Queen of Fire

Oh what a disappointment. The final book in the Raven's Shadow unfortunately loses so much of what made the first two books so brilliant - namely the intimacy and the characters. Blood Song and Tower Lord really were text book examples in character work - building the main characters in the story in a way that really engaged me as a reader. You got to feel their motivations strongly and understand what drove them. Unfortunately, we lose that completely here as the series gets lost in its own mythology and attempts to sprawl into an epic but just ends up muddled.

We pick up pretty much were we left off in Tower Lord - Alltor has been relieved by Al Sorna and the Volarians are on the back foot. Rather than keep the focus on the defense of the Unified Realm, this story now spins off into a giant assault of Volaria. This seems scarcely believable - a nation ruined by war suddenly launching an all out and successful assault on the largest and most powerful empire in this world? The Volarians go from being powerful warriors with the ability to inflict severe damage to little more than a road hump.

Whilst all this is going on, Vaelin, probably the best character is sent on some random quest up in the north and that section where he is walking across the ice drags in a most unfortunate way. The increase in the scale of the conflict and the scattering of the main characters has lead to the engagement dropping off unfortunately.

Don't get me wrong, and I know I have been hyper critical in this review so far, this is still not a bad book. The problem it suffers is that it is a significant drop off in quality from the previous two in the trilogy. The writing style is nice a pleasant to read. There is lots of action, that is still well written. This is not a bad book. It just could have been so much more than it is though...

There isn't a lot for me to say about this one. The book was...long. I felt like there were pacing issues throughout the book. We spent an inordinate amount of time focusing on little details and plot threads in the beginning, and then breezed past major developments and events later on. Characterization seemed like a mess, with Vaelin becoming this immortal Gary Stu character and trekking through the arctic for a good 2/3rds of the book. Queen Lyrna's developments were also somewhat abrupt, and the whiplash between her motives and character decisions was real. The ending was also abrupt and unsatisfying, with several plot threads just left hanging. I don't know if the author was planning on there being another book in the series, or if he's planning on picking up these threads with another series entirely, but as it is most of the non-main plots aren't acknowledged.

In short, this series ended a fair distance away from its 5-star beginning. I was very disappointed.

Queen of fire prolongs and destroys what should have been a grand finale for a series I have enjoyed immensely till this point. It feels like Anthony did not have any plans beyond the first book and the ones he made up got weaker and weaker. Plus the fact that there was too much to remember from the previous two installments meant that this was going to be ready tough no matter what he did. Still a good series overall and a interesting if not banal end.

I have to agree with most of the 3 star reviews in here. Probably would have given this 3.5 stars. First book was amazing, 2nd was great, 3rd was meh! Such a let down. I am not going to go into to detail but read the other reviews and they are right on. Anthony Ryan created a great, epic, sprawling story. The first 2 books were great character stories that you could not wait to read more and find out what happened. The last book though brought back so many characters that it was tough to follow as some points. Everything that made the first books great was gone. This was just a war story,march here and fight, march here and fight. Other than 1-2 characters I could have cared less what happened to anyone by the end. Anthony Ryan is a great writer and I will read his next book but needs to work on story arc and how to finish a story.

Executive Summary: A somewhat enjoyable end to the series, but I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I did the last two books. 3.5 stars.Audio book: Much like the last 2 books, I enjoy Steven Brand as a narrator, save for the fact that he's so QUIET. Thankfully my audiobook app lets me increase the volume, or it would be incredibly frustrating. I wonder if the publishers listens to the book with noise canceling headphones only or something, or if even that would be sufficient.If you've done the previous two in audio, you should know what to expect. Hopefully like me you have a way to increase the volume so you can enjoy Mr. Brand's otherwise excellent narration.Full ReviewAfter how much I enjoyed the last two, it was almost going to be impossible for this book to live up to my expectations.Some of this is probably on me. I read [b:Blood Song 13569581 Blood Song (Raven's Shadow, #1) Anthony Ryan https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1421573407s/13569581.jpg 19148922] and [b:Tower Lord 18138189 Tower Lord (Raven's Shadow, #2) Anthony Ryan https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1382486392s/18138189.jpg 25481154] back to back. It's been about a year since then, and my memory on the details were fuzzy. I should have reread. I wish there was a wiki or something with plot points and character bios I could have used to refresh myself.I struggled at the start remembering many of the minor characters. I think all books in a series (and really all audio books in general) should have a list of the important characters with maybe a 1 sentence reminder of who they are. It would really help a lot. There are just too many books to reread previous books every time a new one comes out, even books I loved as much as the last two.Both of those books grabbed me early on and never let go. That never really happened here. I was always happy to pick it back up, but I wasn't making excuses to listen longer or counting down the time until I could get back to listening. So unfortunately I can't the whole series 5 stars.I also found myself wondering for much of the second half of the book if there would be enough time to resolve everything. For the most part I think he does a good job of converging the different story lines, but it required a fairly large info-dump near the end to do so.That said, I really love the world Mr. Ryan has built, and I'm especially fond of the characters. It's always great to read about them, and this book is no different. Much like [b:Tower Lord 18138189 Tower Lord (Raven's Shadow, #2) Anthony Ryan https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1382486392s/18138189.jpg 25481154], I think Frentis and Riva both sort of steal the show again. However Vaelin's chapters are pretty interesting as well. Lyrna's story was still enjoyable, just not as much as the others.Overall this has been one of the best series I've found in the last few years. I'd happily read another series set in this world, especially if we can visit again with some of the characters.This is definitely a series I'll revisit down the road on a reread. Maybe reading all 3 back to back I won't struggle as much as the start and enjoy it more the second time.Either way, I'll be looking forward to checking out what Mr. Ryan has in store for us next.