Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde, MyShelf.com
Buy a US || UK Copy

Hold onto your hats for David Gemmell's fourth and final volume of his Rigante series. Kaelin Ring is now married with a son and the sort of outlaw leader Jaim Grymauch would have been proud of. In the hills, the Rigante live as free as they can but not far away their conquerors the Varlish are fighting a civil war. Distinguishing himself as a general is Stomrider, son of Kaelin's nemesis the Moidart. But there is worse abroad than this flesh-and-blood villain and soon both the Rigante and Varlish find themselves pitted against the reawakened power of a god intent on destroying the human race. It seems incredible to all concerned but the time has come for bitter enemies to become allies and unite against the new evil.

Mixing Sit Walter Scott with Braveheart and adding the customary Gemmell magic here is another tale of forlorn hopes, valiant soldiers and brave clansmen with plenty of action, a little tragedy and buckets of humanity. Gemmell's novels are people-driven which is what makes them stand above much of the other fantasy novels and tend to be of a manageable size - here is that rarity of fantasists, one who doesn't write vast tomes but packs in his action and big-hearted heroes into under 500 pages. To its detriment, I
guess you could describe this novel as "more of the same" but somehow Gemmell gets away with his tried-and-tested formula of the few against the many and comes up with a winner every time that reads like a folktale in the making. In fact, great stuff.