Collision of Worlds by Lincoln Cole

Just finished this second book in the Graveyard of Empires series! I'm happy that I read it soon after I finished the first book, because I suspect that if I left too much time between the two books, I would have another "The Grace of Kings" and "The Wall of Storms" problem where I couldn't remember the main characters for the first few chapters.

Collision of Worlds continues the saga, with a few more pieces moving into place for a huge, explosive ending (which will probably be in a later book). Traq, the kid that we meet in the previous book (the boy that Argus discovers) exhibits more powers. Argus doesn't get as much airtime in this book, but his co-worker, Vivian, does and I really find her character interesting! She has no idea how to raise a child, reading tons of books to compensate, and it leads to her doing some very unorthodox things. Moms may not approve of her.

Maven and Alyssa, the twins in a never-ending battle move their rivalry one step up by betting the lives of Jayson and his teammates. Darius doesn't really appear much, but from Maven's section, I got a much better sense of how the Union operates. And they really, really don't seem much better than the Republic, like I suspected in the first book.

And for the Kristi and her ship - sadly, Kristi and Abigail do not appear as much. Instead, more airtime is given to develop Abdullah, her second in command. And while Abdullah didn't really make that big an impression on me in the first book, (sorry, but Kristi totally overshadowed him) I did remember him and so his enlarged role wasn't as big as a surprise to me.

Two "new" characters are Jim and Oliver. They basically first appeared at the end of the first book, and I totally didn't expect them to start playing a big role. But I find that I quite like their storyline too - Jim's struggles to fit in with the upper class, and his tenuous friendship with Oliver was oddly captivating. And for the record, I find Jim a lot more sympathetic than Oliver, who's more practical and money-minded.

If you liked the first book, you will probably enjoy the second. The cast of characters largely stay the same, with the difference being the amount of page space given to each individual character. I still haven't decided if there's a side that I want to root for, and I look forward to finding out more and more about this world.

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for a free and honest review.