I have noticed that for a lot of these older books that I have read (older referring to an earlier time in my life as opposed to the books being writen a long time ago) I seem to open the comment with 'my friend gave it to me and said that it was good.' Okay, we are talking about trilogies with this particular book, but it is sort of him giving me the first in a trilogy or series, and telling me its a good book. What I find annoying though is that when I hand them a copy of the Odyssey and say 'here, read this, it is a good book' it tends to be put on the shelf and ignored. Okay, we all have our tastes, and to be honest these days I tend to do the same thing, however I find it difficult how some people will spend their days reading the rubbish that is being churched out of the machine, but completely ignore the literature upon which our modern world is founded upon.
This is the conclusion to the trilogy, and while I was about to suggest that it is good that they wrote the trilogy and stuck to the trilogy, it turns out that two more books were also written, one of them being a collection of short stories. Well, granted, if a world or a series of popular then no doubt the authors will want to write more, though some of the popularity, particularly with the Dragonlance novels, tends to lie with the tie in game setting than anything else.
I guess the quest narrative can apply to this trilogy as it turns our the Joram is more than just a guy living in a magical kingdom with no magical power. He is in fact a king, or at least the next in line to the throne. However because he has been deemed to have no magic, he has forfeited his right. Obviously this is some sort of power struggle, because it is not Joram's fault that he has no percievable magic, though he in fact does, that being a magic nullification power, something that has been transferred to his sword.
There is apparently a priestly class that does weild significant power over the kingdom. It is interesting that where there is political intrigue, there always seems to be some sort of church sitting behind it, but then this is something that comes down from our European way of thinking. We tend to view power in the form of Church and State. The church has power over our spiritual lives, while the state has power over our physical lives. However there is endless debate as to the extent that these powers cross, though this is a debate that has been ragin for millenia, and I doubt we will ever come to a conclusion that satisfies everybody. At this stage I think I will move on from this discussion of power, but I am sure there will be times in the future when I can return to it.
This book has the sci-fi elements of the story emerge. What we have is a land (like Xanth's Mundania) where there is no magic, but what actually is the case is that the magic of this land is technology. It turns out that all of the technocrats were expelled from the land centuries ago, and they have lived elsewhere developing their skills at talents. However, along comes Joram with his darksword, and rises up to lead the technocrats back, and they return with their laser tanks and destroy everything, leaving Joram as king. In a way I have probably breezed through a lot of the ideas in these books, and feel that at this time I should probably move on.