What a letdown!

I've been a major Eddings fan for years, and I'm sad to say that this is the first book of theirs I've read that I would never, EVER, be willing to purchase.

This is incredibly tedious and talentless writing; I can't believe that anyone ever thought that this was even close to publishable. The timeline jumps around like a squirrel jumped up on caffeine, multiple scenes are repeated from three or four different points of view to no purpose whatsoever, incredibly obvious and practical solutions to one of the main plot points are completely ignored, what should have been THE major conflict of the story practically didn't happen, and an unbelievably blatant deus ex machina simultaneously undercuts the worldbuilding accomplished in the earlier books, abruptly ends the storyline, makes a complete farce out of the events of the three previous books, and, even more unacceptably, essentially retcons the ENTIRE STORY out of existence!

This book takes everything I have ever liked about the Eddings' writing and spits on it. I am unbelievably disappointed, not to mention disgusted. Tripe like this should never have been sent to the publisher, much less actually printed. For shame.

Ye Gods! I have to say this is the worst book David Eddings has EVER written! I love his Elenium, Tamuli, Belgariad and Mallorian series but this newest series is truely awful.

After slogging through the first three books hoping that it would get better I found this one almost unreadable. Characters talk in baby language and some even vanish from the story entirely! The end is a HUGE let down and makes the effort of reading totally pointless.

If you like Eddings avoid this book like the plague and re read his older stuff which is brilliant!