"I come sadly to the end of this journey, aware of the impossibility of commenting so objectively on a work which has absorbed me so long and so personally."

- Lloyd Alexander, The High King (author's note)

"Well, Fat Cat, we've done it, and you were no help whatsoever." With that heartfelt touch of finality, I shut my laptop. Endings always catch us off guard. We like to call them bittersweet, but sometimes the bitter seems to outweigh the sweet, at least for a time.

The Broken City of Crows is...