The Crystal Mountain: Empyrean Odyssey, Book III (The Empryean Odyssey)

The Crystal Mountain by Thomas M. Reid- This is the last book in The Empyrean Odyssey trilogy, preceded by The Fractured Sky, being the second book, and The Gossamer Plains, the first. The story picks right up where The Fractured Sky left off and we find Tauran, Kael, Aliisza, Zasian Menz, Myshik, Micus, and Kaanyr Vhok all effected by the death of Mystra. I'll just simply reword what the description says on the back of the book. Kaanyr Vhok wants revenge on the angels that held him captive, and he is finally in the position to be able to. Aliisza is torn between her son, the angel that freed her, and her lover in which to swear her alliance. Negatives: 1) Eirwyn. While she wasn't a bad character, her side story wasn't really interesting. Don't get me wrong, it did show the confusion of the High Council and did have a purpose, but it just seemed to drag on. Positives: 1) Characters. The way Aliisza changed is remarkable. I've liked her before but now she really blew me away by being so changed and understanding of her lot in life. She grew greatly as a character in this one, more so than the previous books. Kael also grew greatly within this book. He seemed to go from a main/ secondary character into someone that I want to read more about. Tauran was written well, and we can really feel sorry for him throughout the book. Vhok and his single mindedness 2) Return of one of my favorite characters. I can't give anything away, so I'll make this short. Seeing him return was just wonderful, and he still had the same vanity and humor as before. 3) Micus/ Myshik. What happens to them I just can't be more happy about. Once again, I can't give to much away, but it felt right and just that this happened. 4) The Spellplague. This is the first book that really showed what happened during it. I've read a couple before this, but it didn't really go into much detail. Now, however, seeing how destructive it is and how it corrupts a few characters really made me shiver. 5) The ending. It really wrapped up this trilogy very well. I'm happy with everything happening and how everything ended up. It just felt right. Overall: 5/5 * I couldn't really find any major flaws in the story, and most of all the characters grew a lot and in a good way. *

The Crystal Mountain by Thomas M. Reid concludes The Empyrean Odyssey trilogy. This book picks up directly after the events of the Fractured Sky. The main plots of The Crystal Mountain begins with Aliisza, Kaanyr Vhok, Kael Tauran, Zasian, Myshik, and Micus trying to find a way out of their predicament while Eirwyn has been called upon to divine what the future holds for the planes. These plots intertwine later to defense of/battle for the celestial plane. A couple subplots added are the relationship between Vhok, Aliisza, and Tauran, a character's ambitions as events unfold as well as their previous goal, and a couple others that would involve spoilers. The pacing of this novel is a little faster than the previous two, The Gossamer Plain and The Fractured Sky. The battles are more engaging and longer. The flow is the same being that once there is a great place to add a cliff hanger for the time being, Mr. Reid shifts to other characters. This does make for irritation at times in the beginning because the shift usually went to Eirwyn's plot line which was not as interesting as it could have been. Later in the book, the shifts were spot on and added to the suspense. The characters still have the same appeal to me that they did in the second book. Each had their own voice and agendas. Some new and old secondary characters add nicely to this one such as Vhissilka and Lord Axithar a balor. The other secondary character is spoiler related. There is also a good amount of character development. I still don't feel that the characters and story were on par with The Scions of Arrabar trilogy, but this book was right up there. There was an even amount of plot pushing the characters as well as character decisions to move the plot along. There are a couple really good plot twists with this one but here is also another element I would say was more of a tweak. This happens with the addition of one of the secondary characters and what Mr. Reid did with the characters of Myshik and Micus. After seeing how the author uses these tweaks, it makes the story much more enjoyable. Another tweak happens to Aliisza. A couple criticisms: 1. Eirwyn's plotline to me could have been contrived a bit better. I just couldn't connect very well with her in the beginning. Eventually, what happens makes sense, but it didn't go over well for me. Also with her plotline, there is a big gap between a few chapters that I had to stop and go back to try and figure out how things got that way. 2. Some things felt forced plot wise such as Eirwyn's. I wonder if WotC was able to let Mr. Reid work some of his magic with writing but also kept a loose leash on him so that the story could move to fit in the now 4E. Some positives: 1. As I mentioned before, the tweaks that are added enhance the story significantly. There were some really nice and nasty surprises that I really enjoyed. 2. This is actually throughout the trilogy, but it is also detailed more in this book. That is the far re