Book review: Chaz Brenchley -- Outremer 6/6: The End of All Roads

[julesjones]

I still need to write an overview of the series as a whole, but here's the review of the final volume in the US edition:

Chaz Brenchley -- Outremer 6/6: The End of All Roads

Over the last five volumes, Brenchley has laid out a large number of plot strands. Now he weaves them together in a final volume that sustains the tension almost to the end. The folded land of Surayon is folded no more, and has become a battleground for multiple warring armies, not all of them human. The different human armies are at war with one another, but face a greater enemy -- if they can recognise it in time. The central characters of the series face their own battle to protect the many people and things they love, not all of which are on the same side. Marron's battle is particularly harsh, for he has sworn, with good reason, to never again use the power of the Daughter to kill.

Even in the midst of battle, this is a character-driven story, and there's some beautiful development of character, as each of the surviving main characters is tested to the breaking point. That's "surviving", because right the way through this has not been your fluffy fantasy where only the redshirts die. There's no gratuitous gore, but that's not because the author flinches away from showing the reality of a land at war. As a result, there's genuine suspense right to the last chapter.

At the end of the battle for Surayon, there's one last conflict to resolve. The King of all Outremer has until now been an off-stage figure, shown only through what others say about him, and the effects of the magical power he wields. And the survivors from various sides have questions they would like answered about his failure to intervene in their war at an early stage. They get their answers, but answers that pose more questions.

While Brenchley answers the reader's questions, it's far from a neat and tidy ending. A satisfying one, with Julianne, Elisande and Marron pragmatic enough to be content with what they've got, but certainly not a tidy one.

As a whole then, this is a wonderful and unusual fantasy series, with this volume providing a fitting conclusion. And while romance isn't the be-all and end-all of the plot, the series is definitely one for fans of unconventional romance, so long as they don't insist on all parties getting an unambiguous Happy Ever After.

Outremer #6: The End of All Roads (Outremer, 6) 6/6 at Amazon US
Hand of the King's Evil (Outremer) 3/3 at Amazon US
Chaz Brenchley's website

Comments

[ladooshka.livejournal.com]

There is a interesting moment at the very end of the book. When Marron, and it was definitely him, has chosen one of the fighters to take with him. And we surely know who those fighters were: Jemel and Sieur Anton, at least the way I understood the final duel.
I hope much that it was Jemel who was Marron's chosen!

Thank you for a wonderful review!

[julesjones]

I didn't refer to that explicitly in the review, as it's a spoiler of sorts, but I loved that last page -- and I certainly thought it was Jemel that Marron took with him.

But I said to desperance afterwards that I'd like to think that Marron managed to get some sense into the pair of them a chapter or two after the end of the book, and he said he'd like to think so too. :-)

[ladooshka.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, me too!:)

I am glad I found your lj and got a link to your website from the profile! I have to admit that to my shame I haven't read your fictions. I will, I promise!