Iron Gold

The author diverts from the perspective and flow of the first three books. While the trilogy told a great story, this feels disjointed and rambling. While I read the first three in what seemed like a week, it took me longer to get through this one. I always feel authors are trying too hard to stretch the stories into as many books as possible. I get they want to make money it is a great piece of literature, but I miss the days when we had a gripping story contained in one novel.

The first three books are a gripping tale of war and revolution. They created complex characters with incredible nuance and development and intellectual, stable antagonists. The story was always grounded and had continuous build-up to devastating effect. This book feels more disjointed. Perhaps its because of the multiple perspectives, or perhaps because of the characters themselves. With the exception of the prince, they all (including Darrow) seem somewhat petty, lacking true motivations stemming from the lack of a true antagonistic persona. Not just the main characters either. Some of the conflicts created this time seem meaningless, as if they were thrown in to make it more epic, but lacked the desired impact. It was well written, but not as up to snuff. It seems like an intro to something greater though. Only time will tell.

Wow, this needs spell/grammar check and some major edits. I feel like I read a draft before it was sent to the editor. After quickly finishing the first three books, this one was very hard to get through. Too many long-winded speeches.