Customer Reviews

The Gates of Night (The Dreaming Dark, Book 3)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a book, this, in my opinion is the best book of the Dreaming Dark trilogy. Suspense, deep psyche study of the characters, moral dilemmas, life-and-death quandaries and endless dichotomies. The twists in the plot, the unraveling of events. The imagery. The fantastic settings. The battles, the fights. Everything in this book was in the 4-5 star rating range. And then ..... the last two chapters came about. Without spoiling it, I feel the author did a disservice to his audience and himself. Very predictable even if strange. At the end the author left too many loose ends, too many stones unturned, and brought cloture only to "main" plot line, but left completely wide open the plethora of subtexts and support plots the book (and the series in general) built up. I have to be honest and say that the ending to the seeming EPIC quest of these individual was rather puny and lackluster.

To be totally honest, this book disappointed me. Where the first book took place in Sharn and the second in Xen'drik, this one takes place in the realm of faeries which to be totally honest I didn't find especially interesting. On the bright side, it adds a great new character to the main cast (one of the drow from the end of the second book) and it finally clears up what transpired at Keldan Ridge. Overall, the meat of the book was pretty decent, but the ending really seems anti-climactic... The epilogue alone is worth losing a rating point over.

The first two books of the trilogy were absolutely fantastic, and it'd be a shame not to read this book if you've already done the first two, but it is still a sad end... Honestly, I think the book might stand up better on its own rather than standing in the shadow of the first two books of the trilogy.

The Gates of Night by Keith Baker is the third, and final, book in the Dreaming Dark Trilogy set in the Eberron world. The first two books in this trilogy are The City of Towers and The Shattered Land. If you want any chance of understanding the events in this book you really need to read the first two. The events of this book pick up right where book two ended, and to totally understand the story, and characters the first two books should be read.

The characters in this book are mostly characters from the first two books. Of course through their adventure, they meet new people and see new things. Yet, largely the cast of characters is unchanged from the first two books. Each characters does experience some type of development in this book, but some of the development seems `wrong' and just convoluted for no reason. After reading this entire trilogy, the only character I really cared fro was the Warforged Pierce. The other characters were just uninteresting to me. Then, as the character development continued to take place Mr. Baker pulled each character farther and farther away from who they had been in the first two books. To me, if you are going to do dramatic character development, and have three books to do it in, why not separate it into all three books instead of jamming it into the last book and leaving the reader confused as to who the character actual is when the book is finished.

The plot did a decent enough job of continuing from the first two books. However, much like the first book, I felt Mr. Baker tried to jam way too much information into this book at various stages. There is probably a 150-200 page section in the middle of the book that was solid, and fun to read. Yet the beginning, and the end of the book felt rushed to me simply because of everything Mr. Baker tried to include. The most disappointing thing, to me, about this book is the epilogue. After three books worth of information and story, the reader is given a two page epilogue and that is supposed to clear it up. I honestly felt cheated when I finished this book. The overall storyline is vast and somewhat complex, but not too complex where readers will have problems following things. It's a decent story, nothing great or fantastic, but not bad either.

Something's that irritated me while I read this book are while the main characters are on their journey the amount of `gifts' they get from people. That was like saying, "Hey, your not powerful enough yet, let me give you no chance of losing." The another gift happens to fall into their hands.

**** SPOILER****

The other thing that irritated me was all the instances of multiple people/essences in one body. How many does a book really need? Wasn't there a better way to get that across?

***End of Spoiler***

Overall, I thought this book was average. It held my attention, but I could simply care less about most of the characters and the story seemed to `easy' for the characters when it should have been a very difficult thing. I know Mr. Baker created the world of Eberron, and from what I have read (novel wise) there are many interesting things in Eberron - but maybe Mr. Baker should focus on campaign things for Eberron instead of novels. I can't say this trilogy was anything special for me.

The final book in the series. Thank god Jode stayed dead. Lei confused me, she's really a what? Pierce's development I liked. And Daine, he just remained lack luster to me.

The book thankfully ties better to the second book and building on the events there and I feel like it and Shattered Land fit together better then City of Towers does in this series other then having the same group of characters.

I did enjoy the series, now that I'm done with the last book. Not sure how quick I'd be to reread it given it's a slightly better then average fair of what you expect for books based on RPGs. However, I would reccomend this first series still to others so they can see how the author envisions Eberron and getting a feel for the setting.

It does alright.

This final book of the Dreaming Dark trilogy is much like the first two. Fast-paced and exciting action in a strange new world with unique and well-developed characters. As Daine, Peirce, and Lei (and Jode) travel to other dimensions in their effort to escape death at the hands of Harmattan, they find answers to their pasts and their destinies in unlikely places. Much of this book is pretty strange, with the heroes actually leaving the world of Eberron and traveling to a world of dreams. A new character, Xu'Sassar, is introduced and adds significantly to the story but isn't nearly as well-fleshed out as the others. This book is noticeably shorter than the previous two, with words spaced out more and in larger font, but taking up the same number of pages. It doesn't take away from the story however, and you never get the feel that it was rushed.

Baker does an excellent job of wrapping up the story and explaining the hows and whys of the many mysteries he'd introduced in the first two books. You'll finally understand Lei and Peirce's pasts, as well as what happened to Jode. All in all, this book serves as a fine conclusion to an excellent trilogy. I look forward to reading more of the Eberron novels.