Hi there Deltora fans and active contributors. This is my third review of the Three Doors series, this time I will be reviewing The Third Door, the third book in the series. Obviously do not read in you haven't read The Golden Door, The Silver Door and The Third Door.
Following on from the events of The Silver Door, Rye, Sonia, Dirk and Sholto return to Weld and discover that the people of Weld are beginning to resent the Warden's inaction of the skimmer threat, and we are able to gain a valuable perspective into the events that have been occuring since Rye and Sonia departed for the golden Door. This provides some interesting reading, however The Silver Door failed to provide any meaningful side stories and thus the beginning of The Third Door is not as enjoyable as the beginning of The Silver Door which concluded the story of Fleet. Soon, the four protagonists return to the Chamber of the Doors and enter the wooden Door, which was Rye's first choice. Through this Door, the protagonists are brought into a Dorne which is being threatened, albeit on a smaller scale, by the skimmers, and the people of New Nerra, Riverside and Fell End under Chieftain Farr and threatening the Fellan, under the assumption that they are sending the skimmers.
The story is however somewhat hard to follow due to characters being split up for the majority of it, and Rye losing his memory (SPOILER). However, unlike The Silver Door, there are some interesting characters, such as the Chieftain, Zac, Petronelle and Janna (who is from D'Or and provides an interesting dynamic with the Fleet story). Overall this story is interesting and it is good to see the protagonists start to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding Eldannen and his relationship to his brothers, and the three Doors. Some negatives include, the broken up storyline, Rye's memory loss, the somewhat awful mystery of the skimmers origin, and the lack of contributions from Dirk and Sholto (albeit they were better in The Third Door in comparison to The Silver Door).
Ultimately this story provides a fullfilling end to the series, but it lacks a meaningful story development, probably as a result of the redundant storyline from the previous book. In my personal opinion, the series could have almost been two larger books, splitting The Silver Door into two and removing the alternative future storyline, while including the more enjoyable characters from The Golden Door. My final thought is the last overall chapter where the characters discuss the future of Weld and what each other are going to do. This provides a good conclusion with Rye, Dirk and Faene, and Sonia is revealed to be the Warden's daughter (SPOILER), I wish this was revealed earlier, so each of the characters could discuss it, instead it is basically skipped. Also Sholto and Annocki's relationship came out of the woods.
Please leave your thoughts below, did you find the book interesting or not? Did you like overall conclusion to the series? Did you like/dislike any of the protagonists? And finally, what did you find enjoyable to read?
The next reviews of the 4 books in the Star of Deltora series will be posted once I have finished reading them, so keep a look out.