The Ruin of Kings #1 | The Name of All Things #2 | The Memory of Souls #3 | The House of Always #4
This book was everything I ever wanted. I won’t pretend I didn’t feel extreme trepidation when it came to reading the final instalment in my favourite fantasy series of all time. But I should never have doubted Jenn Lyons. THE DISCORD OF GODS is a perfect conclusion to a spectacular series, and I know that this series is going to be my chunky comfort reads for a long time now.
Thanks to Tor UK for the finished copy of this book. It has not affected my honest review.
About the book:
The end times have come.
Relos Var’s final plans to enslave the universe are on the cusp of fruition. He believes there’s only one being in existence that might be able to stop him: the demon Xaltorath.
As these two masterminds circle each other, neither is paying attention to the third player on the board, Kihrin. Unfortunately, keeping himself classified in the “pawn” category means Kihrin must pretend to be everything the prophecies threatened he’d become: the destroyer of all, the sun eater, a mindless, remorseless plague upon the land. It also means finding an excuse to not destroy the people he loves (or any of the remaining Immortals) without arousing suspicion.
Kihrin’s goals are complicated by the fact that not all of his “act” is one. His intentions may be sincere, but he’s still being forced to grapple with the aftereffects of the corrupted magic ritual that twisted both him and the dragons. Worse, he’s now tied to a body that is the literal avatar of a star – a form that is becoming increasingly, catastrophically unstable. All of which means he’s running out of time.
After all, some stars fade – but others explode.
What did I think?
This review may contain spoilers for the first four books in the series but will be spoiler-free for THE DISCORD OF GODS.
The previous books all feature interesting narrative structures and unusual shuffled timelines, but THE DISCORD OF GODS is a more traditional, linear novel. This works really well for this conclusion though, as we’ve been building up to this point for so long that it felt right to follow all of the events in the moment. Our footnotes this time are from both Thurvishar and Senera and their back-and-forth commentary is incredible. Thurvishar has been my favourite character from day one, and his relationship with Senera is everything to me. Getting to see them bicker and banter in the footnotes is perfection and I put so many tabs in the book because of their dialogue. Also, the aro/ace rep? Spectacular. The queer rep in general is amazing, but I’m biased to love good aro/ace rep more than anything else.
We’ve been meeting so many characters throughout this series, and in this book we get to see them come to the peak of their character arcs in a spectacular way. We get to see so many building relationships come together, and our team of rag-tag heroes finally coming together into one strong team working towards their goals – taking down Relos Var. I do think that with so many ‘main’ characters, it would have been nice to see all of our surviving characters in the last chapters, so we could get a little hint at each of their futures. But I can’t complain too much because I did adore this final book and the ending made me bawl like a baby then lie down on the floor for a while to think about my feelings.
I had no idea how this was going to tie up so many disparate threads of plot, but they came together spectacularly, with high-stakes and higher hopes. This whole series has been heavily influenced by a magic system that has resurrection built-in, and yet there was still a real sense of fear that some characters wouldn’t make it. The stakes felt high, terrifyingly so, and our characters knew that death might be for real this time. It had me terrified that I was going to lose my comfort gays. The plot came together really well, despite how much I thought I knew going into the series there was still more to discover about the world and demons in particular. It tied off an incredibly complex storyline in a coherent and competent way and I loved every part of it.
I can’t believe that this series is over, and I am going to have to reread it around a thousand times before I’m satisfied. Or, more likely, I’ll never let these characters go. They’ve carved out a hole in my heart and I think my copy of THE DISCORD OF GODS might be my Cornerstone.
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Release Date: 28th April 2022
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