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Rating: 
Summary: ASTOUNDING...
Review: ...ly bad! Wow! I am in awe. I had to give this book a 5-star rating simply because any aspiring author of Sciene-fiction or Fantasy should have access to a copy. It is a finely-crafted example of both what not to do when writing fiction, and how it is possible to achieve publication with no merit whatsoever! As mentioned elsewhere, the "deus ex machina" devices abound in this travesty, and lengthy descriptions detail the puppet-like nature of our "hero", and how he does not feel he deserves the appellation. Quite true, too. Who needs to be when you have boots and gauntlets that automatically react in the best possible fashion in the face of danger, and a gun that turns magic back at its nefarious caster? Oh, and all this "travelling to places you can see or remember just by thinking of it" guff...puh-lease! The preface mentions that the reader need not have perused the preceding books in the series. An accurate assertion, as refreshers are given ad nauseum...believe me - this was the first I had seen of the series, and I was well and truly sick of the constant reminders of things I had managed to grasp by the first or second time they were mentioned. It is hard to describe the nature of this book's plot woes...for one thing, the heroes are never really at risk. The only major casualties sustained by the Roundear and his cronies (ie. "goodies") are anonymous infantry and a distant non-allied city-state. We see a lot of Zady shouting "I'll get you!" and showing surprisingly good aim with avian excrement - surprising because she never hits any targets with anything more lethal. We see a lot of hints of incestuous admiration, and a wonderful piece of condescension so purulent that it singlehandedly made sense of the whole Political Correctness movement for me (it involves the warm fuzzy feeling one gets for a slightly retarded human child that is almost equal to the one we get for its normal counterpart). But maybe I was just in a bad mood by that stage and read too much into it. The ending, and especially Mouvar's explanation of the whys and wherefores of the struggle with Devale, was particularly rank in terms of plot and pseudo-philosophy. I was, quite seriously, putting down the book every page or so to stop for breath and clear my head. What more can I say - rush out and buy a copy now! Or better yet, borrow someone else's, because trust me - you DO NOT want to have paid to read this.
Rating:
Summary: ASTOUNDING...
Review: ...ly bad! Wow! I am in awe. I had to give this book a 5-star rating simply because any aspiring author of Sciene-fiction or Fantasy should have access to a copy. It is a finely-crafted example of both what not to do when writing fiction, and how it is possible to achieve publication with no merit whatsoever! As mentioned elsewhere, the "deus ex machina" devices abound in this travesty, and lengthy descriptions detail the puppet-like nature of our "hero", and how he does not feel he deserves the appellation. Quite true, too. Who needs to be when you have boots and gauntlets that automatically react in the best possible fashion in the face of danger, and a gun that turns magic back at its nefarious caster? Oh, and all this "travelling to places you can see or remember just by thinking of it" guff...puh-lease! The preface mentions that the reader need not have perused the preceding books in the series. An accurate assertion, as refreshers are given ad nauseum...believe me - this was the first I had seen of the series, and I was well and truly sick of the constant reminders of things I had managed to grasp by the first or second time they were mentioned. It is hard to describe the nature of this book's plot woes...for one thing, the heroes are never really at risk. The only major casualties sustained by the Roundear and his cronies (ie. "goodies") are anonymous infantry and a distant non-allied city-state. We see a lot of Zady shouting "I'll get you!" and showing surprisingly good aim with avian excrement - surprising because she never hits any targets with anything more lethal. We see a lot of hints of incestuous admiration, and a wonderful piece of condescension so purulent that it singlehandedly made sense of the whole Political Correctness movement for me (it involves the warm fuzzy feeling one gets for a slightly retarded human child that is almost equal to the one we get for its normal counterpart). But maybe I was just in a bad mood by that stage and read too much into it. The ending, and especially Mouvar's explanation of the whys and wherefores of the struggle with Devale, was particularly rank in terms of plot and pseudo-philosophy. I was, quite seriously, putting down the book every page or so to stop for breath and clear my head. What more can I say - rush out and buy a copy now! Or better yet, borrow someone else's, because trust me - you DO NOT want to have paid to read this.
Rating: 
Summary: What an awful ending.
Review: This series started out very good. The first book, especially, pulls you in and hooks you. But in each subsequent book, logic drifts further and further into the background, while plot convolutions and "surprises" (which usually counter "facts" laid out in previous books) take the fore. And do they all have to end with a deus ex machina? Please!This was by far the worst, and fitting that being the worst and final book in the series, it has the worst and final ending of its own. The one star I am forced to give it, it does not deserve.
Rating:
Summary: best ever
Review: well there is not much to say it was just fantastic and i loved it
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