Cav's Place

The beginning of this book was a pleasant surprise, seeming to mark a shift to epic fantasy, introducing new parts of the world, people, cultures, types of magic and even planes of existence. That didn’t last, however, and all too soon the action once again overshadowed any other elements, leaving the impression that the author got scared of widening the scope to such an extent. There is still more to Shadow of the Knight compared to the previous two books when it comes to worldbuilding, but those elements feel more like afterthoughts, squeezed, and sometimes forced, among the action.
On the other hand, other parts of that same beginning felt jarring due to the amount of time that passed since the end of Child of the Knight, and while that also allows for some character development, pretty much all of it took place during that period, “off camera”, little of it being present in the book itself and most characters being shallow, single-minded and fitting into a few clear archetypes. And the relentless action leaves little room for anything to feel like it actually has a lasting impact, whether on the characters or the reader, and that’s on top of how much all of the healing and the heaps of hero’s luck diminish the potential for long-term consequences, and I’d say also the suspense.
Overall, it’s still the action that makes the book a reasonably pleasant way to pass some time, but appearing to have so much more potential makes it even more disappointing that it wasn’t fulfilled. And I also noticed that the proofreading was worse for this book, which had more typos than the previous ones, and there was at least one place where something said in one chapter seemed to have been forgotten by the time it was repeated in the next. But that was in the final part, and the bigger problem with the final part, what comes after the battle, is that it’s really the beginning of the next part of the story, seeming particularly underwhelming after what should have been such momentous events.

Rating: 3/5