The Darkest Road

The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy declines in quality throughout. It's not a big decline, but a decline it is. The Summer Tree is spectacular. The Wandering Fire is still top-notch, yet the first book remains the better. The Darkest Road however doesn't merit 5 out of 5 stars anymore: let's say a solid 3.5 instead.

Using a word like "decline" in the first paragraph doesn't do these books justice, so let me be loud & clear: taken as a whole, The Fionavar Tapestry is highly recommended, and one of the classic series of the genre.

I'll briefly formulate a few reasons that made reading the third book the lesser experience: there's a structural issue, a prose problem, and one plot weakness. I'll conclude with writing a bit about the main theme and Kay's metaphysics.

Most of what I wrote in the reviews of the first and second book remains true. The Darkest Road doesn't change style or substance. Since I loved what Kay wrote in the first two books, that's mainly a strength, but maybe it's a weakness too, as book three is more of the same. It doesn't add a lot to the previous two books. While The Wandering Fire deepened the world and the characters, The Darkest Road simply follows the story to its expected conclusion: a big battle. Not that that battle plays out fully as expected, but still, The Darkest Road is very much a concluding volume, neatly tying every narrative thread.

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