Hey, this was not bad, but for an ending, it felt weak in my opinion, and if this may be something that may offend you, don’t read on, or simply don’t get offended.
Some of the issues that I had were some inconsistencies, and even how boring the middle part was. I found that some of the things that I really enjoyed about it was kept to a minimum, while some things that were boring for a book that I hoped was going to be a brilliant finale were prominent in this novel.
The first thing is that they are in the ether for way to long and while I completely understand how desperate they are to get back, you do not need to spend one hundred and fifty pages there, all based off a cliffhanger from the previous book, when you except it to be solved quickly. Furthermore, despite the fact that Fletcher’s mum is there with them the entire time, she is only mentioned briefly at odd intervals, as if she doesn’t exist half the time, and in the end, she did not play a crucial part in any way but for Fletcher’s emotions.
From this, there are also issues with the world building in how inconsistent it is. When they were at the Pyramid in book two, it is mentioned that they are 100 miles(or 160 kilometres as I prefer it) inside enemy territory. In this book, it says that Raleighshire in only a day’s walk from Corcillum, which if you look at the map, is actually further. Unless everyone can walk 160 odd kilometres in a day, it is quite a major thing that keeps occurring. Another example is how it is only forty minutes away from Raleighshire to the mountains, of which going by the previous numbers of a day’s walk, it should at least take well over an hour.
Then, we have Didric which comes in with 60 soldiers, which ok, gives the impression of a low population, especially the mention of only a few hundred dwarves recruits far enough, and yet, at the final battle, tens of thousands of Hominum soldiers littered the ground? WHAT? Statistically and logistically, much of the book does not make any sense, and there is really no excuse for errors, or rather inconsistencies like these unless the world is not given much thought, or that the author was too lazy to one, get a proper proportionate map made, or that he couldn’t be stuffed in writing a consistent story.
Generally, when authors give mention to all out war in the blurb, you expect all out war, a epic grand finale that drags on and on, back and forth, with the stakes rising higher and higher, and while yes, the stakes were high, the big all out war was started and resolved in about fifty pages and much of the ‘fighting’ was over in a few descriptions. Then there was the thirty eight things holding out against thousands again and again, which okay, considering they have had only a month’s training and are absolute raw recruits, high unlikely.
I did enjoy Sylva and Fletcher’s romance, but even in the end, a short kiss and a promise is not a whole lot, considering that this is meant to be YA, and it was not all that satisfying. The action was overall ok, for YA standards and I found that when major characters died, I could not care at all, which generally means I was not that invested in the series.
It was quite a disappointment, and while there were some things that were done well, it, for the most part felt very average and the constant inconsistencies really bothered me. 6/10