Fall of Thanes

Fall of Thanes is the final book in Brian Ruckley's Godless World Trilogy. As I said before, the books can be very dark and bloody. This one did not disappoint. Unfortunately though, it gets kind of slow for awhile, but then when it picks back up it pretty much grabs you by the throat and forces you to keep reading. There will probably be some spoilers in here.

We find ourselves in a world that is falling apart, the villain is causing almost everyone to go mad and just kill each other. Ruckley shows how everything is falling apart and how the villain is in the center of it all. For most of second book and beginning of the third book, we get the idea that one of the more powerful races will stop him.

Then we find out that he (his name is Aeglyss by the way) might be more powerful than them. At that point there seems to be very little hope. There are two characters who seem to be immune to Aeglyss' mental decay throughout the world, Kanin and Taim, polar opposites.

Kanin seeks revenge for the death of his sister, he blames Aeglyss for her death. He is so angry that he is blinded by rage and has almost the inner power to force others to listen to him by sheer will. Taim on the other hand stays away from madness because of the intense love for his wife, and his duty to protect Orisian.

My only complaint with the book would be how they dealt with Shraeve. She starts out as this badass warrior who cannot be defeated and her mind is sharp enough to not be under Aeglyss thrall. By the end though, he has control over her and she battles with Taim to the death.

Throughout the book we hear about her quickness and the quickness of Varryn, the non-human helping Orisian, it seems they are destined to battle, but then she pretty much takes him out quickly and moves on to fight Taim.

My favorite moment was the battle between Coinach (the shieldman of Orisian's sister) and Kale (the High Thanes shieldman). Coinach is younger, but is said to be very skilled. Kale is considered one of the scarier shieldmen (you probably have to be pretty hardcore to be guarding the most important person in the land).

The fight does not last very long. Coinach defeats him with ease and then delivers a pretty funny line "I had heard he was better than that." I do not know why, but that just made me laugh when I read it.

Anyways, I highly recommend the entire series to anyone that wants to read something that is dark and full of good ole bloodshed. The characters are very likable, even after they do some not so good things. The beauty is though, Ruckley is not afraid to kill them off, which helps keep you on your toes.