December 23, 2013
The Staff and the Sword trilogy (A Cast of Stones, The Hero's Lot) comes to a close as Errol and his fellow adventurers return from their bloody excursion to Merakh, grieving their losses and weighed down by a prophecy of the lots: either Errol or his companion Liam will die in the struggle to come. Immediately, the entire party is taken into the custody of Duke Weir's men, the duke having usurped the regency of the kingdom of Illustra from Errol's friend Princess Adora. Violence has always been a defining feature of the series, but the gritty realism of the first book becomes implausible sadism here. Duke Weir and his vicious daughter, Sevra, go beyond the political, religious, and military machinations that set Errol's quest in motion, descending into paranoid mania and demonic possession. It's a whiz-bang method of eliminating the gray areas of reality and heightening the black-and-white absoluteness of the conflict, but at a significant loss to the accomplishment of the tale. Agent: Steve Laube, Steve Laube Agency.