The Stone Sky

What an ending! What a series! The moment I finished it, I wanted to read it again. So much happened in this last book, that looking back at the way I felt about the first book, the story was just so much bigger, I think this would be just as fun of a re-read as it was a read.
And some of the quotes and ideas in this final one are just incredibly powerful. I thought that the first book would be the strongest for these social racial analogies and that the others would focus more on the created world and the plot, which was mostly the case with the second one. This one though was just as hard hitting as the first, with analogies about cyclical racial dominance and racial superiority being dependant on creating the idea of a dangerous and inferior race.
I loved the way Hoa's own story finally comes in to play in this book as well. The last two were very intriguing partly because there were so many questions and loose ends, and the Syl Analgist chapters bring it all together in such a fascinating way.
If I had any criticism, it is that I never had a comfortable grasp on how the magic/silver could be used, but because the main characters felt it more than understood it, I think it was written so that the readers could also feel what was possible without necessarily knowing, so I don't think my confusion was a fault of the writing or my reading but kind of intentional. It was a little odd, but I was ok with that ambiguity in the end.
I cannot recommend this series enough. Stop reading reviews and read it now!