I really enjoyed this book and I heartily recommend it for people that enjoy epic fantasy. First the weak points. At just over 700 pages, it's pretty long and while those pages weren't exactly wasted I wish it had been split into two 350 page books. There were also a couple points that reminded me vividly of The Lord of the Rings and that took me out of it a little bit. There were a lot of strong points to this book too. I felt like the author, Terry Brooks, created a lot of "picture" moments where it seemed like I could take a snapshot of the moment and really feel what was going on. This helped with the length of the book since there were these snapshots as guideposts for what I'd read earlier. As for the ending (view spoiler)[I thought it was magnificently done. As I got near the end I was afraid it was going to be a cliffhanger ending leading into the next book. Instead everything was wrapped up just in time. It wasn't a fairy tale ending, but I was satisfied. And if Keltset hadn't died it would have been about perfect. A lot of authors could learn from an ending like this. (hide spoiler)]