The Last Light is the 5th published book in the Wandering Inn series and covers the first half of Volume Four. By this time we’ve settled into a comfortable format for the books. While Erin and Ryoka are obviously still the main characters the side characters get several chapters that focus on them as well. In particular the book starts off by focusing on Flos, The King of Destruction.
It’s got to be said, I really love Flos. In a world filled with actual magic and wonder he still somehow manages to be one of the most magical things there. A conquering king whose thoughts are on his people, who has a magnetic personality and attracts people to him and is almost as big as his larger than life personality. We’ve not actually seen much of him up until now, just his awakening and a chapter where some of his Seven return to him, so it was nice to have a nice big segment to properly flesh him out.
We also have some chapters back in Baleros, partially centred around Geneva, the Doctor that also appeared in the third book, Flowers for Esthelm. That segment was a brutal and heart-wrenching story and, honestly, this one is the same. Of all the characters in this world I feel she’s had the worst time of it.
Finally we have the events in Liscor and they’re a joy to read. From Lyon slowly coming to terms with Erin’s return and working out how best to live alongside her to the Antinium’s continuing search for identity and what it really means there’s a lot of fantastic stuff to read. And Erin’s right alongside all of it, lending a helping hand that may honestly just spark more chaos. It’s great.
The ending is also fantastic, as they usually are in this series. Although it’s the first half of the volume you wouldn’t know it by the ending, which has been building up for a while before it explodes. It pulls a bunch of things together and is once again a brilliant, and occasionally sad, series of chapters.
I mean if you’ve gotten this far then you probably know what you’re in for. So all I can say is yes, this series continues to be ones of the best.
Library of Alexander 