The ending was too rushed. After spending ages building up to a grand finale, the aftermath was simply told in a single chapter as a “this happened”. Unsatisfying and no real conclusions to any character’s story. Apart from that it was ok. Not the strongest in the series, and ultimately a bit of a let-down. ( )

Man, Robin Hobb's books are joyless, but nonetheless enjoyable. This was an appropriate ending tot he series, ending most of the threads, but since this world that she's created still exists, I hope for more Elderlings in the future.

( )

Volume 4 of this series deals with a lot of spinning plates set up in the first three volumes, and I'm afraid a few are dropped late in the day. The story is now split into a lot of different viewpoints, with some strong ones from Vols 1 and 2 mostly dropped - Alise and Leftrin for example - in favour of less convincing ones such as that of Seldan and Hest. Seldan is being held in Chaldea so that his blood can be drunk by the dying Duke who wants to extend his life until dragon parts can be secured, and is being nursed by the Duke's daughter who is also his victim. Hest, callous, manipulative and selfish husband of Alise and Sedrick's ex-employer and ex-lover, is also heavily featured as we follow his journey upriver towards the city of Kelsingra. He hopes to bring back Alise to take possession of her "share" of the expedition to the city and the imagined Elderling artefacts there, and also to seize Sedrick's "share" as his erstwhile employee. Unluckily for him, the Chaldean conspiracy to obtain dragon parts for their dying Duke, which had drawn him in at the end of book 3, has serious consequences for both him and the luckless companion he has taken along.

Other threads are the development of the dragon keepers into Elderlings under the influence of their respective dragons, and the transformation of Rapskal's character, plus the resolution of the love triangle between him, Thymara and Tats. By this time I was rather tired of this storyline. Thymara had been a promising character in book 1 when we were shown a feisty young woman who was trying to break out of the limited life mapped out for her by an intolerant society, but her whole character arc ends up being how and why she chooses her eventual mate. Disappointingly, the choice ends up being rather a default one and the author seems to have taken the easy way out of having Rapskal's character erased and overwritten by the long-dead warrior whose memories he tapped via the memory stones in Kelsingra rather than being a real working out with actual choices - or none, for why does she have to take either of them? And if the justification for changing Rapskal is that it causes him to take Thymara to the shop where the magical and elusive Silver is worked, the strange liquid used by the Elderlings in their miraculous artefacts and by the dragons to make them what they are, it would have been far more natural - and would have given Alise something to do in keeping with her role - to have her instead puzzle out the shop's location and use with her scholarly skills.

Another thing that didn't work for me was the resolution of the Hest storyline. The confrontation between him and Alise/Sedrick and his subsequent behaviour , trying and failing to seduce one of the young dragon keepers Davvie, is in keeping with his character as shown throughout. As a reader I was cheering the other characters on in those scenes. But given that he was terrified at seeing the dragons in all his encounters with them on the river, why does he suddenly become insouciant and carefree in his approach to one of them - and a large one at that - announcing that he is Kalo's new master and is giving him a new name and generally otherwise provoking him? It doesn't convince and his subsequent fate reads like a cartoon character's demise. So I found that quite a weakness.

The resolution of the series is extremely weak sadly. Although we have the exciting scene of the rescue of Seldan and the Duke's daughter, who is his fellow prisoner and helper, it is a complete letdown to have the whole outcome of what happened to the Duke and the evil Chancellor who had abused both of them, all happen off stage as in an Elizabethan play.

As ever I enjoyed the dragons and their arrogant, superior and self-centred characters, but also the differences they have developed due to their extended adolescence as serpents. They are far more social than earlier dragons despite their occasional flare ups and aggression. Mercor has been my favourite throughout, developed from the prophet sea serpent and incorporating tolerance, calmness and level-headedness into his dragon incarnation. And the information about the effects of dragons on humans is fleshed out in this final volume also. But sadly that is not enough to counteract the many weaknesses in this concluding part of the saga, and for that reason I can only award an OK 2 stars. ( )

Absolutely LOVED the ending to this series. Especially because it seems to indicate that we'll get another trilogy in the near future. I'm not sure why I enjoy these so much more than the Farseer series - but the depth of character and world building the Liveship/Rainwild series is just above and beyond what Hobb has put into Fitz and the Fool's story. In other words - much less brooding in this series and especially this book and a lot more action and community. Absolutely recommend this series to friends! But start with the Liveship Trader Trilogy! ( )

YEEES, everything I said I wanted from this one. And it was so exciting along the way, I really didn't want to put it down most of the time! What better thing can you say about the book?

Honestly, I didn't see Hest getting eaten by a dragon, that was just wishful thinking on my part. But I'm happy it happened, and that nothing really bad came out of it. Though I almost missed him afterwards, I kinda wanted him to really suffer before, and while he did physically, maybe not so much mentally ... ehehe.

You know, I didn't expect myself to like this series as much as I did when I picked up the first book. It was just another attempt to find some good dragon fantasy, but holy crap did it deliver. I'm so happy I got to go on this adventure with these characters. And I'm more than happy about the ending, everything ended as I wanted it to, maybe with the exception of Rascal. Poor thing. Though in a way I guess he's happy too, so that's good.

Will I read more by the author? Maybe?? I know there are other series set in this world, but there won't be any dragons ... hmm. We'll see. ( )