Well I finished Valedor and have quite a few thoughts after having done so. Most of these can be read in the review I wrote for it on Talk Wargaming, but in depth;
The key criticism I have is that certain parts of this book are too upbeat to strike the right tone for the Eldar. Best case is Taec Silvereye's death, and how just before he is taken by Slaanesh he is able to see the entire skein, all of it unfiltered. And through that he sees the future of the Eldar race, and the text says "his soul sparkled with joy." Now this seems to be of the opinion that the Eldar will resurge once day and will be renewed, no vagaries or possibilities. A definitive statement that the Eldar's time will come again. I do not like this. Nor did I fully enjoy the view this book take that Ynnead is 100% real and is going to kill Slaanesh no matter what, no hints that Ynnead may not be real, no possibility that Iyanna Arienal is just nuts. Ynnead is real and is going to save the Eldar. Again I didn't really like that. I think both of these things need to be possibilities rather than assured events, that way they strike the right tone for the ultimately tragic but hopeful Eldar, the chance that they could save themselves is better than the promise that they will save themselves.
Also I found the end of Ariadien and Neidaria's story slightly confusing in that I didn't fully get what Kelmon was doing. He makes it clear that if he chooses to leave the Wraithknight Ariadien will not see Neidaria again, but what did he mean by that?? Did he mean he wouldn't allow Neidaria to be put in the Infinity Circuit or did he mean that being in a Wraithknight was the only way that Ariadien could truly be around her anymore?? I don't think that Kelmon could get away with keeping an Eldar soul out of the Infinity Circuit, the Spiritseers would destroy him for that, but I think that in that scene emotional blackmail would have been better than ambiguous blackmail. It would have added a more tragic element to the story, the idea that Ariadien cannot live without his other half and that his only real option is to give up his life and live inside the Wraithknight with a remnant of his beloved sister, to me that is more interesting than the idea that Kelmon is just forcing them to do it.
And Lelith Hesperax's ending was just confusing as well. Why on earth is she having the Haemonculi combine the Kraken and Leviathan strands?? Well actually I suppose she would want to fight the resulting Super-Tyranids, just for the hell of it. So the real question is, why the hell didn't the Harlequins stop her?! If the merging of Kraken and Leviathan was such a big threat why would the Harlequin King and Sylandri Veilwalker allow Hesperax to even try and do such a thing, the end result could be catastrophic and it makes no sense for the Harlequins whose goal is the preservation of all Eldar life to allow Hesperax to do something that could result in an apocalypse for the Dark City.
But other then those complaints I did quite enjoy the book. Haley has the same talent for writing Eldar and Dark Eldar that Gav Thorpe and Andy Chambers have. In fact my favourite character of this book, Lord Sarnak, can be best summed up as "Evil Motley". He was hilarious on every page he was on in a delightfully devilish way, a very Harlequin-like sense of humour but with the clear sadism and self-interest of the Dark Eldar. The rest of my thoughts are here;
http://talkwargaming.blogspot.co.uk/201 ... ledor.html
LotN