Quick-take: Entertaining but with too little focus.

Dan's Review

As is tradition, the previous cliffhanger was wrapped up nice and quick. Then wasting no time at all, Richtor and team turns their attention toward a massive Goblin output just outside the village. This single battle is the focus of the entire book.

While entertaining, I think the writing is starting to get formulaic and lazy. Perhaps it will come up in a later book, but Richtor made a blood oath a few months back, and there has been no mention since. The book made a big deal about him being "Dragonkin", and that seems to have no relevance. He owes a couple favors, and somebody owes him one. No mention. Early on, Richtor barely escaped fighting a lord from another village. Disappeared. He has his fingers in a lot of pots, and I am waiting for at least one to start boiling over. Perhaps the quest with the hatching egg that was the big cliffhanger a couple books back? The conclusion from that cliffhanger was to just table it.

Will these ever be resolved? I suspect not. Richtor doesn't seem to be making good use of his best spells (such as "Charmed", from a previous book). He is also missing some very obvious battle strategies (at least to me) that could involve his pet dragon. His dragon, quite formidable now, is the only sentient air creature, and the best she can do is scout?

The book follows the same pattern as the others: We fight, gain powers, and gain levels. We open new plot avenues without closing any previous ones. Then we will land on a cliffhanger. Yes, I've seen this movie before (actually 5 times before).

I try to recognize Sunk Cost Fallacy when I see it. With the reviews of the next 2 entries not very encouraging, and the coming one quite long, I have decided this is where "The Land" and I part ways for the time being. I will glance back if/when the series is concluded.