Review - The Griffin's War by K.J. Taylor
Mar. 11th, 2011 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkFinally, the Fallen Moon Trilogy is finished. (Well, technically it had been finished some time ago, but still.)
It's impossible to talk at length about this series without dropping spoilers all over the place, but if I were to sum up my feelings, I'd say the ending was, to me, not very satisfying, even though it was completely expected.
It ends in typical tragic Shakespearean fashion: everyone either dies or (in Arenadd's case) loses somehow. The carnage by the end reached incredible levels; what seemed frustrating (for me) was how the entire story seemed set up so that no one could have a happy ending. At least in Taylor's series of fanfiction, with a very similar plot, there was always the potential for something happy to happen (i.e. Galbatorix/"Arenadd" remains with Skade, Morzan/"Bran" remains Galbatorix/"Arenadd"'s friend), and thus the reader was almost always rooting for the protagonists; Galbatorix/"Arenadd" seemed more human, somehow. By the end of the Fallen Moon trilogy, however, I didn't really like any of the main characters. Except for Bran, really, the only character left alive with conventional morals.
Viewing the trilogy as a whole, I'd say it's less grim than George R. R. Martin, but it pulled off race issues and the transformation of a decent person into a villain in a very heavy-handed way. I suppose I'll read the next two trilogies whenever they come out, if only because I'm curious as to how the plot will progress and because Taylor's writing style is extremely readable.
It's impossible to talk at length about this series without dropping spoilers all over the place, but if I were to sum up my feelings, I'd say the ending was, to me, not very satisfying, even though it was completely expected.
It ends in typical tragic Shakespearean fashion: everyone either dies or (in Arenadd's case) loses somehow. The carnage by the end reached incredible levels; what seemed frustrating (for me) was how the entire story seemed set up so that no one could have a happy ending. At least in Taylor's series of fanfiction, with a very similar plot, there was always the potential for something happy to happen (i.e. Galbatorix/"Arenadd" remains with Skade, Morzan/"Bran" remains Galbatorix/"Arenadd"'s friend), and thus the reader was almost always rooting for the protagonists; Galbatorix/"Arenadd" seemed more human, somehow. By the end of the Fallen Moon trilogy, however, I didn't really like any of the main characters. Except for Bran, really, the only character left alive with conventional morals.
Viewing the trilogy as a whole, I'd say it's less grim than George R. R. Martin, but it pulled off race issues and the transformation of a decent person into a villain in a very heavy-handed way. I suppose I'll read the next two trilogies whenever they come out, if only because I'm curious as to how the plot will progress and because Taylor's writing style is extremely readable.
