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5.0 out of 5 stars
If only there were more..., May 16 2002
I discovered this series orignally via a loan [yes, all were returned] over 10 years ago. Over the next 5 years I painstakingly collected them, all long-since out of print, for myself from used bookstores across California. Having read and reread them to the point of needing "new" copies yet again [thanks to Amazon this time], I cannot recommend the enire trilogy enough.This end piece wavers not at all with regard to the charaters, story, plot and tone as begun and carried through Sword of the Lamb and Shadow of the Swan. Alexand, Adrien, the Concord, the Phoenix, the Outside... you cannot help but be caught up in the personal, political and global struggles of the society which MK Wren has created. The technology developed as part of this post-Disasters environment makes their world only that much more appealing. Intensely detailed, the historian in me was just as delighted with the "archive lectures" as with the "current" story line. The lectures are also very much a necessary part of the first read-through. Within the character's lives and the attendant system-wide events they are a part of, there are enough challenges and setbacks to keep what is going right from feeling over sappy and preordained. I only wish that, like the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings [the only series I've gone through more copies of], there were more books to go with these three. Have I been vague enough in my praise? May I also say that I liked the original cover art better?
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