V. E. Schwab's A Gathering of Shadows — because that's what this is, the German audiobook of book two in the Shades of Magic series — is the kind of sequel that makes you understand why middle books exist. And also why they frustrate the hell out of people.
I was shelving returns at the library on a rainy Tuesday, earbuds in, deep into hour six of this thing, when I realized I'd been alphabetizing the same cart for forty minutes because I was so locked into the Elemental Games tournament setup. That's the power of Red London when Schwab gets it right. But here's the thing — I also spent a good chunk of those seventeen-plus hours waiting for the story to remember it had stakes.
Red London Throws a Party (And Forgets to Lock the Back Door)
The premise is spectacular on paper. A magical tournament where Arnesian magicians compete across elemental disciplines, Kell nursing his bruised pride and complicated loyalties, Lila Bard doing her absolute best to con her way into a competition she has no business entering, and Alucard Emery — pirate, former aristocrat, walking smirk — commanding a ship and stealing scenes. Schwab builds Red London into something genuinely sensory here. The tournament sequences have real texture: the way elemental magic is described as both sport and art, the crowd dynamics, the political maneuvering between the competing nations. When the book is cooking, it's cooking.
But — and this is significant — the first two-thirds are almost entirely setup. Lila training on Alucard's ship. Kell brooding in the palace. Characters circling each other, building tension that doesn't release until the final act hits like a freight train. If you're someone who needs plot momentum to stay engaged, this will test your patience. I'll be honest: there were stretches around hours eight through eleven where I bumped the speed to 1.25x just to push through the pacing valleys.
And then the ending. The Black London thread — that ancient, hungry darkness stirring awake while everyone's distracted by the tournament — arrives with genuine menace but feels compressed. Like Schwab spent so long arranging the chess pieces that she had to rush the checkmate. The tonal whiplash from leisurely tournament drama to existential magical threat is jarring, and not in a way that feels intentional.
Peter Lontzek and the Challenge of Four Londons
Here's where I have to be upfront: I'm working with limited data on Peter Lontzek's specific performance here. No standout moments flagged by German-language reviewers, no particular vocal choices called out. What I can tell you is that a seventeen-and-a-half-hour single-narrator fantasy with this many POV characters — Kell, Lila, Rhy, Alucard, plus an ensemble of tournament competitors from different magical nations — is a brutal assignment. The book demands vocal range and sustained energy across a marathon runtime.
Lontzek handles the German translation competently from what I experienced. The prose flows well in audio form, and Schwab's world-building descriptions land with appropriate weight. But I didn't find myself thinking about the narration, which in audiobook terms usually means "solid but not transformative." The narrator commits — but to steadiness rather than theatricality. For a book this long with pacing issues baked into the text, a more dynamic performance might have helped carry those slower middle hours.
Lila Bard Deserves Better Pacing (But She's Still the Best Part)
The character work is where Schwab earns her reputation. Lila's arc from thief-out-of-her-depth to genuinely dangerous magical competitor is the spine of this book, and Schwab writes her with a sharpness that never tips into caricature. Her scenes with Alucard crackle with the specific chemistry of two people who are both too proud and too smart for their own good. Kell, meanwhile, gets the less flashy but emotionally heavier material — his relationship with Rhy, his frustration at being controlled, the weight of being one of the last Antari. These threads work. They're why you stay.
But Schwab asks you to marinate in these character dynamics for a long time before the plot arrives to give them consequence. This is a seventeen-hour audiobook that could've been thirteen and been tighter for it. My podcast listeners are going to love the world-building discussions this opens up, but I'll be telling them to prepare for a slow burn that's heavier on the slow than the burn — until suddenly it's an inferno. Point of Origin scratched a similar itch for me — that specific pleasure of a fantasy world that rewards patience before it rewards you with chaos.
Who Should Listen (And Who Should Skip)
If you loved A Darker Shade of Magic and want to live inside Red London for a while — genuinely just exist there, soak in the politics and the magic system and the character dynamics — this delivers exactly that. If you're listening in German specifically, the translation reads well in audio form and Lontzek keeps things moving even when the plot doesn't. Skip this one if you picked up book one for the dimensional travel and dark magical threats — you're going to spend a lot of hours at a tournament before that energy returns. The payoff is real, but the patience required is substantial.
Schwab understands something that a lot of fantasy authors don't: magic should feel dangerous even when it's beautiful. The tournament scenes get this right. The problem is that the book wraps so much ceremony around its danger that by the time Black London actually threatens, you've almost forgotten to be scared.
Shirley (my cat) was unimpressed. I was mostly invested — with caveats.
