Stunning

I love the storytelling of Anthony Ryan. And it does not fail. Great caracterdevelopment and twists in the story. The only issue is the jumps and cuts in the recording.

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The tale continues

The life of a scribe continues to show itself convoluted! Well read - though at times the recording jumps which breaks the spell.

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Very good, ending to a very original book

Antony, Ryan’s characters are always interesting and engaging. I really enjoyed the first person narrative. You feel invested in the characters.

Particularly in a way that you don’t with a lot of other books because there’s so many threads that one begins to lose connectivity.

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Disappointing end

This contains spoilers

For the first and only book of the trilogy that I listened to, Steven does an amazing job. Most of the audio is good, however there are some repetitions here and there of line and audio going funky, which may be an editing error.

For the story, I was left well disappointed. The last two books were quite grounded with Alwyn learning swordsmanship, value or armour, etc, with a believable medieval society. The third book takes this grounded approach into suspending disbelief. Alwyn is able to magically sustain an Army of 30,000 in foreign territory with scant resources, march it across the land through the ability of Ayins counting skills and a resupply fleet. Considering how most medieval cities barely reached 30,000 and how there is no dedicated logistical core, this is too impossible for me to take seriously.

Alwyn companions are either treated terribly in this or just make me hate them, Juhilina is able to catch up on a gruelling trek in unfamiliar territory whilst carrying two packs with her quarry having a headstart because she can track them easily apparently. Eamond, who seemed like a squire in the second book, is killed off-screen in a disappointing way. Characters such as Wilhelm, who for one is treated well, get killed because the person he lanced and presumably skewered in the back says Nuh Uh and manages to stab Wilhelm somehow and dies to this travesty. Women in a world with trained knights, even in the rare case, are trained by knights themselves somehow seem to be physically on par with their male counterparts and seem even better then their male counterparts even without the tone of faith other characters had because why not.

The book is made up of impraticalities when it comes to logistics in a medieval world, the treatment of some characters to leave a sour taste in my mouth and let alone Alwyn he seems to be usurped of any meaningful task he does. He gets usurped by a rival for giving advice, which was his only role really and the whole plot of him getting ready for the fallout of carrying the stoned feather and killing Evadine is made redundant because a side character who seems to be on par with a space marine apparently decides to take over.

I have 40 minutes left in listening to this, and somehow, if the ending is miraculous enough to change my mind, I'll edit this review.

thank you for reading my rant

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Great conclusion

Great conclusion to the trilogy, Anthony Ryan has done it again. I can see Alwyn resurfacing in the future.....can't wait

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Excellent and a fitting end.

I've enjoyed all of the series and this draws it to a fulfilling and epic conclusions. More please Mr Ryan.

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Tremendous ending to Alwyn’s story

Or is it? Looking forward to more - keep them coming. Narration top notch as ever

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Read very well, but poor book.

The first book was great, but the 2 after have declined drastically.
So many characters that have nothing roles that the author expects us to remember the names of.
Main character completely strays from his character in the first book.
Read very well by Steven Brand though.

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Fantastic

While i feel the ending of this story somewhat abrupt. it delivers astoundingly well and will recommend this for everyone.

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A change of style from the first two books.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but for my taste, it didn't match up to the first two books of the trilogy due to
the change of emphasis towards the spiritual / magical.

Although the denouement worked, it often felt like the author needed a convenient ending to this trilogy whilst setting up the next one rather than it being a natural conclusion.

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