Last Dragon Standing

So I reached the end of this. I have some thoughts of it as a whole and also the last couple of books, because there is a difference between how this started out and how it ended.

When you read a series of books it's inevitable to have some differences in the lengths of the individual volumes, it's not that weird. Some series have quite big ones, actually. I remember getting Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire as a kid and being amazed by how thick it was compared to the previous books in the series.
Here, though... the last one is incredibly short and absolutely unnecessary as a separate volume. Now let me point out the thing; the biggest mistake of this series was always just blabbering about stuff without moving the plot ahead effectively. One of the protagonists (Julius) is all about diplomacy, but I would assume diplomacy means it has to be of use. The characters certainly brainstorm a lot. Needlessly. With some clever editing the last couple of books could have been just one and we would have gotten the same ending.

Overall I loved some things about this and at the same time felt like some others could have been handled a bit better. Certain characters were unnecessary and still hyped up (like Emily) and others were hella fun and could have been around much more instead of just so much blabbering (like Bob).
I have learnt that the author has some sort of a method or tutorial stuff about writing a lot every day. I guess that's good in some way, it lets you get a lot of your story out of your system, but it also shows. Verbose. So verbose. You can't just word vomit like crazy and not cut it down drastically.

All in all, I did like the series. I would even recommend it. But it's far, far from perfect and while monumental things happen later in the series it's not nearly as concise and tight as far as the plot goes as it could have been (and should have been, lets be real).

Overall, this is probably the most fun I've had reading this year. There were so many laugh out moments over the series. Additionally, I enjoyed the author's exploration of forgiveness and personal autonomy. In particular, I was impressed by the portrayal of Julius and Marci's relationship. At no point did the narrative place Julius' desire to have Marci safe over her own wishes to develop into a powerful mage (I know this is a spectacularly low bar, but in my experience, very few novels manage to pass it). Their relationship was supportive and respectful and I loved its development.

However, I have a few niggles that stop this from being five stars:
Firstly, I think a lot of emphases is placed on the power of forgiveness and the importance of talking things out. While I appreciated that, I think that not enough attention is giving to holding people accountable for their actions. Over and over again Julius' preaches forgiveness in place of violence but he makes no mention of any other type of accountability. In my opinion, forgiveness and accountability go hand in hand. You should ideally not have one without the other.

The last point is one of personal preference. The Quetzalcoatl and the Qilin were based on Aztec and Chinese mythology respectively and I would have liked the book to delve deeper into their origins and the mythology surrounding them. It would have been amazing to read.

But despite those small issues I had such a blast reading this series.

What a fitting finale. We see Bob in all his glory but failing in the end. We see more dragons from all corners of the world but they remain true to character. Amelia comes to the fore and still loses to Svena. Marci reaches her destiny but is not able to take on the Nameless End. In the end its upto Julius to sweet talk his way through and when he cannot succeed the Nameless End is on the verge of Victory. This and many other sub plots dominate the final book but in every outcome Rachel stays true to the series and not a single character behaves out of their nature bringing a fantastic series to a fitting end. The magic system while not in the same class as Brandon's is pretty logical but gets confusing at times. Highly recommended!

I'd been looking forward to this book, because Bob has been one of my favorite characters in the series - and seeing that he is not only on the cover (with his lady, no less), he has also been the one scheming all through books 1-4, I was happy that he'd play a major part in the series finale.

On the other hand I was more than a bit apprehensive, because I know that Rachel Aaron occasionally kills off well-liked or even main characters, so... gulp

As in the other books in the series, it's another team effort to prevent catastrophe, and considering that we're talking about the end of the world, things are looking even bleaker than usual.
Overall, I found it to be a fitting finale.