Now into Part IV of the Bran Hambric novel. The end of Part III is a convoluted showdown in which everyone can use magic but hardly does except to show off, and in which every character who matters were engineered by the author to converge and face one another. As in the Harry Potter books, magic is a mere deus ex machina that steps in to save characters at the last minute--rather than having the characters save themselves through their own, clever means.

The episode is also set in a confusion of backdrops--a warehouse, a bank, a ballroom, an office with computers, the top of the tallest building--as though the author were envisioning a movie climax dumped into as many production designs as he could imagine--all the way from James Bond to the Grimm TV series.

Ah well, am almost at the end.