He got that far in the second book? I thought that was the third... It's been a while! I'm just waiting to see if he EVER finishes the series before I pick it up and re-read the whole thing... I suspect that the story got beyond his ability to tell it well around book 5... And the characters just keep adding levels of complexity making a resolution more difficult with each book... But then he does start each one with words to the effect that "There are neither beginnings nor endings, but this is a beginning"... Maybe he's going for the first TRULY "Neverending Story"... What intrigues me most in the series are the number of references to mythology, legend, and fiction (in addition to the obvious Arthurian and Celtic material and the slightly less obvious Judeo-Christian-Islamic elements, I've seen elements of Norse, Finnish, and, I think Egyptian mythologies in the stories; as well as the Telaranrhiod (SP?) dream-realm which seems a hybrid of the Celtic Otherworld, Australian Dreamtime, and the Umbra of White Wolf's Storyteller games). I think he's trying to tell the "archetype" story, the one that all other stories came from, or some such... (Heck, even the title of Dragon refers not only to King Arthur - historically he was probably the Warlord Artorius, son of Uther Pendragon, but also to another "Son of the Dragon," Vladimir Tsepes IV, in the madness elements at least)