Customer Reviews

Ships from the West (Monarchies of God 5)

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

 

 

While I have given this book just 3 stars, the series as a whole probably deserves 4 stars.

The Good (What has gone before)
The story was largely well done up until the last book. Kearney did a great in job building a fairly complex, gritty, largely low-fantasy world. There are many intriguing ideas in this series, some of which are obviously borrowed from medieval European history. Ironically, most fantasy writers all but ignore the subject of religion while creating their pseudo-medieval worlds, even though it is religion that gives real medieval history much of its flavor, both for good and for ill. Kearney, on the other hand, is very successful in integrating a religious atmosphere largely reminiscent of our own Middle-Ages. I found this to be fascinating plot device that worked well.

The Ugly (Mostly this last book!)
This last book takes the wind out of the sales of what was shaping up to be a great fantasy series! Virtually all of the main characters that you have spent the entire series with are systematically killed off in the end. It's not that I have to have some sort of happy fairy-tale type of ending, but many of the characters are abruptly dispatched with hardly a reference. We don't even get to experience King Abeleyn's death, but instead are told of it after the fact. And while we are given slightly more detail about Hawkwood's ignoble passing, it just seemed somehow out of place and inappropriate for the story. I agree with a previous reviewer's assessment that Kearney seemed to be tired of writing. The story feels rushed and fragmented; it skips all over the place leaving many unanswered questions and unfinished plot lines. I also found the closing scene of the book/series to be somewhat cryptic. Instead of putting the book down at its conclusion, and having that sense of satisfaction that comes from finishing a good story, I was left scratching my balding head and trying to figure out what I had just read. Perhaps this is what Kearney was after, something that in the end would leave you puzzling over it. If so, he certainly achieves it.

Conclusion:
If you have read the four previous books you will want to read this one. It does have its moments, for example, we finally get to see Murad get his due. But on the whole, I found this book to be a disappointing conclusion to a potentially great series.

The series as a whole was excellent, but the end seemed far too simple, and left many questions unanswered. I was shocked to discover that this 5th book jumped us many years into the future. Not only this, but the author failed to fill us in on most of what happened during this gap. Also, the author ends up killing the main characters off in mass quantities, and does so in situations that make it seem that the author got tired of writing about them and needed them to go away. For instance, Kearney puts the kings, lords, and military leaders of Astarac and Hebrion on the same boat, and then sinks it. After spending so much time with a character as awesome as Abeleyn, it seems that he was cheated out of a good end. We also say goodbye to countless other characters in similar circumstances.

One of the things I was very sad about was that Bleyn's identity as Hawkwood's son is never revealed, not even to Hawkwood before his death.

The battle at the end of the book also seemed unrealistic. Aruan's mighty army has destroyed the invincible mega-armada of Hebrion and Astarac in less than one night, and yet Corfe is able to do so with a single field army. Aruan has his Flyers attacking his enemy in Charibon, but then does not use them for his own protection when he is attacked by Corfe's small Bodyguard force?

Regardless of what seems to me to be a quick ending written by someone who was tired of writing, the rest of the series is very well put together. The characters had much depth and history to them, and I enjoyed the politics between the kingdoms and such. The last chapter of this book was cryptic and intriguing, and leaves you with a last thought to ponder on.

There's an eight-year gap between the previous book and this one, the last of the series, and much goes unexplained. Why, for instance, did Bardolin turn over to Aruan -- what exactly happened? We know that Golophin couldn't cure him, and at the end of the last book Bardolin was starting to feel comfortable being a werewolf, but suddenly now he's Aruan's right hand man. How?

And some other small questions: How does Formio come to stay with Corfe permanently? He had been ordered by his commander Barbius to put the Fimbrian troops at Corfe's disposal, but a decade later he's King Corfe's second-in-command. How did he decide to desert his nation? Don't some of those Fimbrians have families? And Jemilla, the woman who struggles so hard to put her son on the throne of Hebrion, somehow marries Murad and stays quiet for a decade? How did people in the Himerian church -- and people in general -- adjust to the sudden change in policy, pro-Dweomer, where before they were burning anyone who used magic?

These are all little questions that add up. It gives me the impression that Mr. Kearney was getting tired of his series and wanted to make everything convenient, without explaining how they got there.

Now, I'm probably nitpicking a bit. The lack of backstory doesn't necessarily detract from the plot, but it does reflect a lack of depth in this world, and gives me less understanding and less reason to care for the people.

The final battle itself, though, feels very cliched. In the beginning, Aruan and his minions wreak a devastating defeat to the huge Hebrian-Astarac navy in the span of mere hours. How could such a magical juggernaut be defeated?

Well, pretty much how you'd expect. Corfe leads an army and somehow finds a way to surprise the enemy, and Aruan's magical army proves surprisingly easy to beat -- with iron or silver. (I find it very hard to believe that no one knew that at the beginning of the book -- no one's heard superstitions or myths about that kind of thing, even though so many people lived side by side with Dweomer-folk not too long ago?) And of course, in the final battle scene, Corfe engages Aruan in single combat and wins. All hail the king.

A cliched, simplified, feel-good ending to a good, complex series. I hoped for better.

What will surprise readers most is the fact that there is a huge time gap between book four and five. Books one through four where pretty much an uninterrupted stream of events and the sudden leap in time left me a bit disconcerted at first, especially being the last book, but once I adjusted I truly enjoyed what Kearney did.

In a lot of ways this seemed like a book long epilogue. He promptly ties off loose ends and by the end of the book no story line is left unfinished, I didn't say all questions were answered though. It is not neccesarily a happy conclusion but for me it was a satisfying and interesting one with some unexpected surprises.

Some reviews state that he seems to have gotten tired of writing and just quit, but I will say that after impatiently waiting for the next books from authors like Robert Jordan, George R.R. Martin, Terry Goodkind, and R.A. Salvatore it is a nice change of pace to have a well written series end in a timely manner.

With "Ships from the West", Kearney wraps up the impressively mature and well-written Monarchies of God series. If you haven't read all the other 4 books in the series, then of course you should those first, as this one probably won't make much sense to you otherwise. With this book, the author brings the series to a compelling end. All of the hallmarks of the rest of the series are present here -- excellent characterization, tight plotting, and an overall realistic, mature take on the fantasy genre - almost fantasy as history, if you will.
I've noted some other people who finished this book expressed disappointment with 2 things: that main characters were killed off, and that some questions, such as why Bardolin joined with the Himerians, are not directly addressed. I would argue that these traits actually make the book better and a more mature read than it otherwise might be. Yes, many characters that we've come to know and sympathize with are killed: the world is in cataclysm, after all, and serious loss of life is inevitable. Having characters the reader is familiar with, rather than merely faceless soldiers, drives this point home. Some characters may even die in ways that seem pointless or unworthy -- again, even heroes don't always die with glory. As for the questions that were not directly addressed, the astute reader (who read the other books in the series recently and still remembers the important details) can infer most of the reasons for the things that happened. Sometimes subtlety and thought can be better than having everything spelled out. (Which is one the reasons I liked the epilogue of the book.) I felt that the biggest flaw with this book was the breakneck speed with which things occurred. All of the events in this book could easily have merited a couple hundred more pages. It may be that the author was getting tired of the series and was eager to finally draw things to a close. While a bit regrettable, it doesn't weaken the book very much. (Impatient readers may even welcome this.)

On a series-wide note, this is one of the finest fantasy series I've yet had the pleasure of reading. Rarely these days do I read a series straight through without taking breaks between the volumes to read other books, but I plowed straight through this one. Fans of R. Scott Bakker (Prince of Nothing), Joe Abercrombie (The First Law), and GRR Martin (A Song of Fire and Ice) will almost certainly derive great enjoyment from this. Anyone who enjoys well-written, bare-knuckle, serious fantasy would be well off giving this series a try.

I enjoyed the series more than the final book. It has a "contractual obligation" feel - that the author had to write an ending to the series, but couldn't really figure out how to do so. Previous events in the series as well as the first part of this book set up the bad guys as nearly unstoppable - until they are suddenly stopped. Plenty of loose ends are left in the plot, but since all the major characters are dead the book ends.

If you've read the series, by all means finish it with this book. But prepare for some disappointment.

Why are these books out of print? I thought this series was pretty good and pretty original. Way better than a lot of fantasy out there. I like the real world parallels brought into the book like the question of religion. These books aren't amazing and the character development is not great but they are a fun little read. Great break while waiting for Jordan to get healthy or Martin to release another biblical fantasy.

May I recommend this Pentology to any reader interested in good fantasy. Exceptionally smooth reading, interestingly developed mythologies and characters. Well worth your time, & highly recommended.

The main characters will be killed off one by one, so be prepared. This book is as good as the rest of the series but it skips many important battles in the war between the 2nd Empire and the Monarchies of God. And most of the book revolves around Corfe while other main characters like Bardolin are shunted aside. This imbalance in the narrations of the different characters really irritated me but on the whole I felt that this book is a good conclusion to a great series.

This book is the best I have ever read. Its ending is perfect. I advise anybody with good taste in novels to purchase the entire series. The ending is unbelievably perfect and every character has its own issues and flaws. I feel that these books are superior to the Tolkien collection, and I am sure anybody with a love for fantasy works will enjoy the adventure that nearly brings humanity to an end.