The Battle of Verril, by Joseph R. Lallo

This is the third book of The Book of Deacon trilogy.  If you read my last book review you will remember I was really upset with the second book.  I think Lallo redeems himself with this book though.  This book picks up where the last book left off.  We learned that Myranda is one of the chosen.  She has been able to bring the two Malthropes and the Elemental together.  Will they find the fifth chosen now that The Great Convergence has taken place?  Will they ever really work as a team to defeat the enemy?

This book is less frenzied than the last.  There is still battle after battle, but these are more with a purpose behind each one, building up to the last and final battle.  Lallo won back my trust with two unexpected reunions.  Though I think the blooming love story between Deacon and Myranda could have had more passion.  With your life on the line all the time all the time, I would have expected our heros to throw caution to the wind.

I think he tied up all the loose ends with this book, though with Deacon's scientific mind I would have thought he would have went into greater detail about what he learned from the scrolls he received near the end.  Also I would have liked just a little bit more detail about what happens to our heros after the battle.  It felt a little too rushed for my liking.  Overall I liked this book as much as the first, though it took me a little while longer to read, since he really had to earn my trust back after the second book.

Perhaps some day I'll crawl home, beaten, defeated.  But not as long as I can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow.

-- Sylvia Plath