So here in the 3rd book it's now clear that this trilogy is a thought experiment off-shoot from the Empire in Black and Gold series - why were there no mammals there, just invertebrate kindred. The answer is that they fled the plague of Wasps (or could have been any soulless ones). The Wasps of course are always expanding and they've discovered the Godlands where everybody has an animal Soul in them. The animals are less happy to discover what they'd thought of as ancient myth is real and invading by Terror and snapbow (this I think I felt least accepting of). Only by uniting (something totally alien to many of them) do they stand a chance, and even then somehow afterwards someone has to talk to the Soulless. How do you even communicate to a wasp?

Bear leads an amalgamated army from the North while the River people resolve their differences and unite from the South. The plains are mostly with both sides, but not entirely so for Rat and Hyena have always squabbled over corpses rather than hunt for their own. (Hyena is unfairly castigated here, they are more social and familial than lions etc).

Clever as always from AC, but somehow not his best I feel another bogeyman could have been used with similar effect, and the very large cast of characters was a little unwieldy at times. Does answer the question initially posed, in a clever manner. ( )

Satisfying and surprisingly hopeful finish to the trilogy. ( )

Most dull and uneventful and hardest to read book of the series. ( )

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Title: The Hyena and the Hawk
Series: Echoes of the Fall #3
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 465
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The End of the World has arrived. The Kinden are soulless and whereever they go, they bring that soullessness with them and force The People into their animal shapes and into their animal minds forever.

The People, under the leadership of one of the Bears and with the help of the River Kingdom, prepares a mighty army to resist the Kinden. However, whenever they come into battle, too many of The People are lost by the affects of the Kinden.

Maniye gets captured and realizes that the Kinden can't transform and know nothing about “the soul”. They watch her as she transforms from wolf to tiger to Champion to human. Beatle researchers are intrigued and one of them tries to transform and dies. Maniye escapes.

There is a big climactic battle and Maniye and some others chase after their gods (who have run away) in the godsland. In the process they allow the gods of the Kinden into their land. Suddenly the Kinden are transforming left and right with no control. They retreat.

Everyone celebrates and prepares for the day when the Kinden return.

My Thoughts:

What a disappointment. This is the first book of Tchaikovsky's that I was disappointed in because I didn't care one way or another about the characters, the story or anything. If this had been almost any other author I probably would have DNF'd the book.

The whole soul thingy was cool in the first book but then when it kept on going with the Kinden it just started rubbing me the wrong way.

Then the whole “gods” thing pissed me off too. I am sick to death of “gods” being nothing more than some manifestation of the believers will. That isn't a god. And if the gods were running away from the kinden, good riddance I say. So when the kinden gods suddenly came into being, I rolled my eyes, mentally spit on Tchaikovsky and raced to the very end just to get it over with.

This has really shaken my interest in anything by Tchaikovsky that isn't directly related to his Shadows of the Apt series. Thankfully I've got 4 or 5 books of short stories about them to wash the taste of this dreck out of my mouth.

Highly NOT recommended.

★★☆☆☆ ( )