It occurred to me fairly early on in this book that it would make a pretty good stand-alone. There’s a lot of exposition up front, which I found tedious, but which would make The Last Enchantment a book that would hold up pretty well by itself. The only downside is that you’d be reading the least enjoyable of the three books.

That’s not to say that it’s a bad book. It’s not. It’s a good book, but it pales in comparison to the other two in the series. (I’m not even going to bother with the fourth one, having read it years ago and disliked it greatly. I’ll live without the conclusion of Arthur’s story.) I was trying to figure out why I didn’t enjoy this one as much; the writing isn’t lacking, and it deals with the part of Arthur’s story that’s usually ripe for the telling. It comes down to that, compared to the Merlin of the first two books, this Merlin — the aging, dwindling Merlin — isn’t as interesting. He’s likeable, but really boring. It wasn’t until the end when he picks up with Nimue that I really became interested (the part where Arthur breaks it to Merlin that Nimue is really a girl is quite amusing) again. But then, after a few short chapters, Merlin “dies” and is buried in his living death.

And then the book keeps going. This is what really bugged me. Merlin dies, and yet we still have to have a happily-ever after… ta, da! He’s not dead. He was just faking it (a “malady” like unto death). And so he comes back alive, only to fade away (again). It wasn’t bad, just a bit hokey. I think I would have been happier if he’d just left it with the cave part. (But then, I realize as I’m writing this, how on earth could this story come out? If it’s written in Merlin’s hand, it’s his story, and he just dies in the cave, how on earth could it ever be published? Of course he couldn’t be dead; he had to live to tell his story. Then he could die.)

As an aside: I still didn’t like the women, except for Nimue, and she only had a limited role. It did make me want to go back and read Mists again (don’t know if I will, though), if only because I really feel that Marion Zimmer Bradley’s tale is the flip side of Stewart’s. It seems to me, in recollection, that the two books balance each other out. Perhaps that’s as it should be.

At any rate, it’s a fitting conclusion to Merlin’s story. (one can’t expect him to have power the whole time; I did like, on some level, that Stewart made the book fit Merlin’s situation. It didn’t have to be that way, but it was, and it worked.) For Merlin’s story it is. Yes, Arthur plays a role, just as Merlin plays a role in Arthur’s story, but it isn’t the Arthurian legend, at least not as we really know it. Even so, I think it’s an important part of the Arthurian canon, and a good place for someone to start a foray into the Arthurian legend.