[Dragaera] On Endings

[Howard Brazee]

On 7/18/2007 Scott Schultz wrote:
>  Somewhere along the way, I found the first story that brought both of
>  these
>  genres together in a story that, even today, still fires on all
>  cylinders
>  for me - Christopher Stasheff's _The Warlock in Spite of Himself_.
>  Yeah, I'd
>  read the Harold Shea stories and other similar crossover stories but
>  this
>  one gave me a hero I admired, and who was slick, yet not phony and
>  who, like
>  James Bond, always had an answer for whatever dilemma he faced and
>  transformed the world around him simply by the force of his
>  personality. As
>  a misfit nerd of a kid even at an early age, that was something I ate
>  up;
>  yet even as a middle-aged adult now, I still eat it up. *heh* Some
>  stories
>  you just love despite their faults and for me, this was one of the
>  few
>  "faultless" stories.
>
>  Over the years, I followed the first few sequels and while I enjoyed
>  them
>  the way you usually enjoy a familiar story in a familiar setting,
>  they
>  didn't light my fire the way that _Warlock in Spite of Himself_ had
>  and I
>  eventually stopped following them altogether. I wasn't even aware
>  until
>  recently that there had been several more sequels (Stasheff looks to
>  have
>  been rather prolific in general), including a second series featuring
>  Rod's
>  (the "Warlock") eldest son. So, I was intrigued when, having had the
>  full
>  bibiliography brought to my attention, I saw that after a few years
>  of
>  stories about Magnus (the aforementioned son) that the final story
>  was
>  titled  _The Warlock's Last Ride_.

I liked the first book, and I liked the prequel (way before the time of 
the book), but each book was less interesting than the previous - and 
the series also got more preachy.   So I also gave up on Stasheff.