Ecko Burning is a direct sequel to Ecko Rising. Beware! If you haven’t read the first book this review may contain potential spoilers. Just sayin. The Bard is gone, and with him Ecko’s only possible way home. Told the grasslands are diseased and the blight is spreading, his companions demand his help. Together they seek weapons in a ruined city where both nightmare and hideous truth await them. Ruthless and ambitious, Lord Phylos has control over Fhaveon city, and is using its forces to bring the plains under his command. Back in London, the Bard is offered the opportunity to realise everything he has ever wanted – if he will give up his soul. As the blight spreads, Phylos’s brutality escalates. When the people’s anger finally erupts, the force of the violence threatens to destroy everything. At the tail end of 2012 I read Danie Ware’s debut, Ecko Rising. I’d heard lots of good buzz surrounding the novel but nothing could have adequately prepared me for the marvellous mash up of science fiction and high fantasy that it turned out to be. The sequel is now upon us and the good news is that it’s just as good, if not better,…