This review is for the trilogy, since you probably aren't interested in reading only 1/3 of a story.



Overall, I enjoyed the story. I've enjoyed most of the work from Parker that I've encountered. That said, the first two books were much better than the final volume. There are several problems that developed over the course of the series. First, we learn a great deal about certain characters, developing an interest in them, only for them to be largely ignored for the remainder of the series. The character Teucer comes to mind. In the opening of the first volume, I came to like him, but he's treated as almost a background character for the rest of the trilogy. In the books of Charles Dickens this is sometimes the result of being paid by the word (so there's an incentive to pack in irrelevant background information about minor characters), but I don't think Parker is paid by the word. The only other explanation I can think of is that he began the story without knowing where it would end, that it then went off in unexpected directions, and because this was originally published in installments, there was no opportunity to correct these oversights.



The second problem is that the third volume takes several very improbable turns, breaking my ability to suspend disbelief. The story is a fantasy, but the characters are still human so readers will have certain expectations about what humans will or will not do, as well as how elaborate a conspiracy can become before it will strike readers as improbable or impossible. One of the aspects of Parker's writing that I've enjoyed is his ability to present believable plots and characters, but this story falls short of some of his other work (the Engineer trilogy, for instance, or the stand-alone novel The Folding Knife).



Finally, the final volume of the series includes many more distracting typos than were in the first two volumes. This may also be the result of writing on a schedule (for the original installment publication schedule), but these mistakes should have been corrected before the collected volume was published.



Overall, I enjoyed the story and don't regret reading it, but it could definitely be improved by a good edit and a re-write of several sections (including much of the third volume). Maybe someday we'll get a "final edit."