The grand finale of the Mithgar series is, unfortunately, anything but grand. "Silver Wolf, Black Falcon" opens with plenty of promise, but it gets bogged down in the continuing plotline, underdeveloped characters, and a lot of promising material that never really gets used.Following up from "Eye of the Hunter," Elven Dara Riatha and Baeron shapeshifter Urus just had a baby -- Bair, the "Impossible Child" who will apparently save Mithgar someday. That, and his mix of Elven, demon, human and Mage blood will allow him to go to any of those planes of existance. Around the time Bair is born, another boy of destiny is born in the Eastern land of Jung -- a child cut from a dead woman, who has a massive dragon-shaped birthmark on his head and neck.
With the help of an evil yellow-eyed demonlike mage called Ydral, the child becomes a mighty Emperor. He also gains control of the Dragonstone, and so is able to command any dragons anywhere. Bair, meanwhile, is raised and tutored by Dwarves, Elves, and the elf mariner Aravan. Fulfilling a promise, he accompanies Aravan on a journey that takes them across Mithgar toward Jung -- and then to the other worlds of Neddra (evil things), Adonar (elves), and Vadaria (Mages). And they learn that the final battle between good and evil is beginning.
One of the frustrating things about this book is that it does have a lot of promise. But unfortunately it is too wrapped up in the prior books (for instance, will newbies to Mithgar know who the heck Danner Bramblethorn is?) and too desperate to tie up the loose ends to really utilize its plot. The first part of the book is word-for-word recap from "Eye of the Hunter," and the first third of the book is essentially buildup to a plateau. And as it struggles to bring it all to a climax, it drops quite a few of the threads it was supposed to deal with.
Bair is a typical perky perfect-kid hero with special powers that nobody talks to him about. One of the worst things about him is that he's underutilized: His power to go from one plane to another really doesn't accomplish anything, plotwise. In fact, Bair never really accomplishes much at all. Aravan tells Bair not to be an idiot, engages in philosophical banter, and mopes because he thinks his girlfriend is dead. The bad guys are casually ambitious and amoral -- while this might be fine for Ydral, but his self-important pre-history Chinese emperor is a conscienceless idiot with a very big mouth. The kid has no redeeming characteristics at all, and so it's hard to really see him as a person.
Descriptions are flatter than ever, since McKiernan takes readers for the first time to Neddra, Adonar and Vadaria -- all of which are indiscernable from parts of our own world. Why bother? On the other hand, he's becoming more enamored of blood, bile, gore, and especially intestines (I don't know why he keeps mentioning intestines) and any scene with a bit of grossness or violence can be counted on to have some spilled guts. There are, however, some genuinely chilling (and disgusting) scenes, like when Ydral does his necromancer thing on a flayed man; there are also some funny scenes, though sadly too few.
And fans of this series will probably like seeing characters from prior books like Loric, Alamar, Phais and Dalavar Wolfmage, and discussions of others like Tip, Beau, Thork, Elyn and Danner. The dialogue has gradually gotten better, but there are still some really dopey moments, such as the most hackneyed love proclaimation ever ("My heart was dead, but now it lives"?) and the laughable idea of the mightiest dragon crying like a baby. That, and the dialogue of the Warrows is now almost indistinguishable from that of the Elves.
"Silver Wolf, Black Falcon" rises a bit higher than most of McKiernan's books, but it is still too self-important and too unimaginative to be even good light fun.
