Up Jim River is the sequel to Michael Flynn’s The January Dancer, which I reviewed a few days ago.

It has a somewhat different feel to it than its predecessor. The January Dancer is told primarily in retrospect: a bard finds a scarred old man in the Bar on Jehovah, and wangles a story out of him about the Twisting Stone. The tale alternates between the bard and the old man and the main matter of the story; and the main matter of the story covers a lot of ground. One of the neat things about the book is the structure: the old man insists on telling the story in his own way, and that way isn’t entirely linear.

Up Jim River picks up where The January Dancer leaves off. One of the principles of the earlier tale, a Hound of the Ardry named Bridget ban, has disappeared, and the bard dragoons the old man to help her go searching. Indeed, the bard is Bridget ban’s daughter, and entire “modern” part of the previous book was simply part of the bard’s search. As a result, Up Jim River is much more linear than its predecessor, and seems to move at a more deliberate pace.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed it thoroughly. As I said in my earlier review, the Spiral Arm of Flynn’s imagining is an interesting place, and we get to see much more of it. Some of the old characters return, and it’s interesting to see them “for real” rather than through the old man’s eyes; and there are a number of intriguing new characters as well. And though this is the second book in a longer work, it isn’t simply advancing the global story arc; it has a definite beginning and end of its own.

The third volume in the series is called In the Lion’s Mouth, which has just recently been released; I intend to read it as soon as the e-book price has come down some.