Mystic Empire

6/10
While the major storylines are mostly resolved, some relatively important threads are left dangling. The premise of the trilogy is that the three versions of the world somehow merge or combine, but they actually don’t. The goblin world and the faery world still exist and are still populated, although some faeries now reside in the human world and, possibly, so do some goblins. So the ending was somewhat disappointing from that standpoint. Still, the individual stories of several main characters conclude with some sense of redemption, fulfillment, and hope. However, I didn’t feel very connected to the characters other than Theona.

Having so much time elapse between the events of each book, without much reference to what happened show more during the intervening decades, damaged the sense of continuity the reader wants. Too many things were left unexplained.

Overall, the series was uneven—so many unique ideas and aspects, some ingenious twists on standard fantasy tropes, but some gaping holes. What was the relationship between the dreaming/Deep Magic and the more mundane “surface” magic? How did the Songstones work? Or the Book Magic? There were all these interesting magic systems but they were simply presented and used, never explained. In the first book, there was at least some exploration of the dreaming/Deep Magic as the various characters were learning to use it, but since then, no further exploration or explanation. The goblin world was obviously set in the remnants of a more mechanical, technical world, but that aspect was never explored. (Maybe it was irrelevant to this story, but my mind kept wondering about it.) And what was the relationship between the small, “house dragons” of Rhai-Tuah and the great dragons?

I wanted to like this but overall it was disappointing. show less

The conclusion to the Bronze Canticles trilogy.
The goblins get a rift gate to the human world and invade. The Shuraj[dead magic] elves are going to be destroyed by the Kyree and get a gate to the human world. The elves make alliance with the humans and work together to close the gates. The gates are closed and the goblins are hunted down. The end.

I really didn't care for this ending. The story was cool and all the action was nice. But the whole point was the Binding of Worlds", which never happened. The Hickman's just let it slide for a later time. Bleh to them!"