Rating: 
Summary: An enjoyable trilogy but overrated
Review: I enjoyed the Rhapsody trilogy, at least enough to finish the trilogy. I found all of the books to be longer than they needed to be, and quite overrated. To compare the books to the work of Tolkien is just insulting. That said I would agree that the trilogy is better than many out today in Fantasy and Science Fiction. However, I am so tired of the perfect, beautiful heroine who fights like a skilled warrior and has the compassion of a thousand saints. I guess that's my first problem with the books. Rhapsody's traveling companions are quite uninteresting to me as well; just characters I've seen before. That said, out of the three books Destiny was the most enjoyable to me. The story line and plot were more interesting and there were some surprises I enjoyed.
Rating:
Summary: The little Mrs.
Review: I do not deny that this trilogy was enjoyable. It was. Hayden has excellent style and prose throghout the trilogy, and the magical theory is wonderful to say the least... The villianus F'Dor, though stereotypical, were good villians... But some where along the line -or rather, from the beggining with intervals of tolerance- Hayden seems to get lost.
Problem #1: Rhapsody, a.k.a the Vision of Heaven, Ms. Perfect... A real Mary Sue. Not only was she beautiful from the start, but after being cleansed she becomes the loveliest thing to walk the earth. She is blonde, thin, caring, selfless, possesses magic unlimited, a wonderful swordswoman, great in bed... and oh, yea, she is immortal and ever young as well.
I liked the character Rhapsody in the beggining of the trilogy, but she becomes such Mary Sue it is just plain annoying.
Problem #2: Ashe, a.k.a Captain Dragon Diapers. The only thing Ashe does in the book is marry Rhapsody. He has no personality -oh, wait, he has TWO personalities, both of which are vilely undeloped. He reminds me vaguely of Rigde Forrester (Bold and Beautiful) only much, much more obnoxious than Ridge could ever be.
All Ashe seems to do is grovel at Rhapsody's feet and have temper tantrums, he has no pride, no honor, no inner-strength, and seems to lust after Rhapsody to the point it is sickening. And oh yea, when he doesn't get his way his equally dull second personality takes over and he becomes a raging moron. And this is our hero? Please, this guy should be locked up in a padded cell.
Problem #3: Ashe and Rhapsody... Rhapsody's perfection I can stand, but when Ms. Perfect becomes Mrs. Captain Dragon Diapers it just gets really annoying. The two of them were like a broken record of flops, there was no chemistry between them and yet we were submitted to the horror of them having sex again and again and again... It is not the sex that bothers me, but that all this couple seems to do is use the sex to forget their real life -which would be fine, were it one time, but it gets annoying after the second and third time. Worst of all, is that Ashe does not deserve Rhapsody, all he does is sit on his diapered ass and have tantrums.
Problem #4: Rhapsody's devine beauty is not human. She is Lirin, and forever beautiful because she has magically become immortal. Ashe's beauty is there because he is Cymrian (sp?) and he too, is going to live nearly forever in youth. But the humans... Prudence, who was one of my favourite of characters in the trilogy, is depicted as uncomparable to Rhapsody even in the eyes of Tristan, who loves her... Jo is shown as a star too the sun... Humans have become the inferior race, outshone by everyone else with the exception of the Firbolg. It makes the main characters incrediply hard to relate to. Rhapsody did not seem human, hell -she wasn't even human!
That being said, there were very good characters in the story. I enjoyed Jo, struggling for her own place to shine, being shadowed by the perfection that is Rhapsody. I adored Prudence, and Ashe's uncle (forget the name), who with Achmed are probably the best characters in the trilogy. And I adored Achmed.
What was Achmed? He was Rhapsody's polar. Where she was beautiful he hid his face, where she was giving he was selfish... But he wasn't really selfish, not to Rhapsody at least, or to Grunther or Jo, or the Firbolg. His humor made me laugh, his struggle with his feelings for Rhapsody was quite touching, and he was probably one of the few people in the trilogy with a real flaw.
Bottum line, Captain Dragon Diapers and the little Mrs. nearly ruin the magic and prose the story had. Nearly, if you have a strong stomach and can tolerate them long enough to wait until the plot gets going again, because the plot was good.
Rating: 
Summary: A solid finale
Review: This is the 3rd book in a trilogy, so a review is somewhat redundant. If you've read the earlier volumes, you know whether Haydon is to your taste. There won't be any abrupt surprises - this is very close in themes and style to the earlier volumes. The Three from the first novel have become One, though - this book is almost entirely about Rhapsody. If you haven't read the earlier volumes of this trilogy, starting here is definitely a shaky idea - better to read from the first volume, Rhapsody. This concluding volume does have a strong story line built around Rhapsody's quest to find the children of the Rakshas and use their blood to discover the host of the F'dor (like I said, you'll be at sea if you haven't read the other two volumes). It then moves to the conclusion, as Rhapsody summons the Cymrians into council. Too much of the plot is built on Ashe keeping secrets from Rhapsody for no very good reason, since the F'dor already knows about Rhapsody and Ashe. While this book generally works well, it occasionally strains under the burden of wrapping up the plot lines developed earlier. (The device used to explain the mysterious Meridion from the earlier volumes is, however, exceptionally clever - a nice final bow on the package.) Although Haydon has written a sequel based on the popularity of this trilogy, this book brings all the major stories developed so far to a conclusion.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent series!
Review: The second book in this series was fantastic, and I gave it a five star rating and I feel that it's one of the 10 best books I've ever read. Well, I just finished the 3rd book, and I gotta tell you, it was a hard read. Whereas the 2nd book followed a story line that I appreciate, the 3rd book took an almost masochistic turn, which I don't like. actually had to skip about 200 pages in the middle because I was just getting so mad. I was able to finally read the middle part, and while it was OK, it was just too much. In my opinion, Ms. Haydon made several serious mistakes in this book. First, she waited to long to bring Rhapsody and Ashe back together, and it got really frustrating after a while. Second, Rhapsody just simply will not grow up. While this may be an endearing trait in an innocent peasant girl, it is a major liability in the types of positions that Rhapsody is put in, and is also VERY frustrating to read. One of my friends aptly stated that the book was just "ick" on top of "ewww" on top of "yuck....", and I cannot truly disagree with it, as it is very masochistic. Really a shame, as the world and characters that Ms. Haydon had created had incredible potential.
Rating:
Summary: Destiny: An epic saga of love, revenge and power
Review: In the last year I've read over 40 Fantasy titles in my free time. The Symphony of Ages is the most pleasurable reading I've picked up since David Gemmell's "White Wolf". After defeating the Shing and Rhakshas, Rhapsody,Achmed, Grunthor, and Ashe still have on final task to peform in order to fulfill the prophecy of the 3 and bring peace to the land of Roland: Find and kill the F'dor!
Pursued by enemies and with her friends at each others throats, Rhapsody is forced to take much of the battle on to herself in a final showdown where she must confront her greatest enemy and her worst fear. I couldn't put this book down, if you loved the other two then this is a must read.
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