An urgent message summons Quentin to Castle Askelon. The king, who is dying, wishes to name the brave young man his successor. But first, he sends him on an unfathomable mission (Goodreads).
As verbose and dense as it is, Lawhead's second advancement into universe-building is, well, alright. The dialogue is dry and stretched out, but what action there is is well described and somewhat entertaining. A select few scenes are particularly well done, but the rest of the novel is so extremely over-described that these scenes are almost not worth it. Similar to the first installment, the character development is unrealistic and the entire plot, almost every aspect, is highly anticipated and, yes, cliche. Lawhead obviously tries to keep pace with other, more renowned world-builders such as Tolkien and Lewis, but his attempts fall rather flat in nearly every area. The main antagonist is once again extinguished extremely weakly, after having no interactions with the protagonists. The one main addition to the protagonist's side completely vanishes after only a short time in the plot, while the climax is one of least suspense, as the very element of salvation for the seemingly doomed heroes is introduced before they are even at their most underdog-like status, therefore rendering the hopelessness that is woven throughout the novel (which might have been a good element otherwise) completely useless. Lawhead switches between points of view rather smoothly, but scenes that don't really lead to anything and almost no plot twists make the novel similar to a flat soda. 6.6/10
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