Wizards, dragons and poets—not to mention ghuls, demonlings, blood ghosts and horses. What’s not to like in this rousing conclusion to Elizabeth’s Bear’s Eternal Sky trilogy? “Just keep walking.”Quite a bit actually. But for her smashing climax, the rest of the book merits three stars … at best. It suffers a terrible case of sideways: lots of talking, lots of maneuvering, but little development of the story. Fans of Bear, and no one should start reading any series with the last book, will enjoy

This was a real powerhouse finish to the trilogy. What I liked most about these books as a whole was how the characters became more and more complex as the story proceeded. They were never simple. Reexamination of loyalties and personal roles, slightly shifting motivations, changes in direction, all of these wove together to make a highly nuanced story that still maintained a fairly quick pace. The ending was emotional and yet also satisfying, and left me feeling that the time I had spent with t...

Ahoy there me mateys! This here be a combined review of the last two books in the Eternal Sky trilogy. While I try to post no spoilers, ye have been forewarned and continue at yer own peril . . .I have to review these books together because I read them back to back and thus they have blended into one whole. The books follow Temur and Samarkar and friends as they try to destroy a cult and save the world. This series continues to be odd in that the plot sort of plods along. The pacing is uneven an...

With this, I think I finish the truly astonishing haul of Elizabeth Bear books I picked up at the local library sale last year. (I'm almost done everything I bought, and might actually finish the last couple non-Bear books before this year's sale in October.) That has meant that I've read the three parts of this trilogy closer together than I might otherwise have, and I'm glad, because they're so intricate and densely connected I might have had to struggle to remember what was going on, instead

I just ... That is ... I'm dumbstruck at how good this book is (and its predecessors were); the story, the worldbuilding, the prose, most of all the characters. So, stunned into inarticulateness, I'm going to steal directly from the book itself to sum up my feelings:"There is history here to be written," she said. "There are poems such as have never been heard -- in dragon-scale, in stallion's mane, in the actions of God through the hands of men."

A satisfying ending to the series, with a number of the expected twists and turns -- and quite a few I did not expect.This series is one of the most original worlds I have seen in fantasy. I love the idea of each empire having a markedly different sky (REALLY different: different numbers of moons, suns, direction of rotation, etc.) which changes depending on who controls a region. Although the sheer impossibility of it from a scientific perspective makes my head hurt. This world is definitely ba...

If you’re like me and you believe that award shortlists are meant to be read and not admired then the nomination of a multi-series novel, that you haven’t been keeping up with, creates a quandary. Do you ignore the book’s existence on the ballot? Do you try to find time to read the other novels in the series? Or do you simply take the view that nominated works must stand alone, that in terms of character and plot and theme it must engage the newbie reader as much as it does the person who’s alre...

I wish I had an emergency six-star rating to go to for this book and trilogy. It was easily my favorite epic fantasy in decades, filled with wonders, interesting viewpoints, larger than life characters, and at least a dozen satisfying character arcs. At the same time it has an admirable compactness; a lot of authors would have spent three or four times as many pages telling the same story, and been less effective because of it.A perfect story that I look forward to rereading again and again.

I normally don't indulge in hate-reading. Unless it is the end of the year and I am finishing up the series. Then, I do. To cut the story short: no don’t read it. It is the third book in a trilogy that might be worthy of your time but only provided that you are stranded on a lonely island and there are absolutely no other books to read. OK, even then, I think that watching the clouds go by might be more exciting.It might be because I have waited several months after reading the perfectly mediocr...

A thrilling and heart-breaking conclusion to the trilogy. One of my favourite things that I've read this year - these books have it all.

An action-packed and heartbreaking finish to a fantastic series. The characterization just got better and deeper with each book, with Samarkar, and Edene, Hrahima and Temur all showing moments of such kindness, perception and strength.That’s not to say that other characters are thinly characterized, as the wizards, scholars, supernatural beings and steppe people, as brought to life by Tsering, Hong-la, Brother Hsiung, Besha Ghul, and Toragana all have their own wonderful moments. I even grudging...

What struck me over and over again through this trilogy is what a brilliant and original worldbuilder Bear is. In this world, the sky is different depending on what nation you're in, and it changes if the land is conquered. The whole sky. The sun, the stars, the moons. One sky has a moon for each prince of the ruling line. When one dies, there goes his moon. A new one is born? You have a new moon that night. One nation has no night at all. Just the rise of the big sun (Hard-day) and as it sets,

Hate to say this, but Bear stumbles a bit in the third volume of her Eternal Sky trilogy. The characters are still compelling and her Asian-inspired cultures are still vividly drawn, but after various fights for survival in the opening 100 pages, the book gets surprisingly dull.How so? There's a scene in the Dino de Laurentiis Flash Gordon (a weird connection, I know, bear with me) in which Flash declares, "Ming's your real enemy. Let's all team up and fight him!" Imagine how boring the rest of

I really like the way this trilogy ended, how all of the characters were very brave in their own ways, and especially because the "main" character died. He never did fulfill any of his blood vows personally, except the one he managed with the help of Hrahima and the wizards, after his own death. What is left afterwards is the important work, the diplomacy and the raising of children.I try to read books in which women are as important and competent as men. Luckily they have become more and more c...

Reviewing the final book of a series is always a strange affair. There’s the need to not repeat too much from the previous reviews, and the need to avoid spoiling anything for those who still haven’t read the earlier books. Plus the review should be interesting for both those who have and those who haven’t read what came before.I’m taking the easy way out, and opt for a rather short write-up. Should you decide to just skim this review, no problemo, but please, don’t miss the quote near the end.S...

What a beautiful and satisfying finish to an amazingly well-written fantasy trilogy. This series has a brain and a heart behind the guts and swords of regular fantasy fiction. The varied characters are so fleshed-out and developed.And one of the main ideas of this fantasy world is that of the sky: in any given region, the sky above your head is the sky of the religion of the ruler or occupier of that region. So there may be multiple moons speeding across the sky, or a "hard" sun and a "soft" sun...

Glacially paced and largely irrelevant for the bulk of the novel. The last ten percent picks up the pace, but it's completely predictable - or would have been, had I cared enough to predict. (view spoiler)[After all, the death is one option I'd thought possible for the final Harry Potter book, except I didn't care at all about Temur's death; he didn't exist as a character but as the rallying point with two wives who didn't hate each other. (I'm glossing over the part where Edene decided not to h...

Steles of the Sky is the final book in the epic fantasy series the Eternal Sky, which starts with Range of Ghosts. Temur is raising his banner as Great Khan and gathering allies against the plot to raise an ancient evil.Thankfully, the synopsis for Steles of the Sky differed from the formula set out by the last two books. On the other hand, I don’t think my problems with the last book were just mid series slump. I think this entire trilogy suffers from poor plotting and pacing.While the end of t...

2.5 stars

I enjoyed this ending to one of the best fantasy trilogies in recent memory. I thought some of the pacing in the first two thirds of this book at times could have been a little more brisk but the end more than made up for that. I continued to appreciate the excellent world building on the part of author Elizabeth Bear and really grew to love the main characters. The ending, perhaps because of the somewhat slower pace of the rest of the book, felt maybe a little rushed but A LOT happened, with al...