Into Narsindal

Chronicles of Hawklan #4

by Roger Taylor

The evil Lord Dan-Tor has at last been driven out of Fyorlund and has retreated to Narsindal, the realm of his dread master Sumeral. But Hawklan and his allies have won no more than a breathing space, for Dan-Tor is gathering his forces for a massive onslaught on all the free lands.An alliance of the free peoples must be forged, even those of peaceful Orthlund, to stand against Sumeral's dark battalions. The dwellers in the air and the mysterious inhabitants of the lands beneath the mountains must also play their part.A brave alliance; yet so great are Sumeral's forces that it can do no more than stave off the hour of defeat a little while.For Hawklan and the raven, Gavor, the road ahead is lonely and unknowable, for they must confront Sumeral himself, and in so doing discover, at last, what secret lies buried so deep in Hawklan's soul. Into Narsindal is the fourth book of "The Chronicles of Hawklan".

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Epic Fantasy

568 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Roger Taylor was born in Heywood, Lancashire, and now lives in the Wirral. He is a chartered civil and structural engineer, a pistol, rifle and shotgun shooter, instructor/student in aikido, and an enthusiastic and loud but bone-jarringly inaccurate piano player.

He wrote four books between 1983 and 1986 and built up a handsome rejection file before the third was accepted by Headline to become the first two books of the Chronicles of Hawklan.

Reviews

[River · Rating 4 out of 5]

This final book has left me a bit indecisive on how I feel about it. Firstly, the editor is still terrible if not worse than the other volumes, and there are sentences/things said where I was just like, surely someone said "uh, maybe not that?". For example, Pg 776 chapter 29 towards end of chapter.
“One cum two tens,” the keeper said scissoring his hands together. “All soft movers” Come on…

Additionally things feel extra bloated here, there's whole chapters that could've been a few sentences. Likewise, in one chapter where maybe something intense is happening, like a major battle, we'll just suddenly pop over to the Queen thinking about horses for a paragraph before popping back into the battle. It slows down and in some cases completely halts the momentum for little to no reason.

And lastly the characters do things just because.

Yet, here I've still rated this book 4/5. That's because, despite all these things listed above, it was still a fun story. I seem to be among the minority that liked Gavor, so how things ended with him pleased me, the characters were fun and interesting to watch (when they weren't randomly popping in), the baddies being dealt with was satisfying (if maybe a bit too fast - a rare problem) and it wrapped up in a satisfying way.

Would I recommend this series? Yes, it's as classic high fantasy as it can be, just keep in mind the time sink. If you don't mind that, well, go read it dear boy.

[Massimiliano · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started off very strong and then kind of went off the rails in the last 100 pages. Too many times some characters refused to explain things and other characters did not question it. The ending relied on a very hard-to-believe sequence with a dea ex machina, a furry killer beast and an almost unexplained final confrontation. Not only nobody among the good ones gets killed, but they also get out of the final confrontation with barely a scratch!! The bad ones are quite ineffective here. Still, I enjoyed a good part of the book, and I appreciated the underlying philosophy on war and struggle (the author is a practitioner of oriental martial arts and their worldview permeates the tetralogy).

[Hrishabh · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a waste! The book begins well and Hawklan's flashback is well done. But the overall story is similar to Lord of the Rings and there any many, many parallel's to be found. Worst is, the big bad villains with earth changing cosmic powers are defeated at a single stroke without using any of their powers at all. What a complete waste!

[Rosz · Rating 2 out of 5]

By the fourth book I knew what I was getting into. I thought the story would be enough and that I could look past the peg-legged, spur-wearing raven that not only talked but did nightingale impressions and bad jokes. I did in fact find that less annoying than the constant repetition of a concept in slightly varying ways – ‘It’s a great mystery, we can never know.’ Just about everything in this book is a great mystery and we can never know – including how I got to book four. A couple of things were revealed at the end. One of them was the identity of the character Gulda, which had already been revealed along the way – there were two hints and while the first one I remember seemed subtle enough, the second virtually beat you about the head with the fact.

Maybe it’s just me, but it took four books to get to the great battle and then it seemed to wrap up very quickly. Things in this book lacked credibility for me – all-powerful creatures who stay their hands for dubious reasons, people’s reactions, the fighting and hardly anyone on the good side hurt and game references for the sake of game references.

I liked the Queen, I liked the idea of Gulda and her history. Isloman and Loman were good characters. I liked a lot of the things the author was trying to say about life and war, but I don’t necessarily think that those things make a good story. There are plenty of things that are enjoyable in fiction and completely untenable in reality (vigilantes for instance).

There is another book after this one, which looks like it starts another adventure. Since this one didn’t really get settled to my satisfaction, I don’t think I’ll be going there.

[Bryan Bonesteel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great series!!

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rereading after many years