Percepliquis

3.5 out of 5 stars

I was very much into the first two installments of this series, disinterested by the middle two, and pleased/content with the final two. Author Michael J. Sullivan certainly finished with a flourish after laying it all on the line in Percepliquis – a satisfying final volume of an enjoyable series. Sullivan clearly excels at plotting out long-term story arcs filled with compelling twists and turns. This bodes well for the remaining books in his Legends of the First Empire series, due out over the next few years.

See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.

Take a bow Michael. With this book you have done what very few writers manage. Give an ending which the series deserves. Few that come to mind are all classic (LOTR, Dark Tower, Mistborn) and this series rank right up there with the way it ended. I guess the key to this is managing to keep the suspense going for long enough while dropping enough clues for the reader to say “Wow how come I never realised this?” In the end all the parts are wrapped up nicely with some beautiful touches that stood out like the end of Magnus's story. This book also results in me adding the prefix of “Highly” to my previous “recommended reading”. A must for all the fantasy guys out there here are two protagonists who leave a mark indelibly. Riyria you beauty!

Fairly contrived ending third for a series that was awfully redundant throughout. How many times can our heroes get locked in a dungeon and saved by a deus ex machina?

I think the end result was a fine trajectory for the series, but the twists, crosses, double crosses and reveals were too much for me to bear.

How is it possible for a person to be both this happy and this sad, all at the same time?

I'm happy because this ending was spectacular. Simply perfect. Everything the ending to this wonderful series needed to be. Everything was resolved, including some plot points that had escaped me originally. (And one major plot point that left me going, how did I not see that coming.)

What I actually found the most wonderful about the resolutions in this story, was how no one was left hanging. You knew what all the characters were going to be doing after the end of the story - which is something I love. I just hate it when I invest a lot of time in a series, and then it's like they just yank the curtain closed and you nothing about what happens next.

Now I will note, as I mentioned in my synopsis, not everyone will live through this book. Which, I really didn't expect them to - not after the last book. So, it didn't come as any surprise when several people died, however, I was a little surprised at who was killed and how.

There were also a couple of very nice plot twists.

So, even though I loved this book and pretty much everything about this series, I will miss these people - which is where the aforementioned sadness comes in. (Yes, I know there is a prequel series, and I will buy it, but it's not quite the same as new adventures.)

This final volume in the Riyria Revelations series really feels like the end of an era. Nothing will be the same again - though it's up to you to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. So many things change in this book and, really, I am hoping for a sequel series - set many, many years down the line. (I think if you read the book, you'll understand why.)

(Originally posted on my blog: http://pagesofstarlight.blogspot.com/)