The Hollow Queen: The Symphony of Ages

The Hollow Queen is the eighth book in The Symphony of Ages series by Elizabeth Haydon. Now this is more like it! All the set up from the previous book pays off. The story sets off at a fast pace and doesn't let up until the very end. Haydon has given herself an ambition task and was definitely up for the challenge.

Talquist's ambitions and plans reach across the entire continent and beyond. The Cymrian Alliance finds itself surrounded on all sides by the forces of Sorbold. Rhapsody has joined the battle, wielding Daystar Clarion, leaving part of herself in hiding with her infant son deep within the mountains. Desperate for help Ashe tries to enlist the Sea Mages and the people of Manose, completely unaware that Talquist's navy has set show more up a barrier effectively blocking the continent from the rest of the world. Gruhtor prepares the Firbolg of Ylorc to withstand a coming siege. Achmed takes up the quest to try and cut off the head of the snake knowing full well that even if he's successful it may not stop the momentum of the war. There are obstacles at every turn. Are the free peoples willing to pay the price to end this war?

In a nutshell, this is all about the War for the Known World. There are plots within plots, politics, betrayals, tons of action, dragons, heroics and even a smidgen of romance. Haydon handles it all well, deftly weaving many story lines together told from at least ten points of view. Unlike the last book, the story does not sit still. At times it seems to even rush ahead, short cutting from the start to ends of battles. We are constantly jumping from location to location in an effort to keep up with all of what's going on. I found it to be quite the page turner.

The Three are given a lot more page time too, for which I was mostly thankful. Achmed's story had me on the edge of my seat! He still remains my favorite character. I just wish he'd tell Rhapsody the truth about how he feels already, how much his hate for her husband is from jealousy and how he loves her. I think it's obvious to everyone but the characters at this point. The character change for Rhapsody that started in the last book continues in this book and I liked how it was handled right up until the end. Then there was a lot of dialog I found groan worthy which thankfully was a fairly short section. Grunthor gets to have his heroic moment as he holds the line back in Ylorc. I continue to find Ashe and his dragon side annoying. There are still some "memory" scenes, but they are used a lot more sparing and flowed with the story better.

All major story threads and many of the loose ends are neatly tied up by the end of the book and are mostly satisfying for this long time fan. The series could easily have ended here but there is one more book to go. show less

Unfortunately this was my least favorite of all the Symphony of Ages series. It just felt so inferior to the rest of the series.
It should be said that Symphony of Ages is among my top favorite of all fantasy series, and Rhapsody was the very first fantasy novel I ever read that catapulted my love of the genre.
This book felt...rushed, poorly written, contrived, and a bit sloppy.
A few things that really brought down the quality for me include;
Rhapsody was barely in this installment. She didn't even show up until almost 100 pages into the novel. And then after that was only sparsely in the novel until the last third, in which she was a prominent character. Admittedly Rhapsody is not my favorite character, but the book is called "The show more Hollow Queen!" I think that should mean that the actual Hollow Queen is a key character.
There was so much of Haydon repeating herself literally over and over and over about small things, it got to the point where it actually brought down the quality of writing for me. I do not remember her ever using this style of writing before, and this was actually a complaint of mine from the previous book. Though in that book, it was only used here and there, where in this installment it was throughout the entire thing. For example every time she mentioned the character Dranth, she brought up the fact that he had scleraless eyes. Every time! You only need to mention that once to remind us. This was a writing tactic she used SO much in this novel. For things like people's past, or titles, or other nuances. She would bring up the same thing over and over when discussing that character. I have no idea why she changed her writing style to this, but it truly distracted from the story for me. I have always thought of Haydon as a great writer, and aside from this new addition, the writing remained great for the rest of the novel and story.
Another big struggle I had was that for three novels now we have building up to this great war for the entire middle continent against this big bad Merchant Emporer, Whom I think is the worst villain to be honest, and then the war comes, and almost the entire things is glossed over. They discuss about two of the battles, and briefly mention the rest went well. Despite that they were outnumbered, and were facing defeat, etc. I felt this was a poor decision. I wanted to see the war. I was invested! I was ready! It was a let down.
There were of course some good aspects to the novel, and overall, though it was my least favorite, it is still a good read. I still enjoy the characters, and still believe Haydon to be a great writer. I only wish this had been a stronger end to last trilogy of the series. I know there is still one more novel in the series, but this ended a trilogy of story line that started with Assassin King, and it just didn't work as strongly for me as the rest. show less

Any problem I have with actual data from the book is probably my fault - I am *heavily* skimming. The dialogue is too awkward, and characters in general are a bit too one-note for me to want to look for anything meaningful.

It's an infuriating mix of too much detail in conversations and actions, followed by lots of glossing over, as somebody gets where they should. A bunch of scenes very poorly connected.

Ashe's temper is what gets me. He comes in and makes ridiculous demands, then gets incredibly angry if anybody thinks about doing the same to him, even his wife - in the same scene! He and Rhapsody are both going around and talking to people saying "oh, of course you've been deceived" and then get pissed off when nobody believes them show more immediately. And oh, all of the consent issues.

Rhapsody and Ashe can't decide how severity works. We have tens of thousands dying in each (SUPER-SHORT) battle, but yes, let's take time to care about wartime atrocities. It'll totally be that easy to keep all of the men from raping/pillaging. Just because I said so. Yep.

Achmed had some cool action scenes. At least I've got that. show less