Review of Fifth Quarter by Tanya Huff

Slightly less than a year ago, I read the first book in this two-book omnibus edition: Sing the Four Quarters. It was a great little fantasy novel that only made Tanya Huff rise in my estimations as a reader. Though I didn’t love Fifth Quarter quite as much, I still enjoyed it.

The two stories are set in the same universe but not directly related, so no spoilers per se for the first book!

Bannon and Vree are a brother-sister assassin team (sweet) on a mission (hell yeah). They’re super sneaky (noice) and gain access to their target’s citadel (all right!) when everything goes wrong (oh no!). Their target somehow body swaps with Bannon, who now lies dying in their target’s old body. Vree has no choice but to accept his soul (called his kigh in these books) into her body. Now, brother rides shotgun to sister as they track this person in her brother’s stolen body. When they finally catch up to him, they strike a bargain that requires going after one of the princes of this empire … but a bard from Shkoder and a madman from Cemandia might have different ideas.

I love the cinematic, in media res opening of this novel. Huff drops us into the middle of a mission (or so we think), and we get to see how Bannon and Vree operate. This is important given that, shortly thereafter, there isn’t a “Bannon and Vree” anymore! Indeed, part of me longs, as I so often do with these kinds of stories, for a longer exposition at the beginning that lets us dig into the lives of our protagonists “before.” That being said, Huff does a great job of inferring those lives through conversations and little glimpses of camp as Vree flees with Bannon’s kigh, and I enjoyed that.

The Vree/Gyhard romance sexytimes with Bannon as a voyeur is, uh, not as fun for me? It’s complicated, I’ll give it that. Yet as Vree herself lampshades, Bannon just seems like a huge horndog. You’re in your sister’s body, and you can only think about sleeping with yourself? Ewwwww. I’m getting uncomfortable flashbacks to a few of the Gale women books … as much as I want to admire Huff’s unapologetic depiction of queerness and queer sexuality in books from the nineties, sometimes the kinks (which are, we know, distinct from queerness) are really not my thing.

Anyway, Bannon in general is far from a favourite character. He’s just annoying. He doesn’t listen to Vree (typical man). Huff doesn’t give us enough from his perspective to fully appreciate the trauma he’s obviously experiencing to make him act the way he does. It feels like a missed opportunity.

Instead, we do get a fair amount of perspective from Gyhard. Indeed, Fifth Quarter is notable as a reader in 2025 for its use of omniscient perspective, which has largely vanished from the scene. So Huff dips into Vree’s head, Gyhard’s head, etc., all in the same scene. And Gyhard’s story, once we finally hear it, is tragic. Does it make his actions forgivable? Of course not! It does make him a sympathetic antagonist, however, and we love one of those.

Gyhard’s former protégé-turned-madman … less sympathetic, less interesting. Again, it just feels like a missed opportunity. For a novel as long as this, I wish some of these other characters had been painted with bolder hues in richer paints.

As it is, Fifth Quarter has some neat ideas, and as far as nineties fantasy novels goes, it’s a good one and mostly holds up. But it’s not as deep as it could be, and it drags on for what plot it has. I definitely wouldn’t start here.