Mist's Edge – T.A. White

Short evaluation: If you enjoyed “Pathfinder’s Way” and are wondering whether to read “Mist’s Edge”, its sequel, the answer is ‘yes’. If you haven’t ready any of White’s books, she is writing three different series in parallel and all of them are worth reading. I’d start with “Shadow’s Messenger”.

Longer: The Broken Lands series is placed in a post-apocalyptic milieu. About a thousand years earlier, the pre-Cataclysm world (which might be our world) collapsed. (The Broken Lands milieu my have magic - the jury is still out - and there is speculation that the appearance of magic caused the Cataclysm.) What’s left of the geography is fairly simple: There are the Highlands, which are held together by Pathfinders. (Pathfinders can be thought of as scouts and guides, and traveling through the Highlands without one is considered suicidal.) Shea is a Pathfinder. There are the Lowlands, which may have most of the remaining population. The Outlands are home to the Trateri - approximately horse nomads who have recently and reluctantly been united, and are now invading the Lowlands. The Broken Lands are what is left of Ground Zero of the Cataclysm, and nobody comes out of there alive. Except Shea.

“Pathfinder’s Way” introduced Shea and her world. In “Mist’s Edge”, the story becomes larger: Dangerous and uncanny things are happening everywhere, and there is a suspicion that something followed Shea out of the Broken Lands.