Whenever I take up a new series, I always hesitate to read book two, especially if I liked the first one. The sophomore slump is a dangerous thing, you see. A promising athlete's second season is often disappointing, and sequels have a disheartening way of losing what made their predecessors great (see under Transformers). Not so with Lian Hearn. Picking up immediately after the conclusion of Across the Nightingale Floor, the second book in the Tales of the Otori successfully expands the fantasy world, while also improving on its principle characters.
My biggest gripe with the first book was Kaede, the main love interest. The chapters which told her story dragged in my opinion. More than that, she struck me as a whiner, much too fragile to be likable. It seems Hearn felt much the same. Within five pages, the character does a complete one-eighty, shedding her irritating helplessness and, even as she changes clothes, becoming a stronger person. At the end of Nightingale, Takeo left Kaede in a trance, and, as she comes out of it in chapter one of Grass, she has a vision of a deity called the White Goddess. This combination of experiences immediately plants the seed of change. Rather than use this as a deus ex machina to transform the girl into a warrior-princess, Hearn deftly and patiently gives Kaede the characterization so desperately absent before. While I feel hard pressed to call the transformation complete by novel's end, there is no doubt that Hearn has created a much stronger, more sympathetic character who can drive the plot independent of Takeo.
As it is really his story, the boy wonder Takeo, the chosen one of this fantasy cycle, undergoes his own changes. Rather than the smooth, linear progression of Kaede, who is gathering power in a patriarchal society, Takeo's evolution is much more circuitous. The dual nature of his identity seemed more of a benefit than a hindrance in the first book. In Grass, it's a downright metaphysical punch up. Takeo has been adopted into the Otori and is the rightful heir to clan leadership. Of course, his adoptive uncles don't see it that way and would much rather him become a corpse. As if that weren't enough, he is bound by blood and oath to the Tribe, a collection of assassin families. Very much his father's son, Takeo possesses powers far beyond the normal Tribe member, and his deadly relatives are bent on seeing him shaped into a human weapon. Both the external conflict between these two factions, as well as the war they create in Takeo's soul, is expertly developed and gives the story an intricate and intentionally confused feel.
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