Customer Reviews

The Beating of His Wings (Unabridged)

I truely enjoyed the first two books and I had been so looking forward to the third, but having read it...pure dissapointment.
Some of the best characters from the previous two books virtually ignored, two new characters brought in, built up and then abandoned and a final couple of chapters that appear like they were written in a hurry by someone with only a passing understanding of the story and characters in general.
The trilogy is still worth reading as the first two books are fantastic, but when opening the third - don't get your hopes up!!!

I had high expectations of this final part of the trilogy and it started very well.
Without giving any spoilers I can say that I was very disappointed with the final third of the book.
It seemed that the author was rushing to finish the book, rather than finishing the story; characters which were being developed simply drop out, loose ends are left loose and the whole seems very anticlimactic. A shame really.

1st two books were building up to this? Really dissapointing finale. The story just kind if fizzles out and dies on its own. It was a good enough vision but there are some really annoying choices regarding the main character and his ability throughout the whole of the last book??!! Why?

I also thought for the first 50 pages or so that Douglas Adams had been drafted in to ramble on about nonsense for the 1st 1/4 of the book.

A real Shame!

This was a very looked forward to book, pre-ordered..and started as soon as unwrapped.It all started with a confusing preface, then picked up the story well from where it left off in the previous volume. However the Protagonist...or antagonist...whom despite being a not particularly likable character in the first place became even less so in my opinion, but being somewhat of an enigma much in the way of Stephen Donaldson's "Thomas Covenant" I still felt a degree of empathy for Thomas Cale, a boy who by no fault of his own had become someone not of his making.The book was continuing to develop characters from the previous books like Vague Henri even late on into this finale when perhaps I would have preferred a faster and more exciting pace which is another aspect that I felt the previous books had over this one. Despite these negatives I found it a very good read and I liked Paul Hoffman's synopsis at the end of the book which I felt tied up loose ends and questions. This was a very thought provoking book especially as regards religious dogma and intolerence as well as master race undertones...All in all I did enjoy the book, If you have read the other two Left hand of god books then you really should read this, you need to know how the story ends, and without giving anything away it was a most surprising ending....just don't expect it to move quite as fast...but it is a very thought provoking book...which means it is one you will remember when many of the other similar genre novels are long forgotten. I will be interested to see what the author dreams up for his next offering...I for one will probably buy it

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore this series and I love the character that is Thomas cale.

It's just something was missing....the end was poor and the plot thin and loose. It felt like a rush job when there was so so much potential.

What a pity, could of been epic.

Ending is really anticlimatic , I read the first book in the trilogy and was very excited when the second came out and came away feeling a little dissapointed. The final piece did nothing to dispel this feeling.

The main issue is that the bulk of the plot relates to the war between the reedemers and cales forces and yet the descriptions of the battles are virtually non existant , towards the back end of the book the author literally lists about 10 or 12 battles which lead up to the final showdown on one page but doesnt give a scrap of detail about any of them !

I was hoping the ending would redeem the book but without spoiling it anticlimatic doesnt do it justice the ending is just terrible.

My personal opinion is that the author started with a really good premise and just lost his way a little bit i think that this series could have been excellent if it had been over say 5 books.

Like the first two, this book is fast paced and kept me turning the page. I like the writing style and I like the story. The ending felt a little bit rushed, but plausible enough in the book's universe... in any universe really; life's unpredictable and people do strange things. At least it didn't just finish abruptly with a massive meteorite that wipes everyone out!

If you liked the first two, I'm sure you'll enjoy this!

Slightly better than the 2nd book in the Trilogy but in all, disappointing after the amazing Left Hand of God

A very good conclusion. Well written as the previous two. It was always going to be difficult to finish this story satisfactorily for all readers.

Would still thoroughly recommend it as a great story.

Wow. Loved this series all the way, from book one all the way too book three, well until I reached the 80% milestone. The ending to this book has annoyed me severely. It's as though Hoffman gave up and got a 10 year old kid to write the last few chapters so pathetically that I will never re-read this book, trilogy or any other Hoffman book again. God damn you for ruining a fantastic story with your laziness.