The lost city of faar can be an exciting and addictive book, so long as you give it the chance to be that. What I mean by this is that the first 1/5th of the book is irrelevant rather dreary, day-to-day life on the planet of "faar", making you believe that perhaps the series was a one hit wonder, stick with the book and you'll be in for a good one. We see depth in the characters as they are put through life changing situations and we can see their clear strengths and weaknesses. The evil saint dane is back and appears to have the upper hand throughout the book with his vast knowledge of the land of Halla, making the villain in this series be one step ahead, all the time.
Although this book is a definite page turner, and will keep you coming back for more, the actual written style is one of its down falls. Machale, tends not to write in an advanced style and keeps the language very basic. He won't make use of metaphors to the extent that most of today's novelist will, and if he does make use of metaphors, verbs or adjectives they are very basic. This would be okay for smaller children who are learning to read, but an older audience will feel that the author is being rather lazy at times.
This would not have been such an issue if we were looking at one book, but if we are looking at a book that is including in a TEN PART series, writing style should be top shelf!
Having said this the actual quality of the storyline is what is important in a book and is what Machale has gotten correct, I would have preferred if had wrote in a more impressive writing style. But that's a personal preference and may not affect some of you other readers.
Before purchasing this book i do recommend that you purchase the first one!
In conclusion I would recommend this book! It's exciting, page turning and you will want to become part of the series!