The Chaos Crystal (The Tide Lords, Book 4) - Jennifer Fallon

Rating: 7.5/10

Blurb:
"The Tide Lords have gathered in Jelidia and learn that in order for Cayal to die, they must open a rift to another world. Before they can do this, however, they must find the Chaos Crystal that brought them to this world.

As they set off in search of it, they head to Glaeba, where Arkady has been captured by Jaxyn. She escapes and flees to Caelum to find Stellan, where she runs into Warlock and his family and learns that Elyssa, Warlock's cruel immortal mistress, knows the location of the Chaos Crystal.

With every immortal on Amyrantha searching for the crystal, the stakes are very high. And when they find it and finally open the rift, only two questions remain… Will Cayal finally be able to die? And where will the rift take the survivors?"




The ending to this series left me a little bit in limbo about whether I liked it or wanted to scream "cop out". It wasn't entirely satisfying, although it was certainly a plausible way to end the story. Except it didn't end. Which is perhaps paying homage to the central theme of immortality. If that's the case, then ok, it was pretty clever; the 4 book epic was merely a snapshot of an immortal saga. +0.5 to the rating :)

The book itself introduced a hell of a lot of explanations about the immortals and how they came to Amyrantha, but keeps some things (like the origins of the very first immortals) to itself. This I didn't find unsatisfying, given that the explanations given for the conduct of Lukys' and Kentravyon's characters were exceedingly 'nerd-science' and that appealed to me... as a nerd.

One thing I did find a little bit disturbing is that the 'witty' characters in the book all had the same 'wit', and therefore spoke similarly. This does little to promote contrast between the characters and robs them somewhat of depth, however the sheer scale of this narrative whole-heartedly mitigates that minor bug bear of mine. Fallon has completed her "multi-hued tapestry of myth, deceit and ambition" (thankyou publisher's weekly) with a cheeky and suprising ending. Yes, I was suprised by the ending, not because of the final setting, but because of what happens to a large proportion of characters!