Fate of the Dwarves, Markus Heitz
The 4th book of the Dwarves series left me both frustrated and genuinely impressed. In the afterword, Heitz responds to questions he'd gotten concerning a possible 5th book and his answer was basically that he didn't know because he didn't have a plan; that he didn't work with a plan. And I think that's what caused some frustration this time. Taking the 3rd and 4th book together as a couplet, this story wasn't quite as good as the story told in the first two. It was a little rushed and not well thought out in places. There were conflicts set up in War of the Dwarves that weren't followed up on in this one even with ample opportunities. I understand that he's more into the tragic endings and I don't mind that the tone was much darker but I couldn't help but be disappointed in the fates, changes in, or outright dismissals of a few of the characters that I'd become invested in.
But the draw of the characters is one of the reasons I'm so impressed. Heitz is a talented writer. This installment takes place over 200 years after War which means all of the human characters from the first three books are dead. But he manages to create a new crop of humans that are actually better and more interesting than the previous ones. Almost all of his elves are dead or in hiding (due to the change in power structure) and he doesn't even need them even though they'd been prominent in the first couplet. Even the familiar characters that I found changed for the worst were still terribly compelling. I wish he'd spent a little more time on them in this story the way he did before. He also skated over some world development that I have no doubt would have been very imaginative. However, this story was more action driven and the modern male perspective of love and relationships in a fantasy setting. Different, but interesting from a psychological view point.
There is a fifth book and I'm on the fence about it. The series has taken a slightly juvenile turn that I don't care for, but then there's the characters that I've come to know and care a lot for. We'll see next Christmas.
