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Title: The Darkest Road
Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Genre: Tolkein knock-off (third of trilogy)
Thingummies 3
Synopsis: The remaining four Earthlings take on a dark lord from outside time.
Thoughts: I'll grant this, he wraps it up fairly well.
For the most part, Kay is finally finished introducing random new world-building elements by the time the third book rolls around. So we're done with the endless info-dumping. And he does actually use most of the elements introduced.
Now, the stuff that bothered me still bothers me. The Queen of Ruk is never dealt with. Avaia the putrescent swan still doesn't make sense to me (how intelligent is she? Where the heck did she come from?) I still think shoehorning King Arthur in is a cheat. We never get an explanation for why Owein's riders need a child.
And the manipulativeness is still uneven. Some parts soar, and some are genuinely touching. But if I got told that the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot triangle was the saddest story ever one more time, I was about ready to throw the book across the room. He tells and tells and tells and never shows. Seriously, guys, if you all love each other so much, just have a threesome and be done with it, ok? Maybe that wouldn't work while Arthur was king because Reasons, but the distinct lack of kingdom kind of negates the tragedy. Also, why can Lancelot bring someone back from the dead once, and not the other bunch of times a hero falls nobly and Lance is standing right there? Consistency, people.
But there were a lot of guns on walls, and Chekov would be relatively satisfied. And I was pleased and slightly surprised as to the final fates of the folks from our world. So while I still think this deeply ambitious series is fundamentally flawed, I'm willing to bump the grade of the finale up to acceptable.
Edited to add: Also, the prince rides to the rescue on mysterious boats crewed by dead legends? Kay, I know you worked on Tolkein, but that didn't mean you had to just steal stuff flat out.
Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Genre: Tolkein knock-off (third of trilogy)
Thingummies 3
Synopsis: The remaining four Earthlings take on a dark lord from outside time.
Thoughts: I'll grant this, he wraps it up fairly well.
For the most part, Kay is finally finished introducing random new world-building elements by the time the third book rolls around. So we're done with the endless info-dumping. And he does actually use most of the elements introduced.
Now, the stuff that bothered me still bothers me. The Queen of Ruk is never dealt with. Avaia the putrescent swan still doesn't make sense to me (how intelligent is she? Where the heck did she come from?) I still think shoehorning King Arthur in is a cheat. We never get an explanation for why Owein's riders need a child.
And the manipulativeness is still uneven. Some parts soar, and some are genuinely touching. But if I got told that the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot triangle was the saddest story ever one more time, I was about ready to throw the book across the room. He tells and tells and tells and never shows. Seriously, guys, if you all love each other so much, just have a threesome and be done with it, ok? Maybe that wouldn't work while Arthur was king because Reasons, but the distinct lack of kingdom kind of negates the tragedy. Also, why can Lancelot bring someone back from the dead once, and not the other bunch of times a hero falls nobly and Lance is standing right there? Consistency, people.
But there were a lot of guns on walls, and Chekov would be relatively satisfied. And I was pleased and slightly surprised as to the final fates of the folks from our world. So while I still think this deeply ambitious series is fundamentally flawed, I'm willing to bump the grade of the finale up to acceptable.
Edited to add: Also, the prince rides to the rescue on mysterious boats crewed by dead legends? Kay, I know you worked on Tolkein, but that didn't mean you had to just steal stuff flat out.
