I would like to just point at the review's title and let it speak for itself. Nevertheless...
It has to be admitted that the first book isn't totally awful. It is for the most part competently written and is just entertaining enough to keep one turning the pages. Make no mistake, it's not brilliant, but it's passable. The story mostly stands alone, although a few questions are left unanswered, which is only to be expected of the first book in a trilogy.
But the second book is where it all comes crashing down. Suddenly our heroes are in the midst of an ancient prophecy and a whole host of people is trying to manipulate them. Keith Baker seems to have taken Chandlers Law to heart: it seems that no chapter can go by without some villainous character barging in and abducting one of the protagonists. Over and over again. There's also a subplot involving stealing a dragon shield that is so blantantly an RPG sidequest that it's just insulting. It serves only to pad out the story (And this is still a very short novel). The book ends on a cliffhanger after a bewildering amount of shifting allegiances.
So, can Baker pull it all together in the third book? Of course not. Most of the book feels like filler as our heroes stumble through aimless misadventures. A very minor (And I mean very minor) character from the second book suddenly rises to prominence, but we're given no real reason to care about her and she doesn't get any meaningful character development. Eventually, some but not all questions are answerd and we get to the rather disappointing climax. The ending is very abrupt, leaving us with no sense of closure and a host of unanswered questions.
Literature One of the worst stories I've ever read
I would like to just point at the review's title and let it speak for itself. Nevertheless...
It has to be admitted that the first book isn't totally awful. It is for the most part competently written and is just entertaining enough to keep one turning the pages. Make no mistake, it's not brilliant, but it's passable. The story mostly stands alone, although a few questions are left unanswered, which is only to be expected of the first book in a trilogy.
But the second book is where it all comes crashing down. Suddenly our heroes are in the midst of an ancient prophecy and a whole host of people is trying to manipulate them. Keith Baker seems to have taken Chandlers Law to heart: it seems that no chapter can go by without some villainous character barging in and abducting one of the protagonists. Over and over again. There's also a subplot involving stealing a dragon shield that is so blantantly an RPG sidequest that it's just insulting. It serves only to pad out the story (And this is still a very short novel). The book ends on a cliffhanger after a bewildering amount of shifting allegiances.
So, can Baker pull it all together in the third book? Of course not. Most of the book feels like filler as our heroes stumble through aimless misadventures. A very minor (And I mean very minor) character from the second book suddenly rises to prominence, but we're given no real reason to care about her and she doesn't get any meaningful character development. Eventually, some but not all questions are answerd and we get to the rather disappointing climax. The ending is very abrupt, leaving us with no sense of closure and a host of unanswered questions.