So I read Blood Song way back when it was a indie book and it totally blew me away, mainly because Ryan managed to fit so many excellent story arcs into one single book; The training, the bonding and brotherhood, The Trials, Frentis et al.and below it all the superb introduction to our Antagonist via the lore and stories ( I for one never saw the ending of that book coming).
Then came book 2, in which the spotlight shifts from Vaelin and moves to other characters, most of which were pretty decent, but overall it seemed more..detached compared to the earlier focus on Vaelin. Still, I enjoyed the scenes with Frentis and "The Lady", especially the last bits, which are quite chilling and very well written. It's here we are introduced to The Ally and somehow I feel this is where the entire buildup of the book begins to slide. When you start defining evil, you realize that its not really so bad after all.
Now coming back to the Queen of Fire...it's no doubt that this is the final book a trilogy, because every POV includes some war,battle or general struggle. Vaelin, our increasingly broken hero, now bereft of his trademark song, embarks on a journey seemingly to nowhere to find and destroy The Ally. This part is pretty OK, some of the cultures and people introduced seem a bit far fetched, even for fantasy, but it lends itself to the lore nicely. On the other hand we have Lyrna, who really gets on my nerves in this book...I appreciated her maturing and growth in book 2, but now she reminds me of the typical tyrant conqueror. The POVs of our old pals Frentis, Caenis etc. are more or less enjoyable. But the major, major thing which let me down was the ending. It was simply meh...I expected a great deal more given the terror and manipulation previously demonstrated by our antagonists. The ending is also quite ambiguous, probably for future series, but as a trilogy it's pretty disappointing.
Soooo...ratings..just for perspective, I'm including that of the previous books in the series:
Blood Song: 9/10 (Possibly even a 10, but there are very,very few books I will admit that are a 10 in my mind)
Tower Lord: 8/10
Queen of Fire: 7.5/10
I think this more or less mirrors the general reaction of the Fantasy Sphere...we all expected a bit more from such an excellent beginning