It was a night like this forty million years ago. I lit a cigarette, picked up a monkey skull to go. The sun was spitting fire, the sky was blue as ice. I felt a little tired, so I watched Miami Vice, and walked the dinosaur, I walked the dinosaur. Let’s sing the Song of the Saurials, by Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb.
Synopsis:
High fantasy adventure takes a turn with mystery in the final title in the Finder’s Stone Trilogy by Jeff Grubb and Kate Novak.
When the Harpers judged the Nameless Bard responsible for the death of his apprentices, they sentenced him to exile and obscurity. Now the Harpers are reconsidering their decision, but with the arrival of the monster Grypht, Nameless’s new trial dissolves in a string of disappearances and murder. It is up to the bard’s friends, Alias the swordswoman, Akabar the mage, Dragonbait the paladin, and Ruskettle the thief, to prove one enemy is behind all the chaos—the ancient evil god, Moander the Darkbringer. Unless Alias and her companions can find Nameless and convince him to sacrifice some of his precious power, Moander will return to claim the Realms.
Source: Goodreads
SPOILERS BELOW
Moander the Darkbringer, an evil god who was involved in the creation of Alias, is once again threatening the Realms. That means it’s time to get the old band back together to face him once more. Alias, the swordswoman a magic tattoo and impractical armor! Akabar, the greengrocer and part-time mage! Dragonbait, the mute lizard paladin! Olive, the halfling totally-a-bard-not-a-thief! Not Giogioni, though – nobody cares about him. Anyways, these brave heroes will foil Moander’s latest evil plan and destroy the evil god once and for all – eventually. They spend the first half of the book pretty much running in circles due to misunderstandings and stubbornness; it has a page count to meet, after all.
Okay, snark aside, this book was actually decent. I didn’t have any major problems with it the way I did with the second one. That said, I don’t really think it rises up to the level of the first one. The first in the series had all these mysteries regarding Alias, her companions, and her enemies, which we slowly discovered over the course of the story. In this book, we already know from the start what’s going on – Moander is returning – but the heroes waste a lot of time arguing with each other because some of them refuse to believe it. So, while it does have lots of good individual moments, the overall plot doesn’t flow as well.
In any case, this brings the Finder’s Stone trilogy to a conclusion. It was a series that had a strong start, but faltered in the middle, and only partially recovered for the ending.
Final Rating: 3/5
profmorbius 