Fires of Azeroth

The third in the Morgaine saga. The back of the book says it's the final in the trilogy. That must have disappointed readers at the time because it doesn't come across as final in any sense. Maybe she just told DAW "I'm done with this." Of course, Cherryh returned a decade later for one more volume.

I had complained that Well of Shiuan was relentlessly downbeat with never a rest from pain, fear, loss, etc., for Vanye, the POV character. Fires is the opposite. Morgaine and Vanye find a period of peace for quite a few of the initial chapters. Of course this makes them edgy, but they also get to sleep, eat, not wear armor constantly, and Vanye even makes a friend or two. Morgaine is far more talkative here than in the previous two books. show more

Then, once again, Vanye is separated from Morgaine for many chapters. His companion becomes Chiya Roh, his cousin and frequent enemy, who is now possessed by an evil immortal. But Chiya may not be what he seems to be or what Morgaine insists he is. This question is more the heart of the book than Morgaine's quest to destroy the latest Gate. Then all rejoin for a rousing if sometimes confusing climax.

Recommended, especially if you made it through Shiuan. show less

After two books of headlong flight through a nightmare of violence, betrayal and divided loyalties, Morgaine and Vanye get a chance to catch their breath with some hospitable people, but knowing that they've brought an army of desperate, angry, well-armed refugees from a dying world led by people bent on revenge and domination puts a pall on the idyll and soon things return to normal, with violence, confusion, terror, captivity, intense physical and psychological strain as war threatens the peaceful land and Morgaine's secrets threaten a fragile alliance.

In the third of the Morgaine books (and the conclusion to the trilogy, as the fourth book was produced years later), Morgaine and Vanye have come through the Gate between worlds/times, along with the horde of Barrowers, Marshlanders and Shiua lords (degenerate descendants of the qual, the alien race who originally caused havoc with uncontrolled time travelling via the Gates). They are forced to flee to the vast forest which surrounds the plain - Azeroth - which contains the Gate, known in this world as the Fires. They encounter peaceful human communities which live in harmony with this world's qual - for once, the descendants of the qual here are protective to the humans and have a close bond, some of them forming two person teams who show more protect the various human villages in clearings within the forest.

As ever, Morgaine's mission is to close the Master Gate and thereby disable all others, but she discovers - via the sword Changeling - in reality a portable Gate - that the Gate through which they entered is the Master, and it is controlled by a vast army of their enemies in a loose coalition led by the halfling lord who caused murder and mayhem in his own land. Other factions follow their enemy, the longlived qual who body-snatched the body of Vanye's cousin Roh, but only for as long as it suits them. Morgaine and Vanye have to convince the qual protectors in this world who are disquieted by their arrival among such a threatening mass, and who would oppose her mission if they knew it, as they have small jewels which they use to protect the forest - actually fragments of the same Gate-stuff of which Changeling is made. As ever, nothing goes smoothly and Vanye is soon separated from Morgaine, who he last saw wounded by an arrow, and tortured by his Barrower enemies, then 'rescued' by a qual noble from the invading army, who hands him over to his supposed halfling lord. Roh - who may or may not be more his good-hearted cousin than the cynical murderer who possesses his body - is Vanye's only hope of survival.

The story features a lot of action after an idyllic beginning among the peaceful villagers, and kept me guessing till the end whether they would survive, whether Roh would betray them or they would kill him, and whether they would somehow succeed in their mission. There is a nice hint towards the end that Morgaine, despite her often cold-hearted exterior, actually has far more regard for Vanye than he could have dreamed. And the epilogue, featuring a minor character who befriended Vanye at the start and who appears at intervals in the story, is rather touching.

The only thing that kept this from a 5-star rating is that there are quite a few bit parts on the side of the good guys who have names which are not dissimilar and it sometimes gets confusing keeping straight who is who, plus some of the characters who are established earlier on as the pair's guides are hardly more than name checked when they finally reappear. It's easier keeping track of who is who among the villains, though there are several of them too. show less

Fires of Azeroth is the third book in the Book of Morgaine cycle. I don't have the first two books, so I borrowed the three volumes in one from the library.

All books in the series could have been shorter. I thought there was a lot of redundancy. The prose was written well but I felt that it dragged on and then the last few pages sped to an ending. All three books were that way unfortunately.

The story was interesting. There are gates between worlds that Morgaine has decided to close. But I am still not sure if the gates just go between different times of the same world. The author is never very clear.

Morgaine is very old and has seen what travel through the gates can do. There is another character Liell also called Roh. He is of the show more same race? as Morgaine, I think. He has the ability to take over bodies. It seems he wants to use the gates to gain power of the worlds. As Roh, he fights for control with the real Roh. Learning more about this character would have been very interesting--but we don't learn much.

Learning more about Morgaine and why it's so important to her to close the gates would have been interesting as well. We only know that she had to use her sword, Changling, to destroy an army. The sword doesn't just kill. It sends out an area of attack that sucks living things like humans and horses into a void. Everyone assumes they are destroyed body and soul. She hates using it but she does many times in trying to get to the gates to destroy them.

This third book ends with Morgaine shutting the Master Gate and we have no idea what exactly happens to her and the man she takes on as a servant and protector. It seems she thinks it will kill them. Perhaps they go into the void. Perhaps they end up somewhere else.

I felt the ending was very anticlimatic. I've liked other books written by her, but this series was disappointing. show less

The Fires of Azeroth is the final book of the three contained in this book and doesn't seem to be listed separately on Goodreads. In this last book Morgaine and Vanye find themselves on a peaceful planet where Khal and men have learned to live together and thrive . . . but there is still Roh to contend with, Vanye's cousin who came through the gate just ahead of them and there are the warlike hordes, both men and Khal from the Shiuan who are out to take over in the only way they know -- by destroying and enslaving everyone in their way. In the meantime the relationship between Morgaine and Vanye has developed quite movingly. Roh also figures in this deepening of characters and choices. There is a fourth book Exile's Gate written ten show more years later. ****1/2 show less

The formula is now the same-- but you are treated to yet a different world that was twisted by the qhal and the gate technology.

Really good, hated to see the story come to a close. [But a fourth book eventually came out. See "Exile's Gate".]