Meh - a dialogue-heavy book in which the good guys all talk reasonably and sincerely about their world's problems, while the antagonists twirl their moustaches, makes for easy but fairly boring reading. When most of that dialogue is flat and the characterisations likewise, and the mechanics of the story's magical system are workmanlike at best… even though a tiny part of me *does* want to know what happens next (and therefore the book must have doing something right after all), I don't think I'll bother reading any more of this series. ( )

(Alistair) Well, there's not much I really have to say about these three books, the Blending Enthroned trilogy - one reason I'm booklogging them together - partly because, again, these were books I read during the whole Long Night of Server Installs, and partly because a lot of it would be a mere recapitulation of the issues I had with the Blending pentalogy (Convergence, Competitions, Challenges, Betrayals, Prophecy). That said...

...they are something of an improvement over the previous books. The pure fuliginous paint slapped over the villains earlier dissipates, to some extent, as we see some not-as-bad-as-all-that and some actual redemption happening. The Jordanesque relationship issues, while not gone, are at least used considerably less and more lightly painted. We meet some interesting new viewpoint characters (and other Blendings); we visit a foreign country which is nicely gray and with their own scheme of Blending to support their republic, which although faulty is interesting, and fight off some invaders who are using the ability to Blend in a much darker way.

So, yes, some interesting stuff, some improvement, still a pretty fun, light read, and then you get to the absolutely huge, reaching back across all eight books, deus ex freaking machina right at the end, and that, gentle reader, is when you pitch the last book at the wall.

I don't exactly regret the time I spent reading these, but I wouldn't exactly recommend them, either.
( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/cerebrate/2008/09/intrigues_deceptions_and_de... ) ( )