Child of Thunder (Renshai Trilogy)

The finale of the Renshai Trilogy has some great moments, some twists and turns, and well developed characters. Unfortunately, the pacing is a bit off and some parts could have been much better.Story:The Western Wizard has vanished and Colbey must face the seven deadly trials to replace him. If he does not survive them, the world will be thrown out of balance and will most likely end. If he does survive, he may become the bringer of doom and destroy the world, according to the ancient prophecies.Characters:The characters in the story all have clear motivations for their actions and these motivations often set them on collision courses that cannot be avoided. There are immortal wizards, warriors, kings, gods, hunters, and demons. There's good dialogue and the characters all have some personality and mannerisms. They all have a fair amount of depth and respond emotionally to the events around them (instead of simply being plot devices with names.) You like them and want to root for them.World Building:This is a world based on Norse Mythology with Odin, Hel, Valhalla, etc... But each clan has its own beliefs and each race has their own gods. The world is run by four immortal wizards who can only be killed by magic swords or demons. These wizards serve the gods and must guide mankind according to ancient prophecies. There is just a hint of magic in the world because these four wizards are the only ones who can use magic. This novel introduces the conflicting forces of Order and Chaos. The rest of the action takes place on the battlefield with swords.Writing Style:The pacing slows down quite a bit in this book and there is a lot of time spent on a long story arc that really doesn't feel rewarding. There is also a great deal of recapping the previous books. This is fine if you need a refresher, but there is so much of it scattered throughout the book, the pacing starts to suffer. It would have been much better if this was all done in the beginning. Also, a new character is introduced on her own, and many pages are spent establishing her and her quest. It would have been much better if the reader was informed about all of the previously established characters first, then the new character was introduced.Action:There are fist fights, battles, wars, skirmishes, assassins, demon battles, epic sword fights, and the seven trials of wizardry. You can visualize all of the fight scenes and they're well written. This isn't one of those (insert action scene here) books. The fights are driven by the characters and their place in the story, and these battles do have dire consequences. It's fairly action packed cover to cover.Maturity: Older TeensThis is a book that features a great deal of fantasy violence, and there are some mild sex scenes. The swearing is done in character, so shouting the name of a certain god constitutes swearing. But nothing is too graphic or profane.Overall:If you read the first two books, you might as well see how the story ends. Just be warned that this book moves at a slower pace and has a few tangents. The good news is that it has a few surprises, like the other two books.Buy it if you like Norse Mythology and barbarian sword battles.Buy it if you like an original story with twists and turns.Buy it if you like action.Avoid this book if you need high fantasy like dragons, undead, and fireball throwing wizards. (These wizards are more like strategists)Avoid this book if you need simple black and white characters where the good guys are pure good and the bad guys are pure evil.If you enjoyed this book, read something by David Gemmell!Legend, The Lion of Macedon, Sword in the Storm, or Winter Warriors.

I first read this book when it first was released. I really liked the concepts and the lands developed. I also think the character development is terrific. can be a little gory but to be expected with this type of book. I encourage anyone to continue reading the remaining books in the series.

These books are written with the reader in mind, I was never lost in the plot, never forgot a character are where they were in context of the story. Wish I could give six stars!

This is and has been one of my all-time favorite series that I have had the pleasure to read twice now and still looking forward to finishing it again

I recommend this series to every fan of the genre. I've red it four time now and it get better with reach reading

If you enjoy Norse mythology you'll enjoy this series and it's continuation. I've read this series multiple times and I always enjoy it every time I do .

Love this series

awesome gift for my husband. he enjoyed the characters and the ending. i i am buying all in the trilogy.

These books are enjoyable. Arrived in good condition

All good!

All the promise from the first two books is fulfilled here and the hints of the bigger picture are most definitely played out. It starts pretty quickly with the Seven Tasks of Wizardry and doesn't really let up from there. They dynamic of Good/Evil is also now contrasted with Law/Chaos and it makes for very interesting reading, arguments I have heard before, but still interesting.I still love Colbey and after all the setbacks he had in the last few books it was good to see him get his head straight again even though the hardships didn't lessen much. A lot of the other characters played a much smaller role in this book except for Shadimar though we had another major character, Khitajrah who was fleeing a serious of tragedies in the East. I never warmed to her fully but she was an interesting character and was useful to explore how the world was changing from the stiff Order of Odin's original plan.The gods play a much more important role here (as you'd imagine leading up to the Ragnarok) but I don't think they overshadowed the story. Freya, Thor, Frey, and my favourite god of all Loki, all have parts to play along with Odin and they add a suitable epicness to the storyas it played out. As a result of this the world felt much more developed and made sense of a lot of things I wasn't sure about in the previous books. There are also some things I did not see coming which in retrospect seem obvious, and I love when authors pull that off.Overall this was a great conclusion to a really enjoyable series and I am planning to move on to the next one.

This is my second time around for these books. My first time around was library rental !!! Fantastic story.