Requiem for the Sun

Symphony of Ages #4

by Elizabeth Haydon

Requiem for the Sun is the standalone sequel to the USA Today-bestselling Rhapsody trilogy (Rhapsody , Prophecy , and Destiny ). This novel will please fans of Elizabeth Haydon's high-fantasy series, but it may confuse newcomers because numerous characters from the trilogy return, and most are introduced in the book's early pages.

In the peace following the events of the trilogy, the singer Rhapsody believes she and her husband, the part-dragon Lord Cymrian, can at last start a family. Meanwhile, the assassin-king Achmed seeks to rebuild Canrif, his mountain capital. Then Lord Cymrian rejects Rhapsody's heart's desire; the giant Sergeant-Major Grunthor hears the earth itself screaming; the Dowager Empress of Sorbold, a realm of deep magic, dies under suspicious circumstances; and a powerful unknown enemy, as ancient and youthful as Rhapsody, seeks stealthily to steal her for himself. --Cynthia Ward

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Epic Fantasy, High Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Romance, Dragons

462 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Elizabeth Haydon (* 1965 in Michigan) is a fantasy author, whose 1999 debut, Rhapsody: Child of Blood, garnered comparisons with Goodkind, Jordan, and even Tolkien. She has written two fantasy series set within the same universe, The fantasy/romance/whodunit fusion called The Symphony of Ages and the young adult series The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme.

An herbalist, harpist, and madrigal singer, Elizabeth Haydon also enjoys anthropology and folklore. She lives on the East Coast of the United States.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabet...

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't normally review books, but I just had to get a few things off of my chest about this one. I finished it last night & am still a bit angry at it.

Overall, I did not care for this book at all, especially after reading it directly after the first three. I came into it off of a "high" from those earlier books, and maybe it was because they were so fresh in my mind that Requiem for the Sun left me angry and frustrated. It felt stiff, padded, and pointless, without hope and without the personalities I had come to expect from the other books.

A few reasons & examples:

(Warning: SPOILERS!)

Way too much time and detail was spent on scenes & events that should have been half (or less) the length that they were (for example, way too much time spent on reviving Entudenin, and to what purpose? Yarim has water again. Great. There should have been more to it). I was left with the feeling that it was all just padding in order to get the book up to publishable length.

I'm generally not a fan of the gratuitous, over-the-top violence in any of the books (jars way too much with the more sophisticated prose & storytelling of the non-violent bits), but felt it was even worse in this book. I *get* that F'Dor are horrible. I *get* that bad people do bad things. I don't need repeated horrificness to remind me, especially when there seemed to be more horrificness than good in this story. I will say, though, that I suspect the violence stood out so much for me this time because the rest of the story was lacking any warmth or appeal, and so the violence was just that much more stark by contrast.

Also adding to my dislike was that the bad guys seemed to steal the show, and not in a good way. They were way too powerful and getting away with way too much, and there were so many of them. It seemed like evil was everywhere doing evil and our heroes were unaware or always at a disadvantage or otherwise non-hero-like. It was like a story of unavoidable doom, instead of a story of good over evil (as the first ones were). The heroes no longer seemed like heroes, just fodder for the bad guys, with no overall sense that good would triumph.

The heroes also didn't seem like themselves. Achmed does *not* have a single-minded lust to kill F'Dor, as was said in this book; he wants them dead, yes, but he doesn't go into instant-hunt-demon-mode when one is alive. If that were true, he'd never have rebuilt Ylorc in the earlier novels while an F'Dor lived (and he would have instantly killed Ashe). Also, in previous books he'd never have let Ashe talk to him the way he did a few times in this book, not without a strong-enough caustic comeback to silence Ashe. Achmed is the stronger personality, not Ashe.

When Ashe and Achmed go after Rhapsody, Ashe never seems all that distraught. Despondent, but not enraged. For all the times in previous books that Ashe had to fight the dragon from rampaging, like when it almost got loose in Elysian when he was mad about his grandmother lying to him about whether Rhapsody survived the cataclysm, this time Rhapsody might ACTUALLY be dead, stolen by MICHAEL, and the dragon in Ashe doesn't roar forth and and rampage?! Ridiculous. If ever we should have seen that happen, it was in this book.

As for Rhapsody, she didn't have much to do, which is fine, as I realize the story wasn't really hers. But at the end, after her ordeal, she's pulled up on the beach & asked to sing a dirge? That's it? Ashe isn't devouring her with kisses and being happy she's alive and all that? No discussion of what happened? She doesn't thank the men? Heck, she kissed Achmed after they killed the previous F'Dor, but after this experience says not a word to him, not even a half-smile of thanks? I was wondering who these people were and why they were called Rhapsody, Ashe, and Achmed when they were clearly NOT the characters I had come to love.

Despite all that I did not like in this book, a few things stood out as good:

The way MacQuieth killed Michael. Tempting the demon ("Come to me"), then using his broken arm to impale Michael, going over the cliff & the sea roiling & creating a backward tidal wave from the impact of the demon.

Omet surviving. I'm really glad he did, because I was really tired of all the good/innocent people being killed by the bad. I hope we see more of him in later books.

Grunthor's dispatch of Esten. Perfect. Probably the best moment in the book.

........

And I feel better for having vented my anger at this story. :) I'm a bit leery of the next book, but will give it a go in the hopes that it's better than this one. If it's not, I won't bother with the 6th (even though Achmed is my favorite character, or was, until he got "watered" down a bit in this book---pun intended).

[Jonathan Koan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book to rate. It has so much that I loved...and so much that I found to be boring. Not much in the middle. I either was loving it or not really liking it at all.

The dynamic of Rhapsody and Ashe is just fantastic, as is the political situtiations they find themselves in. I also really liked the character of Anborn here, and Grunthor and Achmed got a few cool scenes.

I did not care at all for the background political situations happening in the book. I think those worked better in Destiny than in here. Unfortunately, this takes up a large portion of the book.

The villian of this book was really effective, and boy were his scenes tough to read, and it is one of those villains you just have to hate!

Overall, just a book that in some places was excellent and in some places wasn't great. I'll give it a 6.5 out of 10.

[Mayuri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still such good plot lines. Still such a terrible heroine.

[Kelci | Steeped in Stories · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You cannot wait on destiny: it comes to you, usually when you are least ready for it."

"Moment to moment, life is unsure - you can't live in fear of it."

"After a lifetime of such soldiering, two kinds of men remain - those that are grateful to have survived the experience, and those that are grateful the experience survives."

I didn't go into the 4th book in the the Rhapsody series with high expectations, but I ended up enjoying this tremendously.

I don't feel that I can talk about this book too much without giving anything away from the previous three, but I will say that this one felt as exciting as the third book did to me. There was lots of action and evil hiding in plain sight - I was gasping about 50% of the time. And of course Rhapsody and Ash <3 I can't wait to read the next one!

[JB Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

That ending...Phew!

And I have never internally cheered so much at a beheading before!

[Michael Szilagyi · Rating 5 out of 5]

... I have words for a friend of mine

[Jeremy Preacher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Man, I didn't care about the Waste of Breath in the first book, and I sure as shit don't care about him now. His motivations are completely and utterly uninteresting - not baffling, I'm totally willing to believe he's not very bright and thinks entirely with his dick; I've certainly met enough men like that, including in positions of power. They're just *boring*. I don't care how good Rhapsody is in bed, and I don't believe him anyway.

Rhapsody also gets entirely sidelined throughout the book - she spends most of it hiding in a cave - and while I actually enjoy Achmed and Ashe more, most of the time, it means *the entire book* is about self-involved sexist douchebags, and that's not my favorite way to spend my time. There's also just flat not enough story to make this book move - the entire Lightcatcher sequence is a short story at best, padded out with a metric ton of worldbuilding, because that's how this series rolls. I like the worldbuilding, I really do, but it needs to be in service to the story, and it's not and never has been.

[tiailds · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main problem I had with this book is Esten. I couldn't believe the way she acted, what she did, or what she got away with. No one that acts like that would be able to run an organization for long. Even if her followers couldn't kill her, no one would work for her.

[Melissa Forehand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as good as the first 3 books but still a good read.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the third installment I will agree with many that this series could have ended right there and that would have been just fine. On the surface there is literally no need to write another book and continue this story. It's like you don't really ask for it, but hey! You are generally curious about what would happen if...

So up front I feel the ending was rushed, that this book, unlike the three that came before it, really sidelined some main characters and forces the reader to get to know some new supporting characters instead. I will not spoil the plot but the past never seems to just go away like the island that fell to the waves years ago did in this book timeline.

Still you'll probably notice that I still give this a 4 star out of 5, because I still enjoyed it. Overall the themes are good, the same characters I've come to love are still there domaining every scene they are involved in. The humor is well placed and the world has expanded greatly, it's like you become invested in the world, not just the plot.

Continue the story, totally worth it.

[Amber · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book until about chapter 7 was painful to read, and even a few spots after that. Waaaay too much detail and very little interesting character communication to break it up. I read a whole chapter and quite frankly couldn’t remember what I read and had to restart. Just too much in general. Still hate Ashe, he was fine in book one and some of book 2 but he’s just steadily devolved. Love Achmed and Grunthor but as always I’m left wanting more, because the view just keeps flipping all over the place, despite half the time it’s all loads of description and no interactions or real dialogue. The book picked up a bit and got a bit easier to read, but man do I dislike Rhapsody, it’s hard to like her. Glad they scaled her back, but should have scaled back Ashe too. Way less recapping and detail, it’s overly saturated with it and it’s either because the author used it as filler to get more pages or just really loves to lose her readers.

[Marianne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book without having read the prior 3. I felt the author provided enough context to understand the story. Magic created through music, people with unending life from an ancient fallen civilization. Mixed bloodlines causing interesting abilities and powers. It has interesting things, but...

I almost cared for this book. I felt like there were interesting things that happened before, but somehow now all the characters are powerful, and everything affecting them is ridiculously over-the-top. The characters at this point felt like caricatures of what they should be.

I kind of wanted to know where things were going, so I read on to the next one, which really wasn't worth it.

[Lee Bartholomew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd give it a 5/5 but one problem 1/2 the book never catches it's timing. Bit pointless just before it hits half then one is hooked. Took me 2 weeks to get to the middle less than a week to finish it. No real romance in this one save the one for Meridian . Even that doesn't come close to Books 2 and 3 of the first Trilogy. In this case Rhapsody really needs more help . In the others she's always had help and accepted it. This one She didn't know.. Ignoring all the sexist names reviews have come up with. Clearly the books I've read isn't what they are referring to. Nevermind it's still a sexist phrase..

[Mandy PS · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuing my Symphony of Ages re-read, I had very little recollection of this book. Definitely a middle book? Certainly not clear what the end game of this series is yet, but I enjoyed spending more time with these characters.

[Elle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little boring, and suffering from many of the weaknesses of prior books. I strongly believe none of the subsequent novels will ever come close to the first, which is such a strong piece of fantasy writing. As ever, strong plot, poor execution.

[Marsha Valance · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rhapsody, captive of a demon-ridden obsessed former lover, plots to save her own life and that of her unborn child.

[Anita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tochter der Zeit kann leider nicht mehr mit den ersten drei Bänden mithalten, ist aber immer noch gut zu lesen und war günstig zu haben

[Diane Krogstie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a great series! So excited to see how it gets tied up! It is great to see how unlikely people work together for the common good!

[LeAndra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this series and knowing more and more about the land. It did feel like there were attacks from every side in this one, not just one antagonist.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. In my opinion, the best so far, and at the very least, as good as the first book.

[Skurth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solid, fast listen.

[Megan]

DNS 4/12/2025

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am so happy to be back in this universe <3

[Rhyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the whole series, but I started with this book.

It made one terrible introduction.

There was this guy talking with some people. I thought there were ten guys in the room, Guy #1, Guy #2, the bolg, the bolg king, Achmed, the Dhracian, the Dhracian king, the firbolg, and the firbolg king. Guy #1 and #2 leave. Then it was just Achmed in the room. It took me two pages to figure out that the bolg, the bolg king, Achmed, the Dhracian, the Dhracian king, the firbolg, and the firbolg king were all the same person.

Wheeh.

I eventually pieced it together. The author uses bolg and firbolg interchangeably for some unknown reason. Achmed is half Dhracian and half bolg. He also became a king somewhere along the way. So once I had that sorted out, the story flowed better.

There was some woman named Rhapsody. I didn't like her. She was too melodramatic. But then she spent the remainder of the book stuck in a cave, so it wasn't too bad.

Same with Ashe, though he was tolerable. Achmed, for the whole book, was like, "I'm big, I'm bad, I'm tough, and whoopsie, I just let the bad guy into my castle. Tee hee." So that left me scratching my head, because he seemed to be capable of making basic life decisions. But then he invited the villain into his castle, told his subjects to let her do whatever she wanted, and then left, leaving her free to murder the entire population of said castle. And for being such a tough, capable character, he sure spent a lot of time drowning.

After reading the first three books, the fourth made more sense, and yes, Achmed spent the first three books being over-qualified. And it turns out, the author needed him to overdose on stupid pills, because otherwise, the book would have been a third shorter. And his inability to deal with large amounts of water was addressed in the earlier books.

[Aelvana · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the three years following the Moot, life has settled back into something approaching normal. Achmed and Grunthor are shaping the Bolg into a nation and rebuilding Ylorc, Rhapsody and Ashe have moved to Stephen Nanarve's estate to look after the young Gwydion and his sister, and even nations seem to be letting out a long breath as the F'dor's acts of violence fade from memory. But not all memories sleep quietly. The shadows of the Past have broken into the Present, once again imperiling the Future.

One of my favorite aspects of this series continues to be the rich depth of the world. The histories of landmarks, nations, and continents continues to be every bit as detailed as the histories of characters. So much of the past shapes the present, from old friendships to old feuds; so much lore is present in pieces here and there, the different perspectives on the same events.

The characters, too, continue to surprise. Achmed, for all his skills, isn't above making mistakes. Ashe, for all his power, finds many things beyond his abilities. Particularly memorable was his comment to Achmed that in the end, all they really are is men: none of their powers or abilities put them beyond that.

Overall this is a solid follow-up to the first trilogy; the enemy isn't quite as ferocious, but is much more personal. I loved the different way revealed to kill the F'dor, as well as the fact that neither Ashe nor Achmed were able to use it. It will be worth reading the next book if only to see Achmed's reaction to finally getting home. I rate this book Recommended.

[bookwormmama · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm having trouble deciding how to rate this one. 3.5 stars, I suppose. I have a couple complaints this time. First, I do not like the return of dead or otherwise finished characters. It's frustrating, anticlimatic, and lacks creativity. And second, there is a definite lurch in the writing to include darker things. I have little patience or tolerance for torture and depravity. While the particular purveyor of these over-detailed, gruesome, and nauseating evil acts hopefully will not reappear again, this more than anything else makes me question reading on. I love the fantasy genre, but have no interest whatsoever in horror.

I believe I've named Achmed my favorite already. Anborn is also still up there and Grunthor performs a rather stealthy and graceful decapitation. Ashe and Rhapsody are too busy to be apologizing all the time or to be too perfect to be believable; what a relief. My other new favorite is young Gwydion. He is the only character referred to by both first and last name every time, though. So many other ways to indicate which one is being referred to, but it seems it's not to be. Despite that, he was great the whole time and had a great, man-making moment himself.

As always, the story came to a good conclusion with more story still to tell. The setup has been made for a future villain and political drama, and there's even another is-he-actually-gone character I'm wondering whether we'll see again.

[Gaijinmama · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is fantasy at its best.
Dragons, humor, adventure, magic, all the good stuff.
Rhapsody, our butt-kicking protagonist, gets to deal with the challenges of fighting off the Stalker From Hell (and I kinda mean that literally) while also fighting off the worst case of morning sickness you've ever heard of.
Her nonhuman best buddies, Achmed and Grunthor, are a wonderful snarky mix of Monty Python and Hugh Laurie's Dr. House. We also get the pleasure of becoming better acquainted with Esten, one of those utterly dark and evil ladies we just love to hate.

Another wonderful aspect of this story is that Haydon tells us even more about dragons. Rhapsody's Dragon Dude has the ultimate in birth control. He cannot procreate until he makes a conscious decision to do so. When he does, their happily-married love scene is one of the most romantic passages I've read in a very long time.
On the down side, he also informs Rhapsody that her pregnancy with their part-dragon child could last as long as three years. Having had a few bouts of morning sickness myself, that bit truly made me wince.

This book is the fourth in Haydon's Symphony of Ages.
It would certainly be possible to start the series here, as Haydon is very good about reminding readers of important details that came before, but I recommend reading the first three (Rhapsody, Prophecy, and Destiny).

[Chelsea Hardwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's odd to return to a world after a neatly packaged trilogy is finished, but Haydon does a good job. There's the usual bit of regurgitating characterization and past we already know, but this was ancient ancient past and it defintely helped to get a little more perspective.

I liked the sense of a mystery that she built-in with the main villain. Readers of course remembers Michael, the Wind of Death, from Rhapsody's far back past. I really enjoyed getting to learn more of the demonic host relationship. And Faron, that creature was disturbingly fascinating. Remember to read your prophecies, people!

Also, we to get into more of the politics of the world and how it can develop in future books. The Sorbold Scales were really interesting, as was learning more about the Living Earth that we'd heard about before. Back in Ylorc, Omet was an interesting character, very quiet courage, and Grunthor definitely got to have more screen time. The book almost feels like two novellas fused together (the section headings reinforce that). Like, Yarim and post-Yarim stories.

Anborn is always really entertaininh as was young Gwydion, but Grunthor is always a breath of ferocious fresh air. Lastly, I just loved getting to see Ashe and Achmed together--the reluctant anti-friends having to work together was really really fun. As was what they discovered along the way.

[Benedict · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed feelings about this book. This felt like a weaker showing after the original trilogy. The characters seem to have flattened a bit into plot-driving heroes and villains. And while the first trilogy was, well, novel, the second takes a while getting going. There are a few things that I didn't need from the new villain's plotline, sadly expectable as they were.

What remains good is the magical system. The elementally-based magical history of the world remains interesting, and seeing a few new powers and layers come out of that is worthwhile. It seems like it'd be fun to run a tabletop RPG in this world. I've continued on in the series and found it worthwhile as a bedtime read, but I'll probably look for something with more character depth next.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars
Rhapsody and Ashe decide to have a child which sounds great but the process turns out to be terrible. She's hit by almost immediate morning sickness(within hours of conception) and she decides she needs to go visit with Elynsonos as she is the only other being that has carried a mixed race dragon baby. Unknown to her is that a man from her past has learned she is still alive and is coming for her, a man she's believed dead since coming to this new world, but he has become the host of a F'dor but in a new and strange way.
I like that this trilogy is a lot quicker paced that the first trilogy was, you can see the author refined her skills between story arc's but we still getting to spend time with old characters while getting to know a few new ones as well.