volume now and see what we have in store to redeem this tale.