Although I've enjoyed the Rune Blades of Celi series by Ann Marston it took the last book "Sword and Shadow" to pinpoint why the books took a little effort to keep engaged with them. The books harken back to a style reminiscent of the 70's, a lot of time covered in a short amount of pages. This doesn't allow a lot of characterization except by hitting the stereotypical beats.

Being more character oriented, I found myself disappointed because I looked forward to getting to know the main characters from the last book better. Instead the book begins with only one character surviving and being relegated to part of the supporting cast. There is a transparent mystery set up but not to hard to figure out before too many clues are dropped.
As I've said the series isn't bad but the last book lost my interest. A longer book fleshing out the characters would have been more to my taste. ( )

Although I've enjoyed the Rune Blades of Celi series by Ann Marston it took the last book "Sword and Shadow" to pinpoint why the books took a little effort to keep engaged with them. The books harken back to a style reminiscent of the 70's, a lot of time covered in a short amount of pages. This doesn't allow a lot of characterization except by hitting the stereotypical beats.

Being more character oriented, I found myself disappointed because I looked forward to getting to know the main characters from the last book better. Instead the book begins with only one character surviving and being relegated to part of the supporting cast. There is a transparent mystery set up but not to hard to figure out before too many clues are dropped.
As I've said the series isn't bad but the last book lost my interest. A longer book fleshing out the characters would have been more to my taste. ( )

I am not a big fantasy reader nor do I read a lot of "series" material, but I was intrigued by my husband's conversations about this series. Now I wish I had read the first five. This one was a bit confusing not knowing a lot of the history of the series, but my husband did a lot of filling in and it made the book more enjoyable. Now on to the story. The two big heroes Acaren and Rowan and two fun brothers to get to know and you quickly realize they have a huge destiny. Time travels pretty quickly as they are children in the beginning of the book and well into adulthood by the end of the book. The mystique of the stones of Nemeara was fun and the frequency of divine intervention is disturbing. Having all those gods showing up so often would be very disconcerting for me.
The story comes to a Tolkien ending with all the help arriving in the nick of time and good soundly smacking evil. All in all for a genre that I am not too crazy about, this was a fun read. I begin to understand why my husband has so much fun with it. ( )

A great series finally comes to a conclusion in this 6th volume of the Celi. I was pleased to figure out early in the book that this would be the conclusion (at least I think so) but at the same time it is always sad to finish with characters that you have invested considerable time with in the five other volumes. This book, like the others had new characters and new heroes. Acaren, Rowan and of course the ever present Horbad and Hakkar. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The story background, some of the people and the land where they lived had become familiar and comfortable. There was only one thing nagging at me during the most of the book. I felt as though the author was tired of the story and I felt somewhat rushed to conclusion. That is not to say I think there should have been another volume, but so much happened in so few pages, I got the feeling of "I have to be done with this series". It was still enjoyable. I would still recommend it and as far as the series goes, I think the on the whole it was great. This finale was just a little wanting in detail, but my time was still well spent. ( )

This is the 6th and apparently last book in a series. Without having read the earlier ones, I had a hard time sorting the characters. Book seemed slow to me; not much action but a good deal of 'who am I really' questions. I like fantasy and magic, but much prefer Valdemar and Recluce. ( )