I started the first book sometime in high school and finally got around to finishing up the series a year ago.  Of course I did start again from the beginning.

I really enjoyed them.  The tech was neat especially the FTL travel and how it was portrayed.  I thought the characters were done well and also the differences of each world encountered was really interesting.

I tried to guess the end perhaps theme? and came very close in my opinion, but not on it.

Very likely my favorite series of all time. Deep, moving, great characters, great story, great ending. I've read it twice (all 4) and will probably read it every 5 years or so.

Also read all four, first time spread out, second time in a row. definite value in re-reading.

Though, I sort of prefer Illium and Olympos.

One of my favorite series.  Need to start it again actually, been a few years.

Just re-read the first two after reading in my 20's--like 20 years ago.  Still very good books.  

I think I read through the third book my first time around, can't remember if I read through the fourth book or not, may try them but the consensus here was they were not nearly as good as the first two.  What did you think?

I really enjoyed them all.  The last two are such a different story and some parts did linger on, but they are worth it to me.

Brief overview?

...

If you can find all four books in a bookstore, put them all together to measure the width, and you'll understand why your question is worth a giggle.


They are a little dense for a brief overview.

Well see, there's these tombs that are traveling backwards in time...and this giant metal thing called the shrike...and an AI doing AI things...and these cruciforms that bring a sort of immortality...

Actually any overview you'll read is probably going to scare you away from it more than it'll make you want to read it. If you like epic sci-fi just read it.

Thanks fellas, I actually was going to attempt a reply to zed, but the more I thought about it I had not a clue how to start.

Zed, pick up the first one and start.  You will be well rewarded.

They were quite good; though I think the first book stood out the most.  he did a nice job taking all 4 books to really tie together all the themes.  Normally I view books with a TimeTravel element to be a sign of shitty writing (author wrote himself into a corner), but the way it was done in these books was integral to the theme, without dominanting it, and no obvious plot rescues required it.

If you do books-on-tape (i.e. are stuck in your vehicle a lot, so "read" you books that way), the very first book was truly excellent, because they brought in voice actors for each major character - very very good ones.   I would never have been able to read in my head the Poet nearly as well or as interesting, as voice actor was able to pull off that roll - it was remarkably well done.

Yup, excellent narration.

@Goatboy.

For some reason when I tried to reply to this thread, my reply overwrote Second Amend's post. WTF?

Dave_Markowitz