The Ancient Legacy

The Fifth Ring #3

by Mitchell Graham

The long-awaited conclusion to the epic tale of Mathew Lewin, a young man who is chosen for a remarkable destiny, in this final exciting installment from Mitchell Graham.

It has been three years since we've last seen Mathew Lewin, who has been hiding incognito for the past few years in his long quest to infiltrate Teanna's palace and retrieve the ring. Now Mat finally has a chance to get close to Teanna and the ring, as an opportunity to become a fencing instructor in the Nyngary Royal Guard presents itself. But there is much danger in the world. The Orlocks are a rising threat -- now living above ground in total control of a third of Elgaria, they plan to divide between themselves the surviving countries in their quest to annihiliate all of humanity.

Even with her ring Teanna knows she can't fight the coming battle alone and a strange alliance forms between her and Mathew as they team up with their allies, the Zargoth and Coribar, in the ultimate battle between humans and Orlocks.

Genres: Fantasy

528 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Mitchell Gross is an American writer and convicted con man, writing under the pen name Mitchell Graham. Gross has written two fantasy series and several mystery novels.

Preceding the publication of those novels, Graham ran a fictional writing contest called the "Delmont-Ross Writing Contest". The Writer Beware website run by the SFWA investigated that contest, and . Gross has made similar claims of a history as a world-class fencer and a movie project with Steven Spielberg for which no evidence can be found.

Gross was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison in 2012 for defrauding two women and one couple of more than $6.5 million.

Series:
* The Fifth Ring
* Katherine Adams Mystery

Reviews

[Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

This series could have been fantastic. The story and plot were so interesting and engaging that it may have been a 5-star series.

But the books are written as though completed on a deadline. There are dozens of grammatical and spelling errors that give the impression of an unedited book. I really wish more time had been dedicated to cleaning up the story and going further into detail to build these characters, because it truly was an interesting book! But these can’t be overlooked for me (especially so many written errors), so 2 stars it is.

[Nick Ligthelm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ive been looking to finish this trilogy for 3 years but could find the books nowhere. The last book does leave you a bit hanging to be honest. But overall Im glad I read it and it was an amusing adventure

[Allan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the conclusion to the tale of Mathew Lewin, who has been in hiding for about four years and presumed dead by all those who cared for him. Having lost his rose gold ring, his connection to the ancient machine beneath the earth, his focus has been on trying to get close enough to retrieve it from the murderous Teanna D'Elso.

Politics have moved on in his absence and his homeland has been overtaken and renamed and the loathsome Orlocks are now on the rise, planning to annihilate all of mankind.

I read the first two books in this series about 10 years ago and enjoyed the read but only managed to get hold of a copy of this final volume recently so I was looking forward to reading it. On delving into this one, it pretty much carried on in much the same vein with a fair bit of action and lots of political and even some outright backstabbing.

Sure the author blatently steals ideas from the movie Forbidden Planet and The Time Machine by H. G. Wells and is currently serving 12 and a half years in prison for perpetrating a couple of frauds but the tale is well crafted and the characters reasonably well developed.

All of that said, I felt somewhat disappointed with the ending and, without giving anything away, it sort of fell flat and felt unfinished, almost as if the author got fed up with it and wanted it over with. A pity as it had been a decent read up till then.

[Loekie J]

it good

[Susan Tietjen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was disappointed. I'd lost contact with this series and didn't realize the final book had been published. I just couldn't connect with the characters and felt the plot was kind of stale.