I'm not quite sure what to make of this one. The best I can say is that I enjoyed how the author was willing to destroy the original world by doing a kind of Final Fantasy 6 twist on it, meshing two worlds together, with the unenviable results of certain characters waking up with multiple alternate-reality memories, then trying to make a go at saving the last of humanity from there.

Forcible attributes are an aspect, of course, as is the Earth King (minor, here), but what has really taken over is the idea of the Shadows taking over lots of people's lives. And in this other world, now combined with the previous, there are a ton of them. All siphoning off life as bloodlust and draining the world's vitality dry.

No reavers this time. Just demons.

I feel like I should be happier. It's fun on several surfaces. I'm good with him taking chances, bringing back old cool characters in different incarnations, but there wasn't all that much of me LIKING any of the characters as much as I had in any of the previous books. That may be because there was no build-up, just a big 'plop'. Here you go! :)

Some people might enjoy it more. I enjoyed it enough, but I hold some reservations. ( )

I had a VERY hard time getting into this book. I felt like there were too many new characters, and I didn't care about most of them until they all started to come together. The book didn't seem to move toward anything--I still couldn't tell you what the climax was. All I know is that the book ended in a complete mess, which means I can't give up on the series yet—I can't just leave the mess alone, completely unresolved.

Binding imperfect worlds together to create one perfect world is an interesting concept, though. Fallion is right: in a perfect world, children, friends, and parents won't die, people won't bully one another, and no one will die of starvation. However, Fallion's attempt to perfect the world didn't exactly work; some things became more perfect, which, unfortunately includes evil.

You can't have the good without the bad, so I'm interested to see how Farland plans to address this idea further in the next book. ( )