Most of the lists for reading chronological leave Young Bleys, Others and The Antagonist till after Chantry Guild. I read Young Bleys before The Final Encyclopedia and I did not care for the book, I did not like Bleys or his mission. His childhood was interesting enough. What a difference when I started the Encyclopedia, huge with tiny print and after Bleys I was hesitant and felt like it would be a mountain and did I really want to climb it but it grabbed me from the first page and held on right through. It brought together so much and never lost the thread. Hal is a much more charismatic hero and his journey so much more interesting and engaging. This was Dickson still prime with a handle on his creation. I thoroughly enjoyed it and found underlinings from the first time I read it. When Hal reaches the Encyclopedia and starts to research the history...it felt like deja vu. We are living in a historical turning point in social evolution with the rise of racism, fascism, oligarchies, a President who lies constantly and blatantly and his followers know and do not care and the rest of his country does nothing seemingly helpless in the face of lawlessness. Misogyny is being normalized and women have somehow become the enemy to be controlled and caged and weakened. Fundamentalism and xenophobia are on the rise...it all resonates with what I am reading and this book written in 1984 is prescient. ( )

I loved the entire Childe cycle when I first read them 25 years ago. But, with The Final Encyclopedia (the 5th book I believe) I realize that I just read a large number of pages in a novel in which nothing much happens. Hal Mayne, the protagonist starts out as a young child and through the course of the book grows up. However, mostly he flys to the Dorsaii, or to the Exotics, and then to the Friendlies asking for their help but not giving them any details. He does this 2 or 3 times until the end when they say that they will help him. And, oh yea, he's the reincarnation of an earlier character that died many years earlier. But a whole book dedicated to him finding that out is boring.

I love the ideas in this book, the concept the human race might "splinter" into separate cultures and emphasize different attributes of the race. But, there are other books in the Childe Cycle that creates characters that are better fleshed out, and are actually someone you can care about. ( )

This book answers a lot of the previous questions, ties up threads that have been left dangling. I wish it had been about 1/2 the length. Certainly 1/3 could have easily been cut. There is a lot of repetition of points previously made. They're hammered home here, multiple times each.

It's an interesting theory that Dickson puts forth: an almost intelligent racial evolution. While I found it repetitive, some readers might like the various ways he puts the same material; different perspectives & situations that make his point very clear.

This story certainly didn't wrap up the series. I could stop here easily enough & thought about it. I'm going to take a minibreak, but will continue reading. The next book, [b:Other|263110|Other (Childe Cycle)|Gordon R. Dickson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173238986s/263110.jpg|650764], covers much the same ground as this one, but from the opposing POV, I believe. That should be interesting. ( )

Really need the title on record here to be fixed!!

A magnificent tome! While drawing so many loose threads together, new ones are left to draw us on further… ( )

Quite frankly, this entry in the Childe Cycle seemed like its only purpose was to spawn more volumes and, thereby, more revenue. It was bloated and didn't have the quality of writing that I found in Tactics of Mistake, Soldier, Ask Not or Spirit of the Dorsai.

Too bad, it was a good series. ( )