Right Hand of God
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This is a fantastic book. Yes, the trilogy is long and does take perseverance, but I found it a thrilling and very moving read. I had been looking for a long time for a book to compare with Tolkien's masterpiece - and this is it!
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Not the best by Russell
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OK not a favourite, the conclusion of the trilogy and one that really did feel like it relied a little too much on the preconceptions of a tolkienesque mankind. To say that it seems simplistic really isn't giving the novel credit however the tale does keep you entertained and whilst the protagonist seems to be fighting against the control of the mystical arrow (in a certain way a similarity to Tolkiens Ring.) Whilst it does do the job that is promised it does feel like the tale took too long in the traveling and could have been cut down by at least a hundred pages.
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Oh Dear
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Ok, so Russel Kirkpatrick isn't the greatest writer on earth. His characters are fairly shallow and one dimensional, and his prose can sometimes be a wee bit dull. However, despite these obvious limitations, I actually quite enjoyed the first 2 books in this series.The exciting, high tempo storyline and the finely detailed world held everything together pretty well. Certainly not the best fantasy I've ever read, but nowhere near the worst.
The Right Hand of God (3rd and final part) is awful. The same flaws in the authors characterisation remain, but this time the story is so disjointed and frankly illogical, that the book has almost no redeeming features.
So many characters flitter in and out of the book that you soon stop caring who they are or what they are doing. The motivations for their actions are never defined in the text, they simply do what they do to affect the storyline and disappear.
Finally, there are huge chunks missing from the storyline. This guy just mustn't do endings. There are several places where the storyline builds up to a climax only to be followed by "9 months later everyone was sitting here having a cup of tea." The events of the preceding 9 months are then brought to light by one or two throwaway sentences from some of the characters (usuallly in a cellar), "phew, wasn't it lucky we won that battle" and no further explanation. This left me feeling a bit cheated after having went to the effort of reading the entire series.
I feel mean writing this review because the first 2 books were ok. But do yourself a favour, read the first 2 and avoid the third. Make up your own ending, I can guarantee it'll be better than The Right Hand of God.
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Absolute rubbish
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I really an reluctant to write such a negative review as this will be, but i am so annoyed that this time i will.
All the faults of the first two novels are magnified here, and are joined by new and sigificant other examples of bad writing. For example the plot of the novel now makes so little sense that it deserves being laughed at. Major Characters are introduced at a whim and then vanish, thier contribution to the novel mostly being to bloat the length of the text. Other characters that have been central to the story suddenly stop being referd to, even though thier sidelinning is actual a major part of the story. Why do Leith's parents not talk to him after his fight with Hal? Why does Phemandarac not instruct Leith in the use of the Jugom Arc, as was going to? These and many other plot holes are never filled, we are left with a story that no longer makes sense.
The attention to the landscape that served the first two novels so well and then reasonably, in this novel is just bloat. It feels like having invented this world the author could but resist including every single piece of it. If the physical and political structure of the world was essential to the story, or was even just intrestingly grafted on to it, then i would applaude; but here it is just random extra distracting and illogical rubbish. Here is just one example of what i am complaining about that will not reveal the plot; evil characters like the that are defeated throughout the series are left alive and free to return again and again and again. There is no explanation why they are not punnished, by any strech of the imagination they would at least not be left free to do as they will, and if they are to be left free thre must be some explanation of why, there is no such explanation here, none that does not make me roll my eyes in disgust at such shoddy writing.
The ending is stupid. After wading through this nonsense the story is resolved by something that just happens, having no tracable origin in the text before it just happens. It smells of being just made up on the spot, like a lot of this story.
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