Heir of Novron is where all the little things Sullivan has been setting up finally start paying off.
By this point, there are a lot of answers coming. Who people really are, what the history actually means, how certain pieces fit together — and I liked seeing those things finally click into place. Some of it is pretty neat and maybe a little too perfectly tied together, but honestly, after spending this long with the series, I was fine with that.
The bigger reason the ending worked for me was Royce and Hadrian.
Their friendship has been carrying this series from the beginning, and by the time you get here, it actually means something when they’re forced into choices that involve more than just getting out alive. The history and the bigger claims matter, but I cared more about what those choices meant for the two of them.
Royce was probably the character I was most interested in by the end. A lot of what kept him alive earlier in the series was his ability to trust nobody, expect the worst, and keep people at a distance. That works until it doesn’t. By this point, he has people he actually cares about, and that changes what he’s willing to risk.
What I liked is that Sullivan doesn’t suddenly turn Royce into some soft, completely different person just because he has people he cares about now. He’s still dangerous. He’s still suspicious. He’s still Royce. You just see that those relationships actually matter to him.
Hadrian gets tested in a different way. He’s always been the one more likely to believe there’s a right thing to do, but it gets a lot harder to hold onto that when doing the right thing actually costs you something. I liked that his goodness isn’t treated like it’s easy.
Heir of Novron collects Wintertide and Percepliquis, and it definitely feels like the series is cashing in everything it has been building. There are reveals, battles, answers, and a lot of pieces finally coming together.
Some of those reveals are cleaner than I expected, but I didn’t mind. At this point I wasn’t looking for Sullivan to completely blindside me just for the sake of it. I wanted the story to make sense, I wanted the relationships to pay off, and I wanted the ending to feel earned.
It did.
That’s probably why Riyria worked so well for me as a whole. The world gets bigger, the politics get more complicated, and the history matters, but Royce and Hadrian never stop being the reason I want to keep reading.
Who I’d recommend it to: Anyone who made it through Theft of Swords and Rise of Empire. This is the payoff, and it’s worth getting here.
Caution: There’s a lot of explanation and resolution packed into this one, so some reveals come pretty fast once things start moving.
Discussion question: Were you more invested in the big reveals by the end, or in what happened to Royce and Hadrian?
— Cory Lane