Shadows of Doom

This one almost got 2.5 stars for completely ripping off the balrog, the doors of Durin, Moria, and the Watcher in the Water, but then the hobbit revolt against the forces of evil was really great, so that pushed it back up to a 3. The book also suffered from Tolkien's "over hill and dale" writing style too, more action, less walking please.

Many people are extremely hateful towards this series as it is clearly a 'rip-off' of Tolkien. However, I found this series very enjoyable. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was certainly a magnificent series, but it did have many many long drawn out battle scenes. McKiernan's novels, on the other hand, are significantly less focused on battles. There's still plenty of action and battle, but I found the series to be much faster paced and attention keeping. I love McKiernan's take on Tolkien's hobbits. The Warrows are not just simple, helpless characters. They are skilled with the bow and hunting techniques. Overall, I found this series to be extremely enjoyable. I for one am a huge fan of the Iron Tower Trilogy, and the Silver Call Duology.

Bears about the same resemblance to the Lord of the Rings that a wad of gum on the underside of a seat does to a fresh stick of Wrigley's Doublemint. A lot of the material is similar to that of the source, but the freshness and flavour is not there. The cover art, on the other hand, is outstanding and worth keeping the book for.

This is the second book of the Iron Tower trilogy. Like the first, it was meant to remind readers of a Tolkien novel, at least in terms of the similarity to Middle Earth and the writing style. Nothing tremendously unique about this book, but if you like that style, you'll enjoy it, and it is fairly well written.

Interesting book, but way too similar to Lord of the Rings.

Slightly better than the first one, even as it's even more a rip off of LotR.

Lots of happenings. 2 of the warrows return to the Boskey to warn their folks, only to find they have to fight Modru's forces their. The other warrow throws in his lot with a dwarf, an elf and the new Highking, as they seek to gather the Southern forces to march north and defeat Modru. Walk through the Deeve[Kraggen-cor] and defeat the Gargon[a reptilian biped, who freezes victims with fear]. Ends with them going into a battle as they journey back North for a small scale assault on Modru's Iron Tower. Modru is Gyphon's servant and Gyphon was Adons adversary.