The Falling Sky: The Talmont Trilogy book 3 by David Hair (book review)
Can six sexy swordspersons and sorcerers save the Talmont Empire from the apocalypse planned by its founder? That’s the big issue in ‘The Falling Sky’, book three of ‘The Talmont Trilogy’ by David Hair.
There’s no point in reading the third part of a trilogy or even a review of it, if you haven’t read the first two. I can recommend ‘The Burning Land’ and ‘The Drowning Sea’ as both are excellent fantasy novels which nicely set up this gripping conclusion.
The setting is the world of Coros, where the Talmont Empire has been ruled by descendants of Jovan Lux for two centuries. He founded both the political and religious institutions. What’s more, he’s still alive, planning the end of the world and his second coming. Long ago, he killed most of the benevolent Sanctor Wardens who used to rule and transformed their multifaceted magic system into a violent form of energy known as the glyma. Wielding the glyma, the Knights of the Vestments of Elysia Divina kept order and crushed dissent, powering their weapons from elobyne shards scattered generously across the empire. The Vyr, also wielding magic, fought the empire and set fire to crops, villages and towns because only fire could destroy the elobyne shards, which they claimed were sucking the life from the land, causing severe environmental impacts.
Romara Challys and her band of knights, the Falcons, discovered that the vyr might be right and set off on a quest to find the truth. Unfortunately, as with tobacco companies and social media barons, the top people already knew about the harm they were doing and wanted it kept secret, so Romara and her team became wanted criminals. After two books and a thousand pages of hair-raising adventures that split them up, the Falcons are reunited in the fortress town of Hyastar. They are besieged by huge armies and the terrible immortal Serrafim, corrupt winged beings who wield powerful magic and are hard to kill. Jovan Lux himself leads the Serrafim but their deadliest warrior is Vazi Virago, champion of champions, a troubled female, Jovan’s new mate and a key player in the drama.
Luckily, all the heroes found true love in book two. Romara loves Gram, Soren loves Elindhu and Jaydn loves Aura. They even have lots of sex. The villains have lots of sex, too, but without any love, which is one way you can tell they’re evil. ‘The Falling Sky’ is not full of sex scenes, far from it, but it’s mentioned enough so the reader knows what’s going on. Did you know that romantasy is the top-selling fantasy genre now?
Mickey taking aside, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The gallant heroes face overwhelming odds and make speeches that are downright corny sometimes, but corny in a sincere way. They’re not on the side of the angels because the angels are the baddies here, as is religion. The one true faith founded by Jovan Lux and the holy book he wrote bears a not inconsiderable resemblance to the dominant religion of the West, and you can tell that David Hair doesn’t like them. Jovan’s face, ‘long-haired, bearded, serene and gentle’ staring down at worshippers from every cathedral, is a hint. To be fair, his book did promise that, in the last days, fire would rain down from the heavens and the best people would be saved and he tries to deliver on that promise, although his definition of the best people might not tally with yours or mine. I also noticed a rather large hint in this book that the Knights of the Vestments of Elysia Divina are a metaphor for the Knights Templar.
It’s clear that the humble people serving Jovan are sincere believers, often doing good as they see it. The Falcons themselves were devotees of the religion before, killing heathens for god until they learned the truth. The founder and the upper echelons of the institutional church are rotten, not the lay people.
Some minor complaints for balance. There are a few glitches in the editing. ‘I can more too’ on page 41 is missing a ‘do’ and a massive stone platform that ‘seemed to floated on the air’ on page 108 should surely ‘float’. David Hair also puts 21st-century values into the mouths of people in a medieval setting. One man’s views on everything were ‘outdated, misogynistic, imperialist and usually downright stupid’, according to his female commander. Romara delivers a speech congratulating her team on being ‘inclusive’. It’s all very nice but doesn’t quite fit. You didn’t catch Conan worrying about misogyny and inclusivity. Nor even Elric.
Silly carping aside, it’s a terrific trilogy and I thoroughly recommend it to all readers of epic fantasy. It ticks all the tropes you want and, even though it borders on corny, it’s nice to have noble heroes doing the right thing. A bit of idealism doesn’t go amiss in these cynical times when, as the author notes in a little preface, the baddies seem to be in charge of the real world.
Eamonn Murphy
April 2026
(pub: Arcadia, 2026. 496 pager hardback. Price: ISBN: 978-1-52943-315-9)
check out websites: www.arcadia-books.co.uk/titles/david-hair/the-falling-sky/9781529433159/ and www.davidhairauthors.com
