Stewart, Paul and Chris Riddell. The Winter Knights [The Edge Chronicles #8]

Stewart, Paul and Chris Riddell. The Winter Knights [The Edge Chronicles #8]. David Fickling Books, 2007 [978-0-375-83741-8]
Quit (the son of a sky pirate) has been accepted as a student in Knight's Academy. This story takes place almost entirely on the floating rock of Sanctaphrax. For some reason Edgeworld has been plagued by bitter cold and snow storms which is causing havoc with the buoyancy of the floating rock city. There are all kinds of plans to keep the rock afloat, but the ruling Academic begins ruling with an iron fist. There is a great deal of political intrigue as various factions struggle to gain control and save Sanctaphrax. This all ends up with the sudden poisoning of the ruling Academic and following bloody civil war. Although I love this series, this 377 page book is not my favorite. There is so much political intrigue and many unusual and similar names of the participants, that I was frequently confused. For those of you who are concerned about this, the civil war is very bloody. Another thing that bothered me was that after this vicious civil war, suddenly everyone is all happy again as they clean up the body. No hard feelings? Although it is not my favorite of the series I am sure its fans will gobble up this book too, along with its continuing incredible illustrations.