The Spider's War

The Dagger and Coin series is probably one of the more memorable fantasy series to be released in recent memory. While there were times in the first book where I felt like it was a bit too similar to previous, well-known series, I'm glad that I stuck with it.

Abraham's writing is clean, accessible and smart, which continues forward into The Spider's War. After getting to watch all of the characters grow and deal with the world around them, this was their last act. While there were a few moments midway through the book where I found myself not particularly interested in some of the brief interludes, it wasn't a big deal.

Things came together well, were interesting and each character had their own challenges to overcome along the way.

What really stuck with me was the ending for Geder. Geder was a complicated character in many ways. Geder had a horrible temper and had done some truly terrible things, but he was still carrying out most of his worst acts while under the control of the spiders. That being said, he was so easily manipulable because of these flaws. When he died it was clear that he felt that he was doing the heroic thing, that he wanted to be remembered as a hero instead of a fool and a villain, but the reality was that he was avoiding having to face his own actions and Cithrin. Deep down inside he had to know that Cithrin would reject him again, or he was at least afraid of it. Instead he got to die believing that he was a hero who was going to kiss the girl and have a happy ending before his heroic (and completely unnecessary) sacrifice. He also didn't have to face all of the people that he had wronged or have to help out in any of the hard work to repair the world that he had so horribly ruined. So his final sacrifice was his final act of cowardice and instead of everyone mourning him as a hero like he wanted, they simply shrugged it off. That was really tremendous, because Geder was such a pivotal character that we knew was conflicted and that deep down inside he wanted to be good, but he didn't get a heroic ending, he didn't get redeemed, he died as he lived instead.

A great ending to a great series.