I enjoyed the first 2 books of the trilogy but I couldn't seem to get into this one. It felt as if it was trying to be too epic and the theme of self-sacrifice felt too blatant and overused giving the book a depressing feel. Even without these complaints I can never forgive a book when my favourite character is killed off. Diar's scenes were mostly the highlights of the trilogy and his death just felt contrived, enough of the sacrifice ok!!

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1381808.html

As I've said before, I am a huge fan of Kay's later work, but as with The Summer Tree, I felt that in these earlier books he is still getting his talent together. The explicit resurrection of Arthur and Lancelot (and Guinevere reincarnated as a Canadian) sat rather more uneasily in Kay's fantasy world than his previous plundering of Celtic and Germanic folklore, and the various plot strands are not always easy to entangle, particularly in The Wandering Fire.

But Kay shows early on that he is prepared to kill off key characters, so there is an underlying feeling of suspense as we wonder who will live and who will die. And the series is lifted by the climax: epic final battle, self-sacrifice, and a decent resolution. I am not sure that I would recommend the trilogy generally, but it is a decent enough portal fantasy in its own right, and of course points the way for Kay's subsequent triumphs.

And it ends: I have one problem with this book and it reflects upon the trilogy as a whole: given that it takes place at the hub of all worlds and will affect events in every corner of the multiverse, why does it feel like it takes place in a region roughly the size of New South Wales?

That's all I've got.

Oh, this volume feels as though it was submitted as the final part of a novel that was then chopped roughly into unequal thirds and had maybe half-a-dozen clunky "As-you-know-Bob" paragraphs slid into it along the way, and the problems I had with the first two books remain, but this is an utterly brilliant conclusion to a really good story.

And, as always, I totally lost it at, "For the honour of the Black Boar!"

I think this was my first book where someone important didn't have "hero contract" as my husband calls it. Someone important dies. It was unnecessary. I still remember, after all these years. I was 22, and I was so shipping this couple, and then... I was in shock. And this was the last nail to the coffin of my appreciation for this series. It gets two stars only because it's better than a lot of 1 star crap I've read.

I didn't want this series to end. When it did I kept thinking about it for days and hugged the book, looking through all the pages. It was fantastic. It was fantastic and amazing and epic. I loved it so much.

Guy Gavriel Kay made sad stories turn into a happy book I think. It was very dark with lonliness, fear, sadness, grief and regrets but also the happy parts. And respect for death and sacrifice.
But it was still a wonderful book and series and have I told you it was epic? It was epic.
And I loved it. :)

Some books you never forget. For me - this is one of those stories.

Well, I did it. I read my first fantasy series in full. I still don't know what I really think of this series. I liked it a lot. I enjoyed the reading experience, though I felt lost a lot of the time. I think I will continue on, and give some more fantasy a try.

As for this book, I didn't expect to cry, but I did. I didn't expect to mourn so much when it was all over, but I did. The story was rich and satisfying. The redemptive arc of all of the characters was just really good to read. Nobody disappointed me. Everyone ended up in the place where they should be. But the story didn't seem contrived or saccharine. It just resolved naturally.

I think this was a good introduction to fantasy writing for me. Maybe it wouldn't be for everyone. The pacing is slow, and not everyone likes that. The story was sometimes hard to follow, but I wonder how much of that is my fault, due to my inexperience with dealing with mythic worlds that have history and mythology and magic. There's a lot to keep track of!

I will definitely be reading more of Guy Gabriel Kay's work in the future.

I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this book. I am very glad that I read and finished this series. But it was a rough ride. I got to know and love the characters but the "epic fantasy" vibe was so over the top through the last two books especially and I had trouble getting into it. Too much drama. But ultimately I liked this final book the best.

This is an excellent conclusion to an author's first trilogy. His writing style has completely changed since this trilogy but only to get better and more lyrical. I do reread this every 5 years or so.

I wish I wasn't a completionist. I should have stopped reading this series after the first book. It just wasn't good at all. The writing was clunky, and the plot was super forced and awkward. The characters were all extremely thin, except for where the author told us they had character rather than really showing us that character. There was almost no point in the book where a character actually did anything of their own choice. Most of the time fate or magic made them do something. Hell, one of the main things that happened towards the end of the series

Spoiler

was with the character that had the magic ring that was only a fate/plot device. She refused to do what it wanted and so the magic stopped working for her. For the rest of the book, she literally had no agency and had no point to being in the story anymore. ?!

The King Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot love triangle was just annoying. It seemed they just loved each other enough that ... oh whatever. It was just dumb and again with the fate and no character choices. The whole book was aligned around Guinevere's rape child being able to make the choice between good and bad and and that choice is as cheesy as you'd expect it to be. Also, completely obvious what'll happen considering the object he's been carrying around the entire book.

The fact that some of the characters come from our world never made sense and amounted to nothing of much interest except more clunkiness.

I cannot 'not recommend' this series enough. I went back and lowered the rating of the first book.

Which, again, is odd, because 'The Sarantine Mosaic' series by this author is one of my favorite stories ever!