Customer Reviews

Wolf Wing: Claidi Journals; Book IV

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The claidi journals are great!tanith lee has truely outdone herself on this book!I e-mailed about 50 people asking whether there is gonna be a 5th claidi journal and all of them,but 1 said they had no idea. The one that knew wrote to the c/o publisher of the book and they wrote back saying there is gonna be a fifth one!! but tanith lee is taking a break from the claidi journals for a little bit so it won't come out for a couple of years.but anyways YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the last in the series but certainly not the least entertaining. Witty and funny it keeps you on you toes the entire time. It is great to see Claidi finally accept who she is and settle down (finally) with Argul. I recommend that you read this book last and start with Wolf Tower, otherwise you will be completely lost. Have fun reading this book, it is great.

This along with the first 3 books was an excellent read. I couldn't put it down. I felt like I was Claidi, experiencing her frustration and grief. Although there probably won't be, I hope that there will be a 5th book, even though this one is said to be the final installment, but it said that in the back of my second book for the third one.

The previous books were very exciting and I'd expected the final one to be too. I just finished reading it and it was exciting but not as much as the first three books. In the middle it had lots of details with made it kind of boring because it practically took up half the book! The other parts were good though. If they make a new one, hopefully is more interesting and amusing to make up for the fourth one. Wolf Wing is a good book despite some of the minor parts.

"Wolf Wing" is the forth and final book in the Claidi journals, a quartet of books that narrated the young heroine's journey from slavery to freedom, and her untangling of the many mysteries and conspiracies around her, all in diary form. After many adventures in the first three books, Claidi is finally reunited with her beloved Argul, and together they plan their marriage and the return to Claidi's previous home, the House, in order to release the slaves.

But once again, nothing is what it seems. On returning to the House Claidi and her new husband find that the slaves do not need their help - on the night of Claidi's escape, the slaves overthrew their former masters and now live in relative peace and harmony. The spoilt Jade Leaf, who once threatened Claidi with a vicious whipping, is now servant to those she once bullied mercilessly. But the Old Lady Jizania Tiger, who instigated the whole thing seems to have something more up her sleeve: calling Claidi, Argul and another slave Dengwei (who led the revolt) to her, she reveals that the famous Ironel - matriarch of the Wolf Tower - has summoned them to her home, promising to reveal more information concerning the enigmas surrounding them.

Once there, readers are treated to a reunion, as major characters from all the previous books turn up: Nemian, Winter Raven, Venn and Ngarbo arrive in order to hear Ironel's news. And the news she reveals is shocking: Venn and Argul's mother, the famous sorceress Ustareth that has meddled in these characters lives from beyond the grave with her plans and charms...is in fact alive. Astonished by such a fact, these characters (with the exception of Nemian) decide to travel in Yinyay (the moving tower) to her land in order to confront her...

For the final book in the series, it's a satisfactory conclusion - giving us wrap-ups to all the main characters, and finally letting us meet the figure that's been behind all their confusion and grief. Tanith Lee continues to create vivid, interesting and beautiful settings as well as intrigue in the form of the (quite spooky) moving statues and the way in which all six characters separately approach Ustareth's citadel. The diary entries are once more realistic, thoughtful and poignant and you can tell Claidi herself has grown as a character when compared to her writing in "Wolf Tower" - the changes were never obvious, but are definitely there.

Throughout the entire series I was often frustrated with the lack of coherence and grandeur in the plots concerning Claidi and those around her: rather than any dark and deep meaning to them, the `bad-guys' do what they do out of pettiness, personal gain and family issues. My grievances that these plots weren't clearly drawn out or explained remain, but my feelings on the fact that the reasons behind the ongoing `mystery' were somewhat shallow have changed. Tanith Lee is a wonderful author, and I have to admire the originality in creating a fantasy series that wasn't about good or evil, world domination, tragic romances or myriads of fantasy races. This was simply about a young girl who was caught up in the selfish designs of others. Once you understand this, I think you'll be able to appreciate these books better.

Which is not to say these four books are completely without their flaws - they can get quite confusing at times and it's tricky keeping track of all the clues and mysteries that Lee gives us, and some of the revelations (concerning Ustareth's decisions and Claidi's powers) at the end didn't seem to make much sense. I also dislike the way they are divided into separate volumes - it makes it immensely difficult to track down all the books in order to get the complete story (and rest assured, you cannot read them out of order). The Claidi quartet does not have my highest recommendation - if you have too much trouble understanding or even finding these books, then don't get too worked up. However if you want a light, but interesting read, then you could do worse than "Wolf Tower", "Wolf Star", "Wolf Queen" and "Wolf Wing."

After reading the first three books, some 10 years ago, I recently found through amazon that there was a fourth book! I ordered it immediately and while waiting for it to arrive re-read the second and third books. This fourth book did not disappoint! Claidi is off on another adventure and while towards the end of the book I was thinking "there's only so many pages left, how is this going to end??" it really finally all came together. Everything I'd been reading 10 years ago made sense, every piece fit together, and it just felt like a nice conclusion. Anyone who is a fan of the first books will love this ending!

It wasn't as good as the other books... Perhaps it's because I read the others as a group years before, but this seems to just be tagged on the end.

I was really looking forward to this book because I liked the first 3 so much. Once I read it, I was a little disappointed. Kind of boring....

Wolf Wing is somewhat of a letdown as the final installment in the Claidi journals. In it Claidi and her new husband, Argul, are summoned by Argul's grandmother, Ironel, so that she can give them some important message. There they meet up with Dengwi, an old aqquantence of Claidi's, Venn, Argul's half brother, and Winter Raven, a tempermental young woman from Claidi's past. The message is that Argul and Venn's mother, Ustareth, thought long ago to be dead, is actually alive.

The rest of the novel is spent with Claidi either angsting over her relationship with Argul or, when she is seperated from her friends, angsting over whether she'll ever see him again. Far too much time is spent with her on a quest to find Ustareth with her dog, Thu, and her horse, Mireen, as the only other characters. By the time she finally does find her mother-in-law the whole mysteriousness is defeated. And, by the end of the book, it seems that everyone is related somehow to one another! You'll see what I mean...

this book was great.The one thing that really bothered me was that at times the detailes were being dragged out and making it very frustrating to read. I was quite satisfied with the ending although i am usually very specific about endings. i hope that if tanith lee writes a fifth book it will end any further questions and not be quite as confusing