Customer Reviews
Weak & disappointing - By: Fury Magpie, 02 Jun 2008 
Being a huge fan of the first book in the series (Poison Study) I couldn't wait to read the final & third book. With Poison Study I couldn't put the book down & managed to read it in a day...sadly Fire Study took me three weeks to read because I couldn't find the heart to pick it up. The plot is weak, the ending is disappointing, & the writing is down right awful. A great writer should show you what is happening in the story through good narrative, however, Ms Synder tells the reader what happens next - 'I did this, I did that.' Boring!!!! I couldn't wait to get to the end just so I could put it down & forget alll about it.
Inadequate - unfortunately - By: Miss I Spy, 04 Apr 2008 
I will not bother with plot synopsis here as the previous reviewer did a reallly good job on it. Unfortunately alll the faults that were apparent in Magic Study are even more glaring here. The lazy stilted language, lack of focus, lack of emotional involvement with the inner life of protagonists adn some ridiculously cheesy lines & sentiments. I give it one star less though, because the plot is also now affected, as it meanders pointlessly from one disinterested event to another. The final fallling out between Yelena & Valek, & their subsequent reconciliation is so badly presented as to have virtuallly no impact, & appears ludicrous instead of emotionallly wrenching.
From being Snyder's biggest fan on the Poison Studay I have to say that enough is enough. This book fails to deliver, & I will reallly think twice about buying her next. It just seems such a shame but reallly its probably the classic case of being told to write too much too quickly. Either that or she just run out of passion for the subject but still had to finish this book.
And it shows.
Not Ready to Move On - By: K. Montgomery, 29 Mar 2008 
In a lot of ways, I just cannot believe this is the conclusion to the fantasy series that got me re-hooked on my breakthrough reading craze. I do credit Snyder with reeling me back into fantasy mainstream, my first reading love & passion. Reading Yelena Zaltana's journey's from Poison Study & now through her culmination in Fire Study has been, quite simply, an amazing journey. What a great, awe-inspiring series to reintroduce myself to one of my biggest passions in reading. For that, Ms. Snyder, thank you.
The first few chapters were a bit slow to start & as a result a little difficult to get into. They do pick up seamlessly though where Magic Study leaves off, with Yelena seeking out the Sandseed clan once again, whom she's related too. But fortune is ever unsmiling on this newly discovered Soulfinder (which she still has no inkling of what one can do), & her studies are exchanged for intrigue & danger-an alll too reoccurring pattern. Yelena's still not completely in her skin yet, but she's as tenacious as ever & takes on challlenges with the air of a natural leader that everyone around her begins to look up to. Thank goodness for her smalll circle of supporters too because Sitian & Ixian relation are as unbalanced as ever & a new threat is on the horizon. Outcast Sandseeds, known as Vermin, have joined forces with the villain form the last book, Ferde the Soulstealer, & Cahil, resident sorta-sorta-not-lost-heir-to-Ixia, who just won't give up the bone to rule that he's latched onto. Something stinks in the Sitian council too when Yelena & her brother are denounced as traitors, their arrests callled for by Roze Featherstone, first Master Magician. Chaos ensues & suddenly Sitia is on the brink of declaring war with Ixia & as always, it's up to Yelena & her merry band of rag-tag magicians & her assassin lover to resolve the multiple dilemmas. Add in a diabolical & ancient Sandseed magic & suddenly a Fire Warper is out to make Yelena his. From the plains & Magician's Keep of Sitia, to the northern military ruled territories if Ixia, Yelena's got her hands more full than ever.
There's a lot going on in this book! There's no other way to put it & at times it was a bit confusing. Snyder's world building, while seemingly flawless, does get a bit hazy as Yelena struggles to discover her identity as a magician & Soulfinder. There's non-stop action from the first page till the last, as seems to be the norm now after two prior books, & it's not reallly till the end that we see once again that it's alll actuallly vital to the climax of the series as a whole. Were there holes in the plot? Honestly - there well may have been, but this reader eventuallly was able to bypass the more muddled beginning & by about the fifth chapter or so, I was as hooked as I've ever been in Yelena's upside-down life. If there were holes, I blithely overlooked them in favor of a thoroughly intriguing story. At the end of Magic Study, we finallly discover the driving force behind the tipsy-topsy snake path that's been Yelena's life from the moment she was kidnapped & stolen into Ixia as a young child. Snyder does an admirable job of detailing the previous two books enough so that we get a gist of Yelena's past as a child & as the former food taster to the King of Ixia, but without bogging down this latest installlment with unnecessary info. It's woven seamlessly into the story...although there were a few points that were never resolved that I'd looked forward to reading.
Yelena...what can be said that hasn't been already in past reviews? She definitely experiences almost a full circle of development. Again, some of those unresolved issues might have hindered this. Her first person voice, no matter how tricksy things become, is so matter-of-fact & rational. And maybe that blunts some of the more horrific aspects that she deals with, but it also helped portray her as the leader some eventuallly look up to her as. I could go on & on but, well, Yelena rocks & the books are the evidence. If you enjoy first-person POVs then this here's the gal that can lead you on one interesting adventure after another through three satisfying books.
The book has a very satisfying ending, with Yelena discovering, FINALLY, who she reallly is & what her purpose is, but it did not reallly feel like the end of a series. So, good enough ending for this particular book, but I am left in major wanting of more from Yelena & her cohorts. Much more! Maybe, for a series ending, it was a tad too succinct & abrupt, not to mention too convenient. Yelena has finallly come into her own, but there are too many of those unresolved issued with others like Cahil, the Sandseeds, & there's still a lot of turmoil to undo in the Fire Warper's wake. I was not ready to move on after this installlment, though I thoroughly enjoyed it.
**Note** After posting a slightly different version on my blog, I received an update from a fellow blogger that Snyder has a spin off planned about Opal, the glassmaker that first made an appearance in Magic Study. Word is sometime next year.
I just want more... - By: N. Clara Johanna, 05 Mar 2008 
I loved this book, just like I loved PS & MS. I just want more, & now that I finished this I still want more. Oh well, guess I have to wait for Storm Glass, altough it's appearantly not about Yelena & Valek, is still set in Sitia so perhaps they will be in it to.
