Enjoyed it enough.
Moved along fast enough,
Liked the epilogue,
It avoided what often happens (that annoys me) where after 3 books the finale comes swiftly and easily and then the book just ends.
But,
I got a little sick of repetitive dialogue, such as:
"You're a very bad man"
"I know"
Also, the Eddings seem to have a little trouble writing female characters. While being dry and treating the men around her like idiots worked for Polgara in the Belgariad, I felt like Ehlana alternated between this and her supposedly charming little girl acts and tantrums. I found that after all the talk involving how great she was, she was a disappointing and dislikable character.
Also -
I found the grooming aspect of a certain relationship rather creepy - especially that there was little attempt to justify it or handle it as anything but perfectly acceptable. But hey, the authors came from an era where it was OK for Woody Allen to get it on with his own stepdaughter so I guess my uncomfortableness at this is just me being a product of my times?
But, I rate these books according to my overall enjoyment, which was quite high despite my criticisms. ( )

Hoewel ik deze serie wel al ooit heb gelezen, wist ik er niks meer van. Het kan ook al goed 20 jaar geleden zijn dat ik deze boeken las. Ik heb er enorm van genoten en ben vrolijk verder gegaan met boek 1 van de Tamuli.

Wat cijfers betreft kwam ik even in de verleiding om 4 sterren te geven. Maar daar is het toch net niet goed genoeg voor. ( )

Reread 2022: That was a nice end to the series. The pacing improved dramatically and there were almost no slow spots. Yet again I had misremembered a couple of minor points. It's always interesting how upon reread I can see the foundation laid for the sequel series. ( )

I know that David Eddings books are very much a repeated formula from series to series but that does not take away from my enjoyment of them. I first read his books many years ago when I chose them because they were the longest books I could find. I enjoy his characters and the plot and I find that in general they stand up to the test of time as long as you can enjoy the raging sexism. ( )

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Title: The Sapphire Rose
Series: The Elenium #3
Author: David Eddings
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 479
Words: 181.5K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia & Me

Sparhawk now has possession of the Bhelliom, so he returns to Cimmura and uses it to cure Queen Ehlana. Unfortunately, when returning the symbolic ring of the monarchy to her, she, perhaps deliberately, mistakes his action for a marriage proposal. The engagement has been publicly announced before he has had time to clarify this - although it seems unlikely that Ehlana would have been willing to break the engagement anyway. After curing the Queen of her illness, the knights ride for Chyrellos to prevent the Primate of Cimmura from ascending the throne of Archprelate. An enormous army lays siege to the Holy City.

Meanwhile, the evil God Azash and his servant, Otha, have been massing their forces along the eastern border of Eosia in preparation for an invasion of the west. Sparhawk decides, after consultation with his superiors in the Church, to take Bhelliom and travel to Zemoch with several others, with the intention of destroying Azash.

They reach the city of Zemoch, and find the temple which contains the mud idol to which Azash is confined. By a slightly odd mixture of subtlety and brute force, they gain access to the inner room - but not without the loss of Kurik, Sparhawk's squire and friend. Sparhawk duels with Martel, another of Azash's accomplices, and kills him; he then goes on to destroy Azash himself, who takes Otha and Annias with him.

The end of the series comes to a close with the birth of Sparhawk's daughter Danae, who reveals herself to be Aphrael. Aphrael reveals that Sparhawk is the Man without a Fate and helps him lose Bhelliom so it won't fall into the wrong hands.

My Thoughts:

This was a good ending to the trilogy. I had forgotten that so much happens. It was like Eddings realized he had dragged things out too long in the previous books and so had to cram everything in here. This was also quite a bit longer in terms of pages too.

In the previous book it felt like Eddings did everything he could to slow down our protagonists whereas in this book it was full steam ahead, damn the torpedoes and the jolly roger on the high seas. Sparhawk heals Ehlana, marries her, races across a continent to face down a god, defeats him, deliberately loses Bhelliom, has a kid who is actually a goddess and then helps heal the world. It was just a bit much.

Oh, the biggest reason for keeping it below a 4star was that Ehlana wasn't supposed to be able to get pregnant after being poisoned and it's a whole plot point between Danae/Aphrael and Sparhawk. The thing is, Bhelliom healed Ehlana from the poison, so why didn't it heal her from that particular side affect? It just made no sense.

Overall, I was happy to re-read this trilogy but I think this is it. Eddings has a big place in my history of reading but not a future.

★★★✬☆ ( )