Well, I really didn’t think I’d ever be DNF-ing the final book in a series, but I don’t have the strength to finish it. I don’t even care about what happens to the characters – it’s clear from how everything has progressed that the book is going to have a typical fantasy ending, so I can pretty much already predict the plot points. 

From the offset of the book, everything moved so fast, switching between POVs every three or four pages, that I struggled to connect with the story at all. Almost every chapter was just meaningless day to day life stuff, putting all the physical pieces in place before the battle without any good character work. Pretty much nothing of interest for 268 pages. 

There are also essentially no stakes in this. I know that in the end it’s all going to be ok, and Gwynne clearly didn’t want to kill off any major character before the big battle, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to use them as a gratuitous death in the finale. So when any of the characters were in danger in this first 44%, I couldn’t take it seriously because I knew no-one was going to die.  

Unfortunately (in my opinion), almost every fantasy series ends with the good guys winning. I read a lot of fantasy, but even so I don’t usually have this much apathy towards the end, so clearly there are things Gwynne could have put in place to keep the interest. However, so much of the tension he is trying to build is based off the 'we might not win' narrative, rather than on questions like the horrible things they might have to do to win, or what winning actually means. This leaves everything feeling pretty weak, as I can’t get behind the character’s fears or motivations at all. 

Everything is also extremely convenient. So far, nothing has gone wrong for a single character. Even if they think a bad thing has happened, it turns out to be of benefit. Everything they try and do, they achieve, no-one has died, and (once again) nothing interesting has happened. Its just groups meeting up, chatting shit, and mildly fucking around. 

This convenience is extremely prevalent in the hunt for the seven treasures. Even at the start of the series I found the concept verging on corny, but thankfully until this book the problem didn’t really rear its head. Now, however, all of the characters are just on side quests to find the treasures that haven’t already fallen into their laps in some of the most convoluted ways possible. It’s giving horcrux and child’s Easter egg hunt.  

Some of the other things that annoyed me were: 

-  The ‘romances’. Every character is getting paired off, clearly in an attempt to increase emotional tension when one person in a couple is in danger. But it doesn’t work at all, because all of the romances are so lifeless, underdeveloped, and empty (somehow even Maquin and Fidele’s, who were half of Ruin). They’re clearly just being adding to emotionally manipulate us (much like Storm’s injury cliff-hanger at the end of Ruin).

-  When the spear is removed from where it was embedded in the tree trunk, we’re told the skeleton it was holding up collapses. I’m sorry, WHAT the fuck? A skeleton isn’t joined together. A skeleton is just a collection of disjointed bones, there aren’t ligaments, muscles etc. holding it together. So how the FUCK was a spear holding up an entire skeleton by itself in such a way that when it was removed the skeleton came apart??? 

-  The explanation of Trigg’s weird 2-sided treachery still makes no sense to me, and has been pissing me off for months. 

-  Gwynne is being HORRENDOUSLY heavy handed in his hints at the whole Ethlinn thing, whatever that thing is. It makes me not even want to look it up just out of spite… 

-  Thannon IS Corban’s father????? What the fuck. This one is very probably just on me, but still pisses me off. 

It’s truly disappointing that my read of the series has come to this anti-climactic end. I really wanted it to be a new favourite. I thought the first two books in the series were really fresh, and all of the subterfuge and twisted morals intrigued me, but once all that was resolved and the lines were drawn, the core of the story just didn’t hold up. And after my disastrous read of The Burning GodI’m not going to be forcing myself to finish any book for any reason, even if it is the last in a series.