What do you think?
Rate this book
The Godless World #3
Fall of Thanes
The True Bloods are in disarray, their alliance crumbling and their armies humbled by the forces of the Black Road. Aeglyss, falling ever deeper into madness, casts a shadow across all. At the court of the High Thane, Anyara faces a savage struggle for survival against the na'kyrim 's possessed Mordyn Jerain, the Shadowhand.
In the Glas Valley, Kanin, the embittered Horin-Gyre Thane, plots a desperate rising against the halfbreed. But ultimately it will be Orisian, Thane of a Blood that no longer exists, who must stand face to face with a darkly transcendent Aeglyss and make the sacrifice - of himself and others - required to end the threat he represents.
FALL OF THANES is the spectacular conclusion to the Godless World trilogy, a sweeping epic of war, politics and empire.
In the Glas Valley, Kanin, the embittered Horin-Gyre Thane, plots a desperate rising against the halfbreed. But ultimately it will be Orisian, Thane of a Blood that no longer exists, who must stand face to face with a darkly transcendent Aeglyss and make the sacrifice - of himself and others - required to end the threat he represents.
FALL OF THANES is the spectacular conclusion to the Godless World trilogy, a sweeping epic of war, politics and empire.
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
16 people are currently reading
750 people want to read
About the author
Brian Ruckley
112 books169 followersI was born and brought up in Edinburgh. After studying at Edinburgh and Stirling Universities, and after a good deal of displacement activity (varying from spending three months in the rainforests of Borneo trying to record the dawn chorus of gibbons to briefly working in a tea warehouse / factory), I moved to England to enter the world of full-time employment.
As much by luck as judgement, I had a series of on the whole enjoyable and interesting jobs, mostly based in London. All of them save one have been in the charity sector, and at various times they have involved extensive overseas travel, environmental and community projects, nature conservation and fundraising.
Writing was a big feature of my childhood, and has ebbed and flowed as a spare-time occupation ever since. I sold a couple of short stories in the 1990s, but didn’t really start thinking seriously about writing novels until the 21st Century had got underway.
At the start of 2003, I turned myself into a freelance consultant on environmental projects, partly in order to devote more time to writing; since then, the writing side of things has taken over almost completely.
I am now back in Edinburgh, where I live with my lovely wife, and miss the excitement of London only a little, and only occasionally.
As much by luck as judgement, I had a series of on the whole enjoyable and interesting jobs, mostly based in London. All of them save one have been in the charity sector, and at various times they have involved extensive overseas travel, environmental and community projects, nature conservation and fundraising.
Writing was a big feature of my childhood, and has ebbed and flowed as a spare-time occupation ever since. I sold a couple of short stories in the 1990s, but didn’t really start thinking seriously about writing novels until the 21st Century had got underway.
At the start of 2003, I turned myself into a freelance consultant on environmental projects, partly in order to devote more time to writing; since then, the writing side of things has taken over almost completely.
I am now back in Edinburgh, where I live with my lovely wife, and miss the excitement of London only a little, and only occasionally.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
September 17, 2009
Continuation of what Bloodheir started - the real threat to the world, aka one crazy magician. Oh please. I hoped so much that it wouldn't end that way, that we would get a huge conventional war sprinkled with sparkling supernatural tricks, not a dude wiping away armies with his equivalent of psychic fireball. The whole book is basically documentation of progressing madness, incompetent idiots, more madness, gore and disgusting stuff, boring travels of small group of protagonists, destroying characters, madness, etc.
OK, I have to admit that you don't get that kind of book often. I mean the one that deals with madness on such huge scale. At least in fantasy - majority of plot thingies used in Fall of Thanes I've already seen in horror novels. I have to admit that I am biased - I wanted realistic fantasy, not evil wizard vs Muggle world. It's a shame that characters deteriorated into flat versions of themselves, with only couple of exceptions. It's very, very bad that the conclusion of the book leaves the world with a ton of political issues that would be really fun to see resolved.
Basically, I don't like the whole idea behind the climax of the series. I caught myself skipping chunks of text in second half of the book - I was really not interested in prolonged descriptions of madness enveloping everybody and the world. The beginning of the series was very promising, but it ended up being a disappointment.
OK, I have to admit that you don't get that kind of book often. I mean the one that deals with madness on such huge scale. At least in fantasy - majority of plot thingies used in Fall of Thanes I've already seen in horror novels. I have to admit that I am biased - I wanted realistic fantasy, not evil wizard vs Muggle world. It's a shame that characters deteriorated into flat versions of themselves, with only couple of exceptions. It's very, very bad that the conclusion of the book leaves the world with a ton of political issues that would be really fun to see resolved.
Basically, I don't like the whole idea behind the climax of the series. I caught myself skipping chunks of text in second half of the book - I was really not interested in prolonged descriptions of madness enveloping everybody and the world. The beginning of the series was very promising, but it ended up being a disappointment.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 24, 2017
What an excellent series !
Review for all 3 books soon to come !
Review for all 3 books soon to come !
September 5, 2010
At the end of the third book I cried...I actually cried! Never in my life has a book brought forth tears to my eyes before. This was a heartbreaking, gut wrenching story. I thought I new what was happening, I always know what's happening, but Brian Ruckley kept me in the dark the whole time. And don't berate me, I know the title of this book speaks a thousand words, but for me you see...books are an easy read, not merely to be able to sit down and read words, but to guess the outcome before it happens. In some respect, books can be very predictable. However, The Godless World Trilogy changed that for me. There were many, many times that I thought I knew what waited ahead for me in the pages to come only to have that rug pulled right out from underneath me. It was wonderful! The Godless World Trilogy is a fantastic read. This is a keeper for my bookshelf and it begs to be read again.
April 1, 2010
An excellent finish to the series. The momentum kept biulding till the very end. It was definitely noticeable that Ruckley's writing abilities improved heavily from the start till the end of the series.
This third and final book of the trilogy was by far the bset and I was completely satisfied with the ending (although a little sad)
This third and final book of the trilogy was by far the bset and I was completely satisfied with the ending (although a little sad)
Read
August 29, 20257 out of 10 for the series overall.
According to GoodReads, I read the first two books in the Godless World trilogy about a decade ago. At the time, the third book hadn’t come out so, while I wanted to finish it, the series slipped from my mind & it’s only recently that it appeared on my radar again. Being at loose ends reading-wise, I decided I’d remedy the situation.
I was a bit surprised at my lukewarm review of the first book since I remember liking it more, but I can see why I wrote what I did as I plowed through Winterbirth and Bloodheir. Fortunately, Ruckley becomes a better writer in each book, and I did become invested in the characters’ fates.
Around a 1,000 years ago, the gods supposedly abandoned the world because of their creations’ sins. In this godless world, three races remain from the five originally created: Huanin (humans), Kyrinin and the Anain (a chthonic race of elementals who everyone else does what they can not to disturb lest they act – an event that always ends badly for everyone else). The Kyrinin are not elves though they have a greater affinity to nature than humans. Nor is there much magic in the world. In fact, neither humans nor Kyrinin have access to any magic power. The only people who do are human-Kyrinin hybrids called the na’kyrim, and they are despised outcasts who largely live in isolated refuges. They are able to access the Shared, a transcendent plane that reminded me a bit of the Force – an interpenetrating field that binds all life.
There are two stories here that are closely connected. In the first story, a religious war among the humans reaches a critical junction, when one creed (the Black Road) achieves surprise and launches a final crusade against their foes (the True Bloods). The second story revolves around a renegade na’kyrim, Aeglyss, who was instrumental in facilitating the Black Road’s crusade but is abandoned by them. He is also abandoned by his Kyrinin kin who crucify him. Rather than killing him, however, the torture allows Aeglyss to take control of the Shared. There his rage, anger and pain literally begin to poison everyone’s minds. Fate makes Orisian, a survivor of the early Black Road massacres, the only person who has a chance of defeating Aeglyss and the trilogy is, at its core, the story of his efforts to do so.
I would recommend the series. Its greatest strength is Ruckley’s ability to create a sense of mounting futility and horror as everyone becomes increasingly irrational as Aeglyss’s psychosis becomes deeper. The one false note in the narrative, unfortunately, is Orisian’s sister, Anyara. It’s not that she’s a weak character or has no agency; it’s that her part in the story is superfluous. You could remove her from the narrative and nothing would be affected. Ruckley missed an opportunity not making her more integral to the plot.
According to GoodReads, I read the first two books in the Godless World trilogy about a decade ago. At the time, the third book hadn’t come out so, while I wanted to finish it, the series slipped from my mind & it’s only recently that it appeared on my radar again. Being at loose ends reading-wise, I decided I’d remedy the situation.
I was a bit surprised at my lukewarm review of the first book since I remember liking it more, but I can see why I wrote what I did as I plowed through Winterbirth and Bloodheir. Fortunately, Ruckley becomes a better writer in each book, and I did become invested in the characters’ fates.
Around a 1,000 years ago, the gods supposedly abandoned the world because of their creations’ sins. In this godless world, three races remain from the five originally created: Huanin (humans), Kyrinin and the Anain (a chthonic race of elementals who everyone else does what they can not to disturb lest they act – an event that always ends badly for everyone else). The Kyrinin are not elves though they have a greater affinity to nature than humans. Nor is there much magic in the world. In fact, neither humans nor Kyrinin have access to any magic power. The only people who do are human-Kyrinin hybrids called the na’kyrim, and they are despised outcasts who largely live in isolated refuges. They are able to access the Shared, a transcendent plane that reminded me a bit of the Force – an interpenetrating field that binds all life.
There are two stories here that are closely connected. In the first story, a religious war among the humans reaches a critical junction, when one creed (the Black Road) achieves surprise and launches a final crusade against their foes (the True Bloods). The second story revolves around a renegade na’kyrim, Aeglyss, who was instrumental in facilitating the Black Road’s crusade but is abandoned by them. He is also abandoned by his Kyrinin kin who crucify him. Rather than killing him, however, the torture allows Aeglyss to take control of the Shared. There his rage, anger and pain literally begin to poison everyone’s minds. Fate makes Orisian, a survivor of the early Black Road massacres, the only person who has a chance of defeating Aeglyss and the trilogy is, at its core, the story of his efforts to do so.
I would recommend the series. Its greatest strength is Ruckley’s ability to create a sense of mounting futility and horror as everyone becomes increasingly irrational as Aeglyss’s psychosis becomes deeper. The one false note in the narrative, unfortunately, is Orisian’s sister, Anyara. It’s not that she’s a weak character or has no agency; it’s that her part in the story is superfluous. You could remove her from the narrative and nothing would be affected. Ruckley missed an opportunity not making her more integral to the plot.
December 10, 2012
It is a world of ice, it is a world of blood, it is a Godless world…the most magnificent conclusion to an epic trilogy!!!
The third and final installment within the Godless world brings this epic tale to its end (*sobbing!*), as blood is split upon a sheet of frozen ice which sends shivers down your spine. The tension has built up to a most dramatic climax that ended with book 2 on a nail-biting cliffhanger, hence I could not wait to devour ‘fall of thanes’ in one three and a half hour long sitting…I was left exhausted. This has to be the most intense and stunning conclusion ever which certainly surpassed all expectations and which really is a great testimony to Brian Ruckley’s talent as a writer. Full of suspense, drama and bloodcurdling moments this really was a tale to get lost within and which brings great battle scenes to life before your very eyes.
The tension has risen between the clans of the Black Road and the True bloods, as each side of this never-ending conflict becomes even more concentrated by internal dissent and disunity. Aeglyss the na’kyrim continues to spread chaos across this changed world, exerting his dangerous, insidious influence over the events of both near and far. As events mount to their ultimate climax the world begins to change, as no side is able to anticipate the twisted pattern of what lies ahead…
Brian Ruckley gives this epic saga breath and his characters such strong emotions of hatred, revenge and determination as to even challenge the might of the `War of the Roses' or `the Templar Knights'. Winterbirth book 1(which has to be the greatest heroic fantasy novel I have EVER encountered) is followed by Bloodheir, and similarly they both blow you away with such authenticity, dramatic twists & turns as to freeze your inner soul so that you become indifferent to all other works within this genre - for a moment in time that I will re-live time and time again! The intriguing and imaginative story is so distinctive that you cannot compare it to any other work nor the writing style to any other author, for Brian Ruckley is so unique and a true master of his craft. Complete with detailed maps of the lands of Kilkry-Haig blood, the Glas valley and surrounds and the Haig bloods this really is a book that contains such depth and fantastic world-building that is unmatched.
Just an outstanding, unforgettable end to a trilogy that is truly astonishing and remarkable, being an imaginative creation that is so gripping and absorbing…I urge you to read this if you love fantasy genre, sword & sorcery and fiction with brutal battle scenes that are realistic, graphic and gory!
The third and final installment within the Godless world brings this epic tale to its end (*sobbing!*), as blood is split upon a sheet of frozen ice which sends shivers down your spine. The tension has built up to a most dramatic climax that ended with book 2 on a nail-biting cliffhanger, hence I could not wait to devour ‘fall of thanes’ in one three and a half hour long sitting…I was left exhausted. This has to be the most intense and stunning conclusion ever which certainly surpassed all expectations and which really is a great testimony to Brian Ruckley’s talent as a writer. Full of suspense, drama and bloodcurdling moments this really was a tale to get lost within and which brings great battle scenes to life before your very eyes.
The tension has risen between the clans of the Black Road and the True bloods, as each side of this never-ending conflict becomes even more concentrated by internal dissent and disunity. Aeglyss the na’kyrim continues to spread chaos across this changed world, exerting his dangerous, insidious influence over the events of both near and far. As events mount to their ultimate climax the world begins to change, as no side is able to anticipate the twisted pattern of what lies ahead…
Brian Ruckley gives this epic saga breath and his characters such strong emotions of hatred, revenge and determination as to even challenge the might of the `War of the Roses' or `the Templar Knights'. Winterbirth book 1(which has to be the greatest heroic fantasy novel I have EVER encountered) is followed by Bloodheir, and similarly they both blow you away with such authenticity, dramatic twists & turns as to freeze your inner soul so that you become indifferent to all other works within this genre - for a moment in time that I will re-live time and time again! The intriguing and imaginative story is so distinctive that you cannot compare it to any other work nor the writing style to any other author, for Brian Ruckley is so unique and a true master of his craft. Complete with detailed maps of the lands of Kilkry-Haig blood, the Glas valley and surrounds and the Haig bloods this really is a book that contains such depth and fantastic world-building that is unmatched.
Just an outstanding, unforgettable end to a trilogy that is truly astonishing and remarkable, being an imaginative creation that is so gripping and absorbing…I urge you to read this if you love fantasy genre, sword & sorcery and fiction with brutal battle scenes that are realistic, graphic and gory!
April 11, 2010
I wanted to like this book, this series, I really did. The premise of a world changing and shifting and throwing old hierarchies over for new ones with a dash of crazy psychic overlay is pretty interesting. Also, Ruckley's prose is usually pretty good, very flowing and poetic, almost (although there are several moments of grammatical slip-ups, but hey, the editor should have caught that). However, I just couldn't get over how DAMNED DEPRESSING this whole ride was. Book three is where things wrap up, where the sun shines on a newly rescued world and some semblance of hope is created that these characters will continue, right? Wrong. I mean, not totally wrong, because there are those couple of wrap-up pages where the survivors look toward the West or whatever, but most of the book is more loss, more death, and more hopelessness. I stopped getting attached to characters because I knew they would die, and books are no fun to me if I can't get attached to the characters. I felt nothing for them because my capacity to care about them was hollowed out. Everyone died, the world was left in a sucky place for at least a decade afterward, and I felt tired when I finished. On the one hand, that says great things about Ruckley's impact and writing skill, but it just wasn't worth it. The real world is dark enough without adding such a bleak fictional side.
May 3, 2009
Series are hard to finish well and this book shows why; characters become one dimensional stereotypes and only Kanin of all people retains a more nuanced personality; especially disappointed in Aeglyss becoming the ultimate evil overlord-to-be and Osirian becoming the mad hero on a mission at all costs.
I hope it's just me having a bad reading day and others enjoy the book more since I truly loved the first two books
July 30, 2012
Wow. I must say I wasn't expecting this book to be so good. The first and second books in this trilogy were slightly above-average epic fantasies, but in this one Ruckley did a great job of taking all the generic standards present in the first two and sending them down the rabbit hole. The whole book has a weird "Heart of Darkness" vibe to it as our stalwart companions travel closer and closer to the source of madness plaguing the land. Surprisingly good.
July 29, 2012
When I first started this trilogy, I didn't honestly think it was going to be as good as it was. I've cried so much throughout Fall of Thanes, more than I would have thought possible. Brian Ruckley ties up every loose tendril in the final installation of The Godless World. I'd love to talk about the amazing story he has written but I don't want to ruin it for anyone. All I can say is yes, it's a little slow at some parts but it's worth sticking it out until the end.
June 17, 2013
When I read, the author does not have to be a wizard with words as long as the story is sound. Sometimes i come across an author who has such prose that it takes me in to his world. I am one with the characters. Brian Ruckley is the sort of author whose narrative is dark, gritty, and yet somehow poetic in its delivery. And the story was well told full of vivid characters and a unique sense of magic. I look forward to more of his offerings.
May 30, 2010
A really fantastic finale for the trilogy. Everything fits together so well. Instead of the ending being completely finished, it leaves plenty of room for your imagination to keep the story going. This could have been one of those eternal series that just keeps going on forever but I respect Mr. Ruckley for doing it his way.
September 30, 2012
A brilliant ending to a magnificent Trilogy, whose final chapter and epilogue is just absolutely beautifully written. I love how Brian Ruckley really successfully showed what it was like to be inside the chaotic storm that is the Shared, and how the final struggle went the way it went. Brilliant. Just absolutely brilliant.
August 15, 2011
Fantastic culmination to a great series, not all the pieces are neatly tied, but you are on stormy ride with the characters and their adventures. You really do feel as if you're backing all sides in this epic.
March 15, 2012
Slow for about 3/4 of the book with a little action here and there, but made up for it with a very good, and very sad ending. The ending was surprising too, not what I expected. You really become attached to Orisian...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 24, 2015
Great Series!! I wasn't sure what to expect when I first started Winterbirth but am very impressed with the way Brian Ruckley progressed through the story. I would recommend The Godless Series to any Fantasy Lover and I can't wait to dive into his next series!!
Read
June 20, 2009Spring09
June 20, 2009
I love the way this guy writes. This was an expectedly stark conclusion to the trilogy.
August 1, 2017
Great series with the best and most powerful Epilogue I've ever read.
Read
March 25, 2016I have to say I've loved reading the hole set and I wld recommend to any of my friends
May 19, 2017
good ending
December 12, 2019
Instantly forgettable.
I read books 1 and 3 in the series. After slogging through book 1, I was sure that there is a story in this series somewhere and I wanted to know how it ended. Book 1 started well enough, with the hero losing his family and his home. Then nothing significant happened to our hero. Concerned that book 2 would continue this trend of nothing interesting happening, I jumped to book 3, and nothing interesting happened. I think that our hero regained his home, but it's been 2 days since I finished the last page and I've forgotten the ending.
2 *s, because there are chapters that I found interesting, even if I could not tie the events to a larger picture. There is a lot of fighting described in great detail. This gets to be repetitively uninteresting and I found myself skipping the fight scenes until the winner is declared.
My other gripe is the names of the people and places. Name structures are too similar, such that I was continually referencing the index to figure out who or where I was reading about. In fact his style of writing is so convoluted, that it was possible to confuse names of places with names of people. The only character that stood out was our hero (Osirion). He had a distinct personality, whereas the most of the important characters, with similar names and similar personalities blended into the same person. As a result I found myself reading the parts concerning our hero and losing all interest in the rest of the cast.
I read books 1 and 3 in the series. After slogging through book 1, I was sure that there is a story in this series somewhere and I wanted to know how it ended. Book 1 started well enough, with the hero losing his family and his home. Then nothing significant happened to our hero. Concerned that book 2 would continue this trend of nothing interesting happening, I jumped to book 3, and nothing interesting happened. I think that our hero regained his home, but it's been 2 days since I finished the last page and I've forgotten the ending.
2 *s, because there are chapters that I found interesting, even if I could not tie the events to a larger picture. There is a lot of fighting described in great detail. This gets to be repetitively uninteresting and I found myself skipping the fight scenes until the winner is declared.
My other gripe is the names of the people and places. Name structures are too similar, such that I was continually referencing the index to figure out who or where I was reading about. In fact his style of writing is so convoluted, that it was possible to confuse names of places with names of people. The only character that stood out was our hero (Osirion). He had a distinct personality, whereas the most of the important characters, with similar names and similar personalities blended into the same person. As a result I found myself reading the parts concerning our hero and losing all interest in the rest of the cast.
October 29, 2020
By far the best written of the trilogy, this book details the further deterioration of the world under the control of Aeglyss and his connection to the Shared. In fact, there are only pockets of near-sanity left in the world, and nobody is left unaffected, at least without a lot of mental effort. I liked the way the author took time to describe the people and their emotions, the places they visited, and was thankful that I was able to place them relatively easily, even though their names were still often confusing. The problem is that the ending doesn’t give us anything. We are right back where we started, except that there are fewer people now. There are no lessons learned from the experience, barely an improvement of relations for those who survived. I was wondering, as the pages dwindled away without a solution in sight, if the author was going to do something unexpected, like having Aeglyss be right, and the heroes wrong -could he have ushered in a new dawn to humanity in a new body? Instead, the ending, while poignant for what it does, feels unfinished. There are too many loose ends, but worse, the main issues of the first book are not resolved at all.
January 20, 2023
Man, what an ending... I read the complete trilogy. These drew me in from
bloodwinter thru bloodheir and finally, to fall of thanes. I was bawling like a baby by the end. Kanin got what I believe his due. Orisine should not have died. He and was one of the best characters I've seen in a long time. Orisine should have been with Ess'yr so they could have a life together.
bloodwinter thru bloodheir and finally, to fall of thanes. I was bawling like a baby by the end. Kanin got what I believe his due. Orisine should not have died. He and was one of the best characters I've seen in a long time. Orisine should have been with Ess'yr so they could have a life together.
August 22, 2017
Thus ends what might be my favorite Fantasy trilogy I've ever read. And it ends well! The raw broken emotions this story brings out is amazing. A dark and beautiful tragedy of a story. Loved it.
May 22, 2019
For something that offered such promise it was a truly flat ending to a complicated story. The family names, the locations, you were expecting something with purpose and instead left with meh. Shame.
November 4, 2021
Depressing!
December 6, 2023
cote 2.2
November 5, 2024
Omg what started as an ok series devolved into sheer boredom. Did not finish.
February 17, 2015
Thus far, Brian Ruckley's ''Godless World'' trilogy has been a little slow moving, but drawn with wonderful characters that have helped the story along. Whilst this may work well for earlier parts of a trilogy, I feared that the slow pace of events may not work so well in leading up to the final confrontation that so many of these stories seem to lead to.
The Godless world is descending into a kind of insanity. All order is breaking down and members of both the True Bloods and the Black Road are fighting amongst themselves. There is rioting in the streets and the armies of both sides have taken to mindless slaughter rather than organised conquest. Under Aeglyss' command, the Black Road armies are strengthening and his power is increasing as his body weakens. His control of the Shadow Chancellor is a step towards ending the rule of the Thanes by murdering the greatest among them.
The only people who seem to be immune to the world's madness are Orisian and his group of bodyguards, who are taking K'rina, Aeglyss' foster mother to a place where he cannot reach her. Although not succumbing to the violent madness that many are, Orisian is haunted by ghosts from his past. His sister, held captive far from him is in more tangible danger, as she is being held in the palace of the Shadow Chancellor, who is now Aeglyss in all but body.
The incipient madness creeping through the minds of both sides helps blurs the lines between good and evil once more here, as in the earlier parts. This did cause a little confusion early in the book as I tried to remember which bloods were the True Bloods and which with the Black Road. All the way through the trilogy, Ruckley has blurred the line between the two sides which is a little confusing early on in the story.
Once you get to know the characters, or in my case, rediscover the characters this ceases to be as much of an issue. As with the earlier books of the trilogy, the individual characters are very well drawn and it's usually very obvious from their mannerisms which one you're following. This has been the great strength in Ruckley's writing and that certainly hasn't changed. What helps is that with the end approaching, there aren't quite so many plot strands to follow this time around, which means the breaks between following an individual character tend to be shorter and there is less opportunity to lose track of who some of them are.
One aspect that I don't recall spotting in the earlier parts of the story was that there are some stunning passages of writing here. I don't mean in terms of the story, which has always been very strong, but just some pieces of literature so good they momentarily stunned me. One section where a True Blood army is over-run thanks in part to Aeglyss' power, a character's death is described through his own eyes, which was a superb piece of writing. There were some very emotional pieces quite late on in the story which were also highly impressive, as unexpected as they were given much of what had gone before. In parts, it becomes obvious that Ruckley is not merely a gifted storyteller, but also a very talented writer.
A couple of aspects did take the edge off the story slightly for me. The whole trilogy has been very slow-paced and that continued here. Given that we are reaching the end of a trilogy, I was expecting events to move on a little quicker, but there was no increase in pace and even the conclusion was told at the same leisurely pace, which was a minor disappointment. I was also slightly disappointed with the ending, which was certainly different from the norm, but much lower key than expected. In a trilogy where good and evil were clashing and one side had to be defeated, the end here seemed quite weak almost as if the story ran out, rather than reached a conclusion.
That said, ''Fall of Thanes'' and indeed the whole ''Godless World'' trilogy are certainly worth reading. Once the characters have settled into their places in your mind and you've become accustomed to the slower pace of the story, the strength of the characters comes to the fore and that's where Ruckley's brilliance lies. This is a well-written story acted out by wonderfully drawn characters and whilst aspects of it may not be perfect, it's a very good read for fans of the genre.
This review may also appear, in whole or in part, under my name at any or all of www.ciao.co.uk, www.thebookbag.co.uk, www.goodreads.com, www.amazon.co.uk and www.dooyoo.co.uk
The Godless world is descending into a kind of insanity. All order is breaking down and members of both the True Bloods and the Black Road are fighting amongst themselves. There is rioting in the streets and the armies of both sides have taken to mindless slaughter rather than organised conquest. Under Aeglyss' command, the Black Road armies are strengthening and his power is increasing as his body weakens. His control of the Shadow Chancellor is a step towards ending the rule of the Thanes by murdering the greatest among them.
The only people who seem to be immune to the world's madness are Orisian and his group of bodyguards, who are taking K'rina, Aeglyss' foster mother to a place where he cannot reach her. Although not succumbing to the violent madness that many are, Orisian is haunted by ghosts from his past. His sister, held captive far from him is in more tangible danger, as she is being held in the palace of the Shadow Chancellor, who is now Aeglyss in all but body.
The incipient madness creeping through the minds of both sides helps blurs the lines between good and evil once more here, as in the earlier parts. This did cause a little confusion early in the book as I tried to remember which bloods were the True Bloods and which with the Black Road. All the way through the trilogy, Ruckley has blurred the line between the two sides which is a little confusing early on in the story.
Once you get to know the characters, or in my case, rediscover the characters this ceases to be as much of an issue. As with the earlier books of the trilogy, the individual characters are very well drawn and it's usually very obvious from their mannerisms which one you're following. This has been the great strength in Ruckley's writing and that certainly hasn't changed. What helps is that with the end approaching, there aren't quite so many plot strands to follow this time around, which means the breaks between following an individual character tend to be shorter and there is less opportunity to lose track of who some of them are.
One aspect that I don't recall spotting in the earlier parts of the story was that there are some stunning passages of writing here. I don't mean in terms of the story, which has always been very strong, but just some pieces of literature so good they momentarily stunned me. One section where a True Blood army is over-run thanks in part to Aeglyss' power, a character's death is described through his own eyes, which was a superb piece of writing. There were some very emotional pieces quite late on in the story which were also highly impressive, as unexpected as they were given much of what had gone before. In parts, it becomes obvious that Ruckley is not merely a gifted storyteller, but also a very talented writer.
A couple of aspects did take the edge off the story slightly for me. The whole trilogy has been very slow-paced and that continued here. Given that we are reaching the end of a trilogy, I was expecting events to move on a little quicker, but there was no increase in pace and even the conclusion was told at the same leisurely pace, which was a minor disappointment. I was also slightly disappointed with the ending, which was certainly different from the norm, but much lower key than expected. In a trilogy where good and evil were clashing and one side had to be defeated, the end here seemed quite weak almost as if the story ran out, rather than reached a conclusion.
That said, ''Fall of Thanes'' and indeed the whole ''Godless World'' trilogy are certainly worth reading. Once the characters have settled into their places in your mind and you've become accustomed to the slower pace of the story, the strength of the characters comes to the fore and that's where Ruckley's brilliance lies. This is a well-written story acted out by wonderfully drawn characters and whilst aspects of it may not be perfect, it's a very good read for fans of the genre.
This review may also appear, in whole or in part, under my name at any or all of www.ciao.co.uk, www.thebookbag.co.uk, www.goodreads.com, www.amazon.co.uk and www.dooyoo.co.uk
Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews