The Final Sacrifice by Patricia Bray is the third novel in the Chronicles of Josan trilogy. The first two novels are; The First Betrayal and the second book The Sea Change. This is a series that may be overlooked by many readers simply because it is not getting a lot of publicity. I first stumbled upon Ms. Bray’s work due to Amazon.com recommending it to me one night. I gave it a shot and was hooked within fifteen pages. While it is a fantasy novel, it is not your typical hack-n-slash type fantasy. It is a much more cerebral take on the genre. I was so pleased with the first book that I listed it as one of my top reads of 2007. Here are my thoughts on this novel.

The plot of this book picks up after the events of the second book with a slight gap in between. There are a couple of main plots in this book, however, the main plot focuses on the failing health of Emperor Lucius and what needs to be done to heal him. Due to the illness of the emperor certain factions within the city hold out hope that upon his death they can take over and rule. Political undertones (and overtones) are one of Ms. Bray’s strong suits. She does a fantastic job at not only showing the reader what is going on, but also explaining the myriad of reasons and fears people hold. Another of the subplots is the threat to the nation of Ikaria by a mysterious band of pirates who are posing as the Ikarian navy for nefarious reasons. There are a couple other subplots scattered throughout the book, but those I briefly talked about above are the ones that fans will be most interested in. As I said before, this book, and trilogy for that matter, is not the typical quest/ monster filled fantasy novel. This is a deeply political, character driven novel that will surprise many fantasy fans.

The characters in this novel are largely the same characters from the first two books. You can expect to see; Josan, Emperor Lucius, Ysobel, Burrell, Zuberi and many more. The true greatness of this series is in the characters. They are all multi-faceted, they all have flaws and different motivations as well as holding individual loyalties. For lack of a better way of stating it, the characters in this book seems so real. Their dialogue is almost always spot on and flows seamlessly as well as providing each character with a distinctive voice. There is also a great deal of character development in this book, particularly with Lucius. From where he starts the novel to where he ends it is a rather profound transition. Lady Ysobel does not have as much character development as she did in the first two books, but she plays a smaller part of this novel so that is somewhat understandable. Rarely have I been captivated by so many characters in a book before. Usually it is just one or two characters that really hold my interest. With this book, and series really, I was captivated by a handful of characters. It’s uncanny how well they are written. It’s a credit to Ms. Bray that she can write so many quality characters. I simply didn’t want the book to end.

A couple minor criticisms about this novel:

1 – The lack of a resolution with a certain Brother. There are a couple hints about his involvement, but there is now concrete resolution. Above all else, that is the one thing that I wish was done differently with this novel.

2 – The culmination of the battle at Vidrun. There is a great deal of build-up and emotion going into the battle and how it was portrayed was very under stated. I would have liked to have seen a view of what was occurring on land and how the people were reacting and dealing with the barrage that was occurring.

Some things I liked about this novel:

1 – I honestly believe that Ms. Bray writes some of the best prose in the genre right now. It is both fluid and expressive. When an English teach explains the ‘show don’t tell’ philosophy they should simply give an example of Ms. Bray’s work.

2 – I enjoyed the fact that this book isn’t a typical fantasy novel where a hero goes on a quest, slays a monster, and reaps the rewards. This is a deeper novel on so many levels. It’s refreshing to read a book like this at times.

3 – I appreciated the subtleness of this book. There are several plot lines intermingled that could have been blown out of proportion purely for the sake of over indulgence. However, Ms. Bray takes the path of being subtle with many of the plot lines and it works remarkably well. This book was simply a joy to read.

When all is said and done, it is a shame that this series will be overlooked by so many readers who would no doubt appreciate this trilogy. If you are a fan of deep engaging plots, with complex characters, then you could certainly do worse than picking up this trilogy. If you are a fan of characters running around and mindlessly killing monsters to rescue the damsel, then this is not a series you will enjoy. In my eyes, Ms. Bray has cemented herself as someone to watch in the years to come. If this book is any indication of the quality of fantasy she can produce we, as readers, are in for a treat. This is certainly a series I will be recommending to many people. Do yourself a favor and pick up the first book in the trilogy and you won’t look back.