The first book, The Traveler, promised, and delivered, much; the second, The Dark River, was bleak and a bit of a disappointment. With the third, Hawks has returned, somewhat, to the excitement of the first, though those expecting a final, titanic battle to decide the fate of the world will come away frustrated. In the end, the action scenes are too few and too brief, and the explorations into the other Realms don't come to much of anything. Some fans might wish the author had spent less time on the easy-to-understand philosophical underpinnings (e.g., freedom is the essence of our lives—not surveillance and control) and more time on swinging swords. Newcomers should read the series in order.This last (?) installment of the Fourth Realm series just seems to run out of steam. The tension that propelled the first book, The Traveler, is for the most part gone. By the time we get to The Golden City, taking place one year after the events of The Traveler, everyone is either too tired or too engulfed in themselves to maintain any sort of interesting relationship or story line for that matter. The minor stories that play out are either interludes that have little affect on the story line or are forced and hardly believable. Like the second book in this series, The Dark River, this book feels like a bridge or filler to keep people appeased until a true resolution can be written. Unfortunately, the book itself is not that interesting.
Labels: book review, John Twelve Hawks, science fiction, The Golden City