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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Thinly veiled Lord of The Rings,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Darkest Day (Iron Tower Trilogy) (Book 3) (Paperback)
Having read Mr. Mckiernan's Caverns of Socrates and the Dragonstone, I was excited to read The Darkest Day, though I usually don't start at the end of a trilogy. However, what I found was a Tolkien theft of great magnitude: it's a Reader's Digest version of Tolkien's work, minus the wizards, and with a more military role for the Hobbits (imagine Frodo killing Sauron in his tower instead of destroying the ring). The synopsis of the earlier books (which sounds a great deal like the synopses in The Two Towers and Return of the King) shows that a small party escape into a dwarven stronghold by saying the proper words at one of the gates, while being attacked by a krakenbeast, then slay one of the dark lord's servants while inside, apparently in the process destroying a bridge over a chasm. Can anyone say Moria? There's the grumpy dwarf who befriends an elf (they ride off together at the end), and there's a mystical Elven enclave where people are healed (Lorien, anyone? They even get boats to continue their journey, and fine elven ropes.) And of course, what LOTR derivative would be complete without a Shire which the heros get to help defend? For all my disappoinment at the blatant plot stealing, it's decently written, though some of the dialogue is stilted, even given the fact that it is intentionally archaic. I will read others in the Mithgar set, in hopes that there will be some originality, on the strengths of other works of Mr. McKiernan's that I have enjoyed. Maybe I missed something, and in the preface to the first book Mr. McKiernan states as his purpose a retelling of Lord of the Rings, but somehow I doubt it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Iron Tower Omnibus,
By
This review is from: The Darkest Day (Iron Tower Trilogy) (Book 3) (Paperback)
If you have ever read a series like this you will know that it is full of adventure and mind-bending feats. Being a very avid reader of all types of books, and having started Tolkiens Lord of the Ring series and putting it down due to the dullness and slowness of the books,I decided to try The Iron Tower Trilogy. What a great series!! Sure it parallels Lord of the Rings but it is different as time and people move quite rapidly. I could not put the books down. I have reread this series 3 times and love it more each time. If you think it is a rewrite of Tolkiens work, I urge you to read the whole series as it is quite different. I'd pick this book a thousand times over Tolkiens, Lord of the Rings. Wish they had made the movies from this series rather than the other. It makes better sense.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Dark and doomy,
This review is from: The Darkest Day (Iron Tower Trilogy) (Book 3) (Paperback)
Reading anything derivative can be an exercise in pain, but the Iron Tower trilogy is like watching a train plummet off a cliffside. The most flagrantly derivative fantasy trilogy out there limps to a silly climax in "Darkest Day," a sad ending to an unworthy trilogy. (And, alas, the beginning of an equally unworthy series)
The Boskydells have been freed from Modru's Horde by the High King's armies. Tuck and Merrilee are reunited just as the armies start off to the land of Gron, where the evil Modru is planning to yank back the even more evil Gyphon from the void to which he's been banished. And wimpy Princess Laurelin is somehow a part of his evil malevolent plot. So Warrow Tuck Underbank must somehow save the world, armed only with a prophecy and a little red arrow. The main positive thing that can be said about "Darkest Day" is that the all-too-similar elements are toned down a little. What's there is essentially the same as before, with the dull Elf seers, tough-wannabe hobbit clones, gruff Dwarves, and a thousand other little elements. There's not much that's new. Unfortunately, what McKiernan puts in instead is even worse. Lacking a ring or a Mount Doom, he creates a climactic human sacrifice scene that wouldn't be out of place in a third-rate horror sequel. Modru's motives for kidnapping Laurelin are revealed, and boy are they stupid. The epic final clash is nothing more than background noise, and the characters become thinner and whinier as their numbers increase. As the final insult, McKiernan includes some shortish appendices and timelines, in the manner of Tolkien's "Return of the King." Including these fails completely to give the trilogy any depth. The writing, while not quite as atrocious as it was in the first book, is still bland and obsessed with details that nobody could care less about. Dialogue is mind-blowingly trite, with the heroes speaking as if in the throes of manic, wild emotion; McKiernan is even subtle enough to have the villain Modru hiss when he talks. And while I love a well-written love story in any kind of book, the relationship between Merrilee and Tuck is so hideously sweet that it will make your teeth ache. The weepily ineffective Tuck remains ineffectual and inexplicably liked by everyone; McKiernan injures him badly, apparently thinking that readers will sympathize. Psycho-Warrow Danner's storyline is concluded in a very theatrical manner. Galen, Gildor the Elf and Brega the Dwarf are still bland and uninteresting, as they have the same personality. And the insultingly weak Laurelin cries, whimpers and whines her way until somebody gets around to rescuing her. The stupidity of Modru's motives takes away any shreds of interest I had in him. Written in a style to make Tolkien fans whimper and English majors grow dizzy, "Darkest Day" is a fittingly limp finale to a dull, derivative trilogy.
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