The final book of the epic fantasy series, "The Chronicle of Hawklan". The dark lord Sumeral is dead -- His mortal body destroyed and His will scattered some sixteen or so years ago. Now, travellers sent to learn more of the world beyond Orthlund, Fyorlund and Riddin are returning. They bring with them people in need of help and with disturbing tales to tell -- Antyr, the Dream Finder; Farnor, to whom the great forest can speak; Vredech, the once preaching brother; Pinnatte, victim of a fearful experiment by the Kyrosdyn; and Thyrn, the Caddoran. Their disparate stories come together to yield a terrifying revelation -- somewhere, Sumeral is whole again and struggling to return. But other, even darker threads are being drawn together. Andawyr and the Cadwanol, in their relentless search for truth, have touched on a threat to their world more terrible than Sumeral. More terrible by far...
Roger Taylor was born in Heywood, Lancashire, and now lives in the Wirral. He is a chartered civil and structural engineer, a pistol, rifle and shotgun shooter, instructor/student in aikido, and an enthusiastic and loud but bone-jarringly inaccurate piano player.
He wrote four books between 1983 and 1986 and built up a handsome rejection file before the third was accepted by Headline to become the first two books of the Chronicles of Hawklan.
After the nonsense of the last 100 pages of "Into Narsindal" my expectation on the series were quite low. I decided to skip the 7 standalone books that provide some setup for "The Return of the Sword" and go straight into it. It's actually a quite satisfying conclusion to the series, despite some tendency by the author to faff around in meaningless discussions and the rush the finale. Even so, this felt not as rushed as the conclusion of the 4th book, and it felt somehow nicely wrapped. I was somehow surprised by the very last two pages but won't spoil that!!
The final book in the Chronicles of Hawklan, this does very well at bringing all the seemingly disparate storylines together and wrapping it all up - with a bow. 🎀 Excellent work Mr Taylor. Very well done.