After taking a two-week break from reading, I finally returned to the fifth and final book in ‘Chronicles of the Black Gate’ series. The grand finale. So, without much fumbling around, I go for the review.
Tag Archives: Fantasy
Book review: The Iron Circlet
As with the previous books, the fourth directly follows the third. Defense of Abythos ended up being a total failure due to all the creatures Tharok had enslaved and sent the humans scattered from the battlefield.
Those who survived and are capable of leading the remains are trying to create a working strategy to stop the kragh hordes yet find themselves unable to choose something they would all agree on and they’d all believe to work.
Meanwhile, Audsley is getting deeper into the secrets of the Fujiwara, secrets that are often gruesome. His path will take some twists as well, maybe more than the others.
Now, a bit more detail about the individual plotlines.
Tharok
Tharok’s conquest seems unstoppable at first, yet the warlord is surprised by something he’d not expect: the White Gate. Its power knocks him out temporarily and one of the others takes the mantle of a warlord – as well as the circlet and weapon – from him, leaving him to create a plan to get them back without their help, something he eventually succeeds in doing. Then, he launches his most devastating attack on the humans who prepared their last defense. It does not go as well as he thought until he uses something that no one could be prepared for.
Tiron
Tiron and the young nobles following him are one of the few that left Abythos by ground instead of portals and are moving, seemingly without a destination, through the land. That is until they encounter a group of kragh that separated from the main army. They eventually join forces with Nok and Shaya who were sent to warn and help the few remaining shamans that Tharok sent away so the medusa can’t get a hold of them.
This journey shows the contrast between Tirn’s harsh realism and the ideals of the nobles and even Tiron is shown that his approach might not be the best one – that a dream or hope can be a goal to go for, despite all the losses they face. With the help of the uncorrupted kragh, they eventually help the final battle in a way no one could expect.
Iskra
Iskra does not get that much action. Instead, she’s mostly seen trying to keep things together, often being against the plan the Ascendant suggests – only to be shown that they both made mistakes.
Asho and Kethe
The two finally meet again, only to start quite cold as Kethe is still struggling with her new role as a virtue – only to be the last one standing. Both she and Asho are again forced to fight to the limits of their abilities and not always side-by-side as they defend different places against Tharok’s forces. The situation between them changes when Asho saves Kethe and they eventually fight the final battle together.
Also, Elom appears again and shows his skill in fixing things, especially fixing massive things that make massive damage.
Audsley
This was probably the most interesting part of the book. Audsley, once hungry for knowledge, is now struggling with his inner demons as he delves into the dark secrets of the Fujiwara. With Zephyr, they plan to eliminate their leader and while creating the plan works well, it all goes down horribly. Audsley is given more facts than he’d like – facts that are too hard to swallow for him, a revelation about the Ascension’s dark background and how the faith he believed so much was nothing but a scheme built on a desire for vengeance.
It eventually goes down horribly and even the fact that his firecat Aedelbert finally returns or that he is finally rid of his demons are just a small consolation in what turns to be much worse than the kragh, the medusa, or the massive worms she summoned.
Read date: 26.-30.7.2018
Published: 13.4.2017
Goodreads / Amazon rating: 4,34 / 4,8
My rating: 95%
Length: 438 pages (Kindle edition)
Going 5% up compared to the previous two books.
A great part of me hoped that Asho and Kethe would finally rid Tharok of his head and get done with the kragh for all they caused. How the Fujiwara substory went down was something I did not really expect and if there’s something I am really curious to see in the final book, it’s what will happen with the Ascendant empire. As the characters were considering destruction or reformation, the situation changed many times. Now that all the dark background was revealed and everything is going down even worse than expected, the change will be most likely in some other direction.
What I missed compared to the first three books was saying at the beginning of a chapter from whose PoV the chapter is told. Sometimes it was a good idea for where to end the day’s reading.
Book review: The siege of Abythos
The third book in the series started by The Path of Flames, it picks up pretty much where the second book left off, the morning after the battle for Mythgrafen hold besieged by the demons. The stories of different characters will start getting complicated and more complex as the situation escalates.
As with the second book, the third follows several threads of the main story. Many of them will eventually converge by the end.
By the book’s half, it very visible that it’s all going down and that it’s not so much about who might win but about how big mess it’ll be – which helps the pace for a book that’s slightly longer than the previous two.
Fantasy thoughts: battle scars
I am back with another jumble of thoughts about something that is part of any violent story, not only limited to fantasy though it’s fantasy I read the most so my prevalent point of view will be for that genre.
Heroes and villains will both go through much and not everyone is lucky to emerge without at least a token of remembrance for the perils endured. And based on several factors, how the character and those around him perceive battle scars can vary.
Book review: The Black Shriving
So, after a month, I’ve returned to the story started by The Path of Flames. It was faster read than the first one and I was given some answers that I felt were missing in the first book. Now, for the details (mostly spoiler-free as always).
Book Review: Before the Storm
After two long years, another World of Warcraft book. Considering that I am an active player (okay, not now exactly, I am on a break for May and June) and interested in the game universe and story for the past almost 20 years (a lot of time…), it’s tough to make a review of this one.
It’s even tougher for the current situation and with the hints for where the story is going.
Book review: Strange tidings
For my latest read, I chose something that a member of Goodreads group was mentioning being on sale. The idea seemed interesting and so I went for it, even though it was not something in the center of my attention when it comes to (sub)genres. The book is a mixture of post-apocalyptic, folklore, urban fantasy and maybe more.
Book review: The Path of Flames
So, after several weeks, I finally finished another book. This one took longer than expected, for reasons that were mostly irrelevant to the book. The book itself is good, yet I struggled to really get into it, for reasons I still don’t know.
Anyway, let’s get to the review itself. I’ll try to avoid significant spoilers, though the review will reveal something from the start.
Fantasy thoughts: elementals
When it comes to creatures in fantasy, authors can be really imaginative. There are the ‘classical’ creatures like werewolves, vampires, dragons and many others and authors (including those of computer games) seems to be able to create several more with different place on the scale between any large beast and human. Or just really scary beasts with some slight sentience.
The fact that I started reading a bit more seriously only two years ago might be a factor, but so far I have yet to encounter a book that would use elementals, let alone in such scale as they are used in World of Warcraft. That is despite the fact that creatures related to the four elements appeared in old myths (ancient China, Greece) and some others are most likely inspired by them (Russian Ded Moroz – (Great)father Frost or other examples from Slavic myths).
About to change my writing plans again?
It’s barely 10 days since I wrote my April writing update, where I was thinking about the next steps. Curse me for probably overthinking (again!) but I might be on the way to change (and maybe invalidate) what I mentioned then. It’s not a decision made yet, but I had enough of such thoughts where the decision happened anyway – like the one when I decided to pull out the intro of what was to become book 1 to standalone “book” #0,5, something I wrote about half a year ago.
So, what’s the fuss this time?
Tomas - the wandering dreamer 
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