Restoration by Carol Berg

Still flawed, but a satisfying close to the trilogy.by PhoenixFalls

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October 11, 2009: This concluding novel in Berg's Rai-Kirah trilogy was better than the second volume, but still didn't quite live up to the promise in the first. The bones of a brilliant epic jutted throughout the novel, but somehow that epic never quite took shape.

The novel felt pulled in too many directions. There are multiple conflicts going on throughout -- mundane civil war in the Derzhi Empire, supernatural war with the rai-kirah, and conflicts with the gods -- but rather than building on each other, these conflicts seemed to be distractions to each other. I always wanted to be following the action somewhere else, to the detriment of the action I was reading at the moment.

The characters, too, fell just a bit short. The first novel lived and died by the characterization of Seyonne and Aleksander, and for the most part it lived. But by this third novel there is a large cast of ancillary characters, and all of them were never more than shadows. I could see that they were fascinating, complex people, and their complexity drove the story at all points, but I never felt any connection to them, so their motivations were at times obscure and their pain never connected with me.

Even the characterization of Seyonne and Aleksander suffered in this novel. The first novel was about those two men learning to trust each other despite having absolutely no reason in the world to have that trust, but somehow in this novel that trust appeared lost. Neither man ever stopped a moment to tell the other what was going through his head, and that was the basis for far too many conflicts. I realize that the silent, brooding hero is a revered fantasy trope, but I have always been of the opinion that the charming, communicative man would get far more done.

Still, despite all those frustrations, I was moved fairly quickly through this novel, and the scope was certainly large enough to satisfy. The world is fundamentally reshaped in this novel, and that is something you always want to see in a good fantasy epic. I have some other minor quibbles: Berg still struggles with pacing, and given what we discover about the gods I was left with quite a few questions about where prophecies come from, but for the most part anyone who has read the first two novels in this series should definitely read the third.

I Also Recommend: Curse of Chalion (Chalion Series #1), Banewreaker (Sundering Series #1).

Dazzling!by Anonymous

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September 18, 2002: I thought the beginning was a bit borish, but really, it was the foundation for the book. It was so good it made me cry!!! Well, sometimes i do cry over books. (But not Often!!!) It was amazing, and it was a perfect ending to the first two. I really hope she writes more of these rai-kirah books, cuz they are wonderful!!!