A great book, very well written. The plots and sub plots keep one fixed reading this book until the end. Great and almost non expected final main plot when the spider queen chooses her avatar between tree great drow females.

I was very disappointed in seeing Kemp advocates the survival of the least interesting characters (of males and females) of the whole series.


SPOILER ALERT:



I was particularly annoyed with Pharaun's end since he was one of the few character (maybe also Hallistra) I would have liked to read about in a future book. Quenthel's character degraded through out the last two books to point that she lost her stature as a Banrae. Valas was one of the least interesting character that emerged from the Bergen Dearthe (made me miss Jarlaxle) and as well as among the males of the group. Thank Lolth for Gromph making it through. He is probably the last enjoyable male character left in Menzoberranzan (especially with the lichdrow, Pharaun, Jeggred and Ryld dead).
On a positive note, I like to see more of Gromph in the future. Pity his character was always playing second fiddle to the Banrae priestesses in the Salvatore's Drizzit series. Drizzt might not had it as easy if Kemp's Gromph was on the job back then.

To start, I really wanted to like this book. In fact, for the first 2/3 of it I truly did! This book had me thinking 4 stars until it took a complete turn toward the disconnected skips and hops. The last 1/3 of the book doesn't flow well and feels very disjointed with minimal resolution. It almost feels as if he squandered most of the space in the book and then said to himself "oh man, I only have about 100 pages left and nothing is resolved! I better cram this stuff together and wrap things up fast!".

On a positive note, Kemp does a good job of describing scenery and specifics. I give him credit for that. Another element I did enjoy was the characterization and the fact that nearly everyone seemed true to character, especially Pharaun and Danifae. Contrary to some of the reviews here, I believe the characters were handled well and stayed true to form.

On the contrary, what the characters were doing and some of the results of actions were handled oddly near the end of the book. Without spoilers really...There is a portion that contains some form of "dream sequence" or foreshadowing by the priestesses Quenthel, Danifae and Hallistra where they see incorrect visions of the future or truly believe they are living the result of Lolth's Resurrection. Later you see that all of this was false and was NOT the result of what happened. This part didn't hold water and made absolutely no sense once you finish the book! I have no idea what Kemp wanted to accomplish with that.

The actual ending and completion of Lolth's Resurrection was not much of a surprise, although there are a few interesting twists. Its a shame certain characters had to die, although that is to be expected with drow nature and didn't leave me shocked or upset.

All in all this book had its moments, was really good up until about 2/3 of the way through and then just lost the connectivity and felt crammed in an effort to wrap things up. It could have been much better.

I hate this book with a passion. I hate it because it destroys everything the previous ones have weaved so carefully with blatant disregard to good storytelling. Why? Instead of clevery creating an unexpexted, yet clever resolution, finally paying off on all the setups, it squanders all its potential on the senseless killing of all but one interesting character while cheating the reader out of any meaningful confrontations. It's like in a videogame. Oh, sorry your party got eaten by a bunch of low-level, but numerous monters. In earnest. Only no pressing continue here. Paul S. Kemp should be put on the writers blacklist for this.

This was a very disappointing ending for an initially exciting series.
1) No one familiar with the Forgotten Realms expected Lolth to be defeated here. However, at the end of Resurrection, everything is 100% back to business as usual for the drow city of Menzoberranzan.
2) I didn't expect good to triumph over evil, but that the good guys would at least put up a decent fight. Boy, were the good drow stupid compared to the evil ones. Halisstra, the divinely ordained champion of good here, was so ridiculously naive in Book 5 and this one that it's impossible to believe she survived to adulthood in a cutthroat drow city. The goddess Eilistraee, Lolth's daughter no less, gets the supreme bad judgement award for her poor choice of erratic, traitorous champion.