Rise of the Seventh Moon

Eberron: Heirs of Ash, Book 3

By: Rich Wulf

Narrated by: Marcella Rose Sciotto

"To win a battle, a man must be prepared to sacrifice his life.

To win peace, a man must be prepared to sacrifice much more."

(Ashrem d'Cannith)

Ashrem's Legacy...a powerful relic of the Last War lost for ages. Now it is found. But will it bring about the world's salvation or destruction? As the heirs of Ashrem struggle to gain control of the Legacy, the ultimate end to their quest may be taken from them, as the great dragons of far Argonnessen enter the struggle. On a far distant shore, the fate of the world will be decided.

©2007 Wizards of the Coast LLC (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Felt rushed?

I don’t know how a book makes it into printing that doesn’t have one synonym for the word “said” but once I noticed it I couldn’t not hear it. “Zed said” “Zane said,” etc. there was also a few times where the cadence of the speaker seemed off compared to the story, but none of this is a deal breaker. Pretty good ending to the trilogy.

I liekd how the narrator was able to change character voices and personalities at the drop of a hat.

I liked the way that the epilogue was such a sweet tribute and tied the whole of the story into a neat and very thoughtful closing.

Typical Media Tie-in Adventure

For some reason, I accidentally skipped book 2 in this series and jumped straight from 1 to 3. However, for all that an entire novel's worth of story takes place between the two books, I didn't find that there was anything absolutely essential that I missed. Granted, I was still confused by all the characters, which are not really all that fleshed out, and the story jumps around and just doesn't make a whole lot of sense, so part of that might be from my missing out, but I think most of it was just due to the fact that this book isn't all that great.

It pretty much suffers from the standard "media tie-in" novel disease. That is to say, a pretty standard "hero party has to save the world from a sinister plot" with an action scene every couple of chapters or so. Having read so many of these kinds of books over the decades, it was just a little hard to get excited about, and I found myself bored with it for the most part. I really like the world of Eberron and would love to see some sophisticated novels that focus a lot on worldbuilding and deep character development. I really don't need another action book. This one just felt like it went on too long, rehashing the same conflict over and over and giving a pretty standard climax and conclusion to a typical "trilogy" media tie-in.

On another note, I really was annoyed at the narrator's voiceover work. Not the voice itself, but the accents and intonations chosen. She took evil villain to eleven on this one, with really squeaky laughs and comments even with male characters that just didn't feel right at all. Ouch.