The Endless Knot (Song of Albion) (Paperback)

At first I wasn't too keen on the way I could see the story going, but at the end and thinking back accross the fabric of the story one has to see the conclusion as breathtaking and satisfying. Once again I find it hard to say much more without giving away too much. Suffice to say that all the strands and journeys of the lives lived through the enchanted pages of this book come to a stark and powerful conclusion.

There is sadness, there is surprise, there is joy. There is honour and glory, life and death. There is brilliant storytelling.

Recommended for anyone who love good storytelling & characterisation. Intelligent prose and page turning tension.

Very much recommended.

Read these books if you like, as I do: Celtic mythology; high fantasy; believable fictional characters; writing that is at once both poetic and gritty; anything written by Tolkien; well-written fantasy with Christian values...I could go on, actually--let's just say READ THESE BOOKS.

For those people who thought that the Celtic mythology setting of these books was not accurate and rather forced, I beg to disagree. Having studied Celtic mythology informally quite a lot for the past couple of years, I happen to know that these books are VERY well researched. The more that I learn about Celtic mythology, the more I am impressed by the accuracy of the Song of Albion setting. You will have learned more than you know, as you will find if these books inspire you to look further into this fascinating genre of mythology! And the Otherworld setting is, to me, very believable. I could almost believe it is real. It was a mysterious experience to visit a full-sized model of Stonehenge at sunset, during the time-between-times.

Another great thing about these books is that musicians Jeff Johnson and Brian Dunning have written music to go with them. I originally heard of these books through this music. I have all the "Songs from Albion" CDs and highly recommend them, especially if you like contemporary Celtic-style music that is original composition, with a touch of New Age, rock, and medieval styles.

That is my review of the series. About this book in particular--I do not need to go over the plot since that has already been done here, and I would not want to ruin it for you anyway. Although it is still very good, this was my least favorite of the three books in this trilogy. It seemed a bit drawn out, as if the author ran out of things to say before the 400 pages were full. But there are still many important ends tied up. The ending may be to some people disappointing, although it was certainly "coming" no matter what. I will not give it away, but you will probably also be very surprised by the ending. While the "end" is not hard to guess for a reader of the first two books, you will never guess the "means"!

Well, I'm done raving now. READ THESE BOOKS!!!!!!!!!