I've been reading a lot of late, it passes the time when you're travelling between destinations
I picked up a battered old copy of probably one of my favourite of books: The Keys to Paradise by Robert Vardeman
[img:3h474d23]
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/4 ... AA300_.jpg[/img:3h474d23]
I've read this book probably about 8 times over the last 20 odd years and I still love it.
It's a classic high fantasy tale with 3 main characters: an old fighter/soldier, a young wiley thief and a human/feline [transanimal hybrid] girl who go on a quest to collect the 5 keys to the gates of paradise. They start out with 2 keys and have to find the other 3.
It's the ending of the book, which I will not give away, which has had the most profound effect on me. In a sense I honestly believe Vardeman wrote a singular truth about the human condition and the way to attain "paradise". I can't explain any further without giving more away but for me at least, it gave me an insight into a way in which to look at life.
The other great thing about this book is that you can buy a copy for literally nothing via amazon.com.uk, paying for postage mostly.
Seriously worth it friends.
[quote:3h474d23]Drakashin wrote:
Daughter of the Drow series was very good.
I agree with that up until the third book where things were so rushed that I was left scratching my head by the time it was over. It's not even that I didn't like the ending, the whole book was just so...forced. [/quote:3h474d23]
I agree 100% Narsia. The 1st 2 books were fabulous and really drew me in. The 3rd book though did indeed feel rushed, that it was churned out to meet publishing deadlines etc. I believe that the book should have been broken into 2 and further development of the characters and storyline was needed. What is also sad is that WoTC never bothered to follow up Liriel as a character even though the series was immensely popular. I believe it is because they wanted to kill off Eilistraee and thus didn't want further stories about her and her followers [in this case Liriel] mucking up their retcon'ed universe which everyone loathes. I think we can all agree that Liriel is a far more intriguing character than Drizzt and had much more potential to become a major power in the Realms setting. Liriel has become a footnote in WoTC's new realms, barely even mentioned even though she played a major part in realms shaping history.
