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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Goonalan" data-source="post: 9128066" data-attributes="member: 16069">#200 Ascendancy of the Last by Lisa Smedman (Lady Penitent 3) Read 4/9/23 to 11/9/23[ATTACH=full]295034[/ATTACH]Well... it's not as good as the last one, which was a little less good than the one before. It seems the first one in this series made more of the characters, or else at the start of their journey they were as much anti-hero as hero, and so there was conflict within- Q'arylnd slowly figuring out that there was another way of doing things, to treat folk with respect and not just try and screw them over all of the time. I liked that. The same to some extent with Cavatina before her redemption, only the other way around- hard hearted, unforgiving to begin with, certain of her certainty, as it turns out- in the end- everything is a lot more complicated than she thought at the beginning.The central character's internal journeys are perhaps a step up from some of the other novels/series here, which are much more monotone, or else other central characters just embody good and right and all that other shizz and just don't need to change, or else to learn anything more. They're heroes, all that is... yada yada, but this series has been better than that.That said, I still liked this one the least, and perhaps that's because by the time I got to the end it did all just start to feel less like some cosmic unravelling of great events (at the Sava board) and more like the author was being constrained by her governors, the milieu/edition is changing- we need you to do away with a selection of the Drow gods, like Highlander there can only be one.But again the action at the end is fairly splendid, twist within twist, within... well, twist. Just not enough to make me like it more, and the fact that Q'arylnd has become a CEO, well... there's not much for the common man (me) to like with this change. By the end I just wanted him dead and/or gone, my prejudices okay but by the end I had no sympathy for him, or else very little. Yes, he learned to do the right thing, but the right thing mostly coincided with his assent to power, so... less heroic.Cavatina's story is similar, except the changes wrought on her make her less likeable too, or else her heroism is tragic and heart-wrenching and... well, the usual stuff. Glorious and epic, maybe- but the twists keep on coming and its difficult to decide at times whether I should be cheering for her, or for Qilue, or for Halisstra, the not knowing makes me read on, but the outcome- see above, just seemed like the shuffling of pieces on the sava board. The metaphor/allegory of the sava game (chess with Death anyone?) becomes cumbersome because that's what it all boils down to- some higher ups shoving around various pieces and deciding who will live and who will die. I already live in that world.A well written and entertaining series, that peters out towards the end- epic and interesting, the places it goes and the people/creatures it sees and chats with, but at some point I started liking the central characters less, all of them- and that halved my enjoyment of the finale.Read.Stay safe and well you lovely people.Cheers PaulPS I just thought of this- perhaps the entire series is the author telling us dear readers that she too has been constrained and manipulated by her higher ups, the authors at TSR/WotC are being shoved around the sava board, from project to project (hopefully) or from project to unemployment (off the board) by the Dark Lord Hasbro who fears to share power. Maybe.</blockquote>

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