A fitting penultimate volume, setting us up for the final confrontation in Book 7. We start to leave the mensch worlds behind (except for too much time spent with the elves, humans, and dwarves of Pryan...not really a favorite group of characters of mine) and focus on Haplo, Alfred, and the newly-introduced Marit as they work to thwart the dragon-snakes. Also, there's plenty more of Hugh the Hand (who is as cool and tough as The Gunslinger, the Man with No Name, and Jason Bourne). He's become one of my favorite fictional characters after re-reading these books.

There are a couple of points that detract from the story. For one, I've always wondered why Alfred was able to bring Hugh back to life without any of the issues discussed in Fire Sea (he's not a lazar with an echoing voice, or a regular corpse who's mindless). There's no explanation how this could be, but I think we can surmise that as the Serpent Mage, Alfred as powers far beyond those of other Sartan. The second is more of a wish than an issue, but I thought that the lazar on Abarrach were defeated too easily. A simple sentence is all that is used to explain their defeat. Still, I think this serves to describe how powerful Xar is compared to everyone else.

I'll be very sorry when I close the cover on the last book, but this is a series that I will come back to someday. I do that with very few books, but this is one of the best.