The End of Fantasy

The End of the Fantasy by Julius St. Clair
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Bastion's destiny is here. Whatever he decides will dictate the future of the world.

Catherine and her remaining Sages desperately search for a way to save all the kingdoms in the most dire of circumstances. At the same time the three kingdoms prepare to face the Yama invasion.

The End of Fantasy concludes the second Sage Saga trilogy. Julius St. Clair really reached to try to do something different in this book and this trilogy and I applaud him for making the attempt at creativity and something new. Unfortunately for me this just wasn't a satisfying read. The storyline became far too convoluted. The ending made me cringe because I'm just not a fan of the type of storyline that it foreshadows.

Far too much time was spent having every character who met Bastion saying he's clearly destined for great things. This praise is a lot like salt, a little bit improves the meal, but too much makes it nearly inedible. By the end of the trilogy all I could see was salt on my plate.

The Siege of 88 is still mentioned often, but I just realized they don't ever make mention of any measure of time other than that. It would have made more sense to just refer to it as The Great Siege or something along those lines.

I've been trying to figure out why I enjoyed the second Sage Saga trilogy far less than the first. As I was coming to the conclusion to The End of Fantasy, I realized it's because of Bastion. After the events of the first Sage Saga trilogy, some kid shows up and is stronger than everyone without any training at all. So what happens when the guy who is stronger than everyone gets hurt? He basically turns into the Incredible Hulk...his eyes turn black and he's nearly unstoppable. So rather than being a weakling who turns into an incredibly strong being he's an incredibly strong being who goes Super Saiyan or perhaps super Wolverine in a berserker rage. It's hard for me to enjoy a character who is overwhelmingly more powerful than everyone without even trying. It's the same reason I've never liked Superman.

For me The End of Fantasy was a disappointing conclusion to a much less than stellar second Sage Saga trilogy.

1.5 out of 5 stars

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