Stormchaser: The Edge Chronicles, Book 2 (by Paul Stewart)

Where the first of The Edge Chronicles was, well, edgy, this one goes over the edge. What was delightfully bizarre in the first book becomes unnecessarily gruesome in the second. The violence of a character named Screed is shockingly graphic and cruel, jolting the reader at times out of the fantasy world the author labors so hard to create.

Even this might be somewhat forgivable -- it is a small part of the story, after all -- but it happens during the long, seemingly interminable, middle section of the book, when there's little going on to distract the reader from it. Readers may feel they're slogging through the Mire with Twig just trying to get through the book. Strong writing and vivid imagination can't rescue this overlong entry, though patient readers will be rewarded by a very satisfying ending.