Well, I got through the series...This one was alright. Unfortunatly, the first book of this series was the best one. It's always sad when that happens.The things that I liked about this book was the little glipses into a past when giants were the rulers of Toril. I really read these books just to get a better idea of what the world that I like to play D&D in is like. So, whenever there is history, I eat it up.The bad part is that it was such a small glimpse. What made the first book good was that Denning was so focused on the ogres. I felt like I learnd more about the ogre tribes and the stuff that they could do than I did about any of the other giants featured in the series. And for me, ogres are the least intriguing when there are Stone Giants, Fire Giants, Frost Giants, and Storm Giants to pick from (even the dumb hill giants got more time than the others). However, we did get to learn quite a bit about the "giant-kin" races, so I guess that was cool.I also lost interest as the main character kept getting sooooo beat up and then brought back from the brink of death. It just seemed like this guy (and I'm talking about through the whole series) was always getting his ass kicked. Next, the rocky relationship between the queen and her husband got pretty old. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer my heros to have a united front, not to be worried about whether or not their husband is going to kill their son. Especially when both characters are supossed to be good guys. I mean, these were not George R.R. Martin books. These aren't anti-heros. So, for me, they should just keep it simple. Come up with some new FANTASY stuff, don't try to break ground in the cheap D&D book world by moving into liturature themes...that's why I read Kafka. I read Forgotten Realms books because I want escape to a place that is simple.
