I loved the first 3 books in the series and was looking forward to see how it all ended. I was not too impressed. This book wasn't a bad book but it wasn't a great book either. Maybe I expected too much from it. The part that bothered me the most was the parts with Pug & Tomas in them. I usually loved reading about these two characters but in this book it seemed too forced. Any time anything serious happened either Pug or Tomas could just magically fix it. There was no explaining and not a lot of trying. It reminded me of listening to kids play and when one child made up something imaginary that the other child couldn't get out of all the sudden the other child had this special magical power that worked. Then the kids would go on to the next thing and that would be solved by special magical powers as well. Don't get me wrong... I love magic! In the first 3 books Feist made magic believable. In this book it just seemed like he used magic to get them out of situations because he couldn't think of anything else. It wasn't even really explained it just happened. That being said the book also didn't captivate me like the first three. It took me almost 2 months to read. That is a long time for me and a 430 page book. Still I would recommend it if you have read the first 3. Just don't expect it to be as great or better.
I enjoyed this conclusion quite a bit! All of my favorite characters from the series were present and the plot took one exciting turn after another! Truly wonderful! It was a lot of fun to read, but I must admit that there was a plethora of minor editing errors, typos mainly. I was quite shocked. I know that new editions have been released since this 1994 edition of mine, so I do hope that they were corrected! Other than that, a fun read - I hope these wonderful characters continue to appear in the remainder of the books set in this richly detailed land!
Hmmm....I love the universe Feist has created, but the series past Magician seems a bit forced overall.
