City of Light: The Traveler's Gate Trilogy, Volume 3

In the finale of the trilogy, Wight has tensions running high. All the Hanging Trees have been destroyed, releasing all the incarnations. Knowing the destruction they can wreak on the world, Simon, Leah, and Indrial have been hunting the Incarnations for the last several months.Alin is losing his battle against the madness of Incarnation as he rules over his city with an iron fist, determined to turn it into the perfection of Elysia.Then things suddenly get worse when all the Incarnations go missing.I really enjoyed the finale of this trilogy. Wight's writing improved in each book, making each book better than the previous one. Throughout this book, Simon remained my favorite character and Valinhall remained my favorite territory. I also enjoyed Leah's character, largely because she is a strong female with agency of her own who isn't relegated to a romantic relationship and shoved off to the side. That was a breath of fresh air compared to many other fantasy series, and I hope to read more series that treat their female characters in a similar manner. Unfortunately for Alin, the other major character of the series, I never did like him. He began as an arrogant little a**hole who thought he was awesome because he was in a prophecy and never really grew out of that. Yes, he did have some character growth as a result of being an Incarnation, but even with all the moralities he still managed to keep screwing up, and that just annoyed me. Still, as a character to hate, he is a great one. So if that was Wight's goal, it was well executed. LOL.As for the action, there is quite a bit going on in this book, and I kind of wish Wight had chosen to take another book to spread it out a bit more and give more time and attention to some of the things. I don't want to get into specifics because I might end up in spoiler territory, and the book as it is isn't terrible, I just think it could have been better with more time/space to work through some things. I do think part of that is down to Wight's growth as a writer because this aspect of his writing improved greatly in his Cradle series (and through his Cradle series). It makes me wonder what changes, if any, he would make to this series if he were to revisit and revise it.As with the first two books, I listened to the great Travis Baldree narrate this audiobook. If you've listened to the first two, I don't need to tell you how awesome he is as a narrator - you already know. If you haven't listened to any of this series yet, you should. Baldree does an absolutely fabulous job with the narration. It is definitely worth the listen.

Let's get some basic information out here:This book is the third in a trilogy, the first of which is titled The House of Blades. You must read the books in order. They are heavily plot based and will make no sense unless you read them chronologically.The book is 6157 kindle pages long (no real pages listed). ~6000 is a decently sized book, bigger than many best-selling books. You will get your money's worth: I am a very fast reader and I finished the book in ~6 or 7 hours.The book is, in case you haven't read the other books, clearly fantasy, and while there are HINTS of romance romance holds a pitifully small role in the series (this is a good thing, in my view, even though I love a good romance). It mostly amounts to some cute awkward moments with the main character, nothing more. While there is (at least I don't recall any) no swearing, no suggestive scenes, and I would recommend this series in general to people of all ages as long as they can tolerate pg-13 movie violence, I can say that older people will love this book and this series. I am 17 and was essentially dying of rapture while reading it.One of the biggest problems of books in general is that characters in them never die. Or that authors, in a state of horrible lunacy, kill off characters that shouldn't die in really stupid and infuriating ways. Either way, stories become predictable or too frustrating to read, or at least fully enjoy.Such is not the problem in this book.Characters will die, people. Bad things will happen. I nearly cried (a few tears welled up) at a few points. The best part is that I didn't know WHO would die, or when, or what exactly would happen. Main characters DIED, or had really bad things happen to them.And I'm telling you now, their deaths/bad happenings meant something, happened for good reason, and truly added to the book like few other book deaths I have experienced. Cry, grieve, do whatever, but seriously, Will Wight knew what he was doing when he planned his book and it shows.Another plus of this entire series is the strong characterization and character development. Out of pure coincidence, since I loved the series so much, only a few days before I read the City of Light I reread the first book of the series, The House of Blades. Little did I know that the City of Light had just come out, a book I quickly purchased and read in one amazingly awesome sitting.Reading the CoL, I really saw just how much the characters grew, yet their individual personalities were distinct and remained intact. Wight truly made separate and unique characters that thought DIFFERENTLY, unlike many series that have multiple perspectives and all narration sounds the same. It's actually quite funny to see what other characters think about each other. It's entertaining to hear Leah's perpetual (thought justified, and totally awesome) paranoia/distrust of everyone and possible ulterior motives of those around her. She is an incredibly intelligent and witty character.I have to say that Wight most surprised me with her, actually. I think in every single fantasy novel I have EVER read (I have read hundreds) I have always hated when women had central roles. I'm not sexist: I'm a girl. I know men and women are equal. The issue is that usually women are just... grrr, bad in books, weak, whiny, or so obsessed with not being weak and whiny that it's almost annoying and unreal. Either way, I never find myself connecting with them and often purposefully avoid books with female leads. The reason I even picked this book up was because the main character was a guy, Simon (though Leah follows him as one of the other main leads).Leah, however I was predisposed to dislike her, was always an interesting and shrewd character. However, in this book, the CoL, Leah goes into ultimate epic mode. While I feel that most authors try to explain how awesome their female characters are, Leah simply IS awesome. She says something, people listen. She wants something done, she takes charge and does it. People rely on her to save the day, and she doesn't have to whine or beg to do any of it. She is a natural born leader, and we the audience sees this through her actions, not by how she is described by the author/other characters.Then, we have Simon. Simon is awesome as ever in this book, and I was constantly worried horrible things would happen to him. I'm not going to say anything else because everything I would say would be a spoiler, but SIMON!!! If you loved him in the past books, you won't be disappointed.Oh, and his doll Gloria made me laugh so hard. More dolls were introduced and built upon.There is greater development with the house, specifically with Incarnations, the Eldest Nye, the dolls, and (hehe) the furniture. All of the development is great and totally adds to the plot/fun of the book.Now, finally I'm going to talk about Alin. Alin surprised me. He really did. He had huge character development, which sounds weird since he's an incarnation, but it worked. I was very happy with what happened with him, for good or bad.The book overall had great fight scenes. Kai really shined as well as Simon as fighters. The scenes were well described and flowed well, allowing me to be drawn in and visualize them.Overall I was EXTREMELY HAPPY with the end of the series. It ended on a really solid note, not at all a cliffhanger, but left room for more sequels. What more could you ask for?In the end, what this book bought me for 3 bucks:6-7 hours of pure entertainmentAbout 25 laugh out loudsAbout 3 or 4 near cries/crying spellsA message about sacrifice and loyalty and the corrupting influence of powerA lesson in how to write a good plot, develop good characterization, and execute.Honestly, I don't have much criticism. I think I found a few typos (under 5), and none were blaring. Stuff like poring instead of pouring. For me, at least as I read it, the book was pretty near flawless. It offered everything I expected and more, and I can honestly say that any reader will not be disappointed.

While polishing himself as an author, will wight manages to creatively and excitingly never let the action stop. I care deeply about the myriad of characters, am entertained by constant excitement without long descriptions of places the story won’t ever arrive at again. I’d so live in the house of blades!!!

The City of Light was a great finish to this fantastic trilogy and hopefully in the future there will be more travellers books.This book as well as all the others from this series had so much imagination making it immersive and gripping, with no stop action and moments were you are at edge of your seat wondering what would happen next. The magic used was unique with each traveller capable of amazing abilities. Plus there was so many moments in the trilogy that was just jaw dropping and triumphant, which I was always remember and may come back to read again.I will defiantly recommend anyone to read this book that loves fantasy, magic and all out action, plus fights that make some characters overpowered and epic in every way. Overall I will defiantly look at more books by Will Wight in futures.

Started reading this after finishing the latest Cradle series books. Wasn't sure by the first book enjoyed it but found it a bit confusing and slightly rushed but I got hooked in non the less now I want more of this series 😂 please Will pick it back up again its bad enough waiting on the next cradle book

A good finale though it seemed a bit rushed in places. But still enjoyable nonetheless. Still recommended to other fantasy readers trying someone new.

This trilogy was really quite brilliant I loved every minute of reading this book and will be looking for more of will Wight books in the future

I enjoyed the first two books had to wait for third to long takes away from book one two but them together great read Margaret parkhill