Dennis L. McKiernan

And so it ends (again). I'm glad I waited 20+ years to read this series again, because I had completely forgotten just about everything. This fantasy siege was different than Donaldson's or Tolkien's because it was the good guys laying siege to the bad guys. I don't remember reading the Helmsdeep siege (just seeing it in the movie), but I thought the Donaldson "Siege of Revelstone" was definitely better than the siege of the Iron Tower, but it was still fun and not bad at all.

I loved the show more last part of the book where he talks about the character's lives after the war. As usual there was a bit too much geography for me and I could do without ever hearing "they did not know" again, but overall I enjoyed listening to this again and it wasn't just the nostalgia. Since the next two are on audio I'll be checking those out sometime soon. show less

This is a tired story and it's told in a tired manner. Nothing in 'Caverns of Socrates' is original or well-developed and in the end you're left with the impression that you've just read some Frankenstein's Monster of a novel, cobbled together from the corpses of other - better - novels.

It features a cast of characters that made me want to punch them in the face repeatedly. With a shovel. The writing is derivative, unimaginative and it reads like your little brother's demented Harry Potter show more fan fiction. The kind where Harry has sex with leprechauns before being magically whisked away to Cybertron where Optimus Prime falls in love with him and bears him cyborg children. In short: I'd avoid it. show less

Stunningly awful. McKiernan writes battle scenes with all the flair of Kent Brockman describing a futbol game. He pads the novel by having characters recount to each other scenes we just read. And he still couldn't finish it, so he added some totally unnecessary appendices. It is hard to believe this was put out by a major publisher.

Maybe I was supposed to read it more like The Silmarillion than Lord of the Rings, but I don't think that would have helped.

I read these books back in the late 80's as a kid and loved them a lot. I didn't care that so much was copied from Lord of the Rings. I read all 5 books (and later Dragondoom) and even wrote a song for my band based on the books. I still have the paperbacks from back then and I've been thinking about giving them a reread (something I don't do often).

I've been in the mood for some epic fantasy lately and so when I picked up a copy of "The Eye of the Hunter " AND found out all 3 of the show more original books were available on Hoopla, I decided to listen to them before reading "The Eye of the Hunter".

It was a fun read, the races were the same as LotRs (with some different names), but the warrows (hobbits) were much more badass. There wasn't really a "fellowship" but there was a big bad guy from the past attacking with a horde of evil humanoids and a person he spoke through. Also there was a booming drum like in the Moria scene (Doom! Doom!). There was also a sword that detected bad guys. It really just seemed kind of linear and basic with lots of action. I did really start to like some of the characters though, so looking forward to reading the other books. show less