Clayton Emery

i enjoyed this one a bit more than whispering woods! the biggest thing that jumped out at me was that the fight scenes felt more character-motivated and consequently didn’t feel like they dragged in places like happened a few times in whispering woods. and literally every single time in arena.

i’m sorry! i know arena keeps catching strays in these reviews, i promise i’ll let it go, but it was just such a genuinely unpleasant read! plus, it’s actually much more relevant to talking show more about shattered chains than it was to talking about whispering woods, since norreen (or rakel? unclear which name she prefers) was a major character and garth shows up a couple of times. i kinda love that emery writes garth in a way that makes it feel like he’s much more aware that garth is kinda shitty? and norreen/rakel gets far more agency in this book than she does in arena. though like, she is damseled and put through some pretty grisly torture that borders on fridging even though she survives, so i don’t want to give this book too much credit in that regard. (but, like. i would certainly rather be tortured than be a supporting character in arena.)

when it comes to pre-revisionist story, i still think most of the good stuff has been in duelist articles rather than the novels, but with a sample size of 3 the novels are incrementally improving each time so far! so that’s nice at least. show less

wait, i don't get it. there were multiple likeable characters in this and i genuinely cared about what happened to them. we don't really… do that here?

look, i don’t want to give arena any more space in my brain than what i’ve already given it, but it’s hard to overstate just how much my enjoyment of this was largely owing to how much immediate contrast magic’s second novel provided to its first.

like, this is operating in a similar genre space. it fridges women. it centers a generic show more beefcake. it’s even giving us a protagonist who not only has a grimdark origin story, we meet him at the exact moment that grimdark origin story is happening, and follow him through its immediate aftermath. and he does the whole I Will Have Revenge thing.

but also.

he helps the people around him as much as he can in ways that aren’t just whacking whatever is threatening them with his axe. he sets broken bones. he tells people who think they’re worthless that they’re not. and most of all, his way of actually achieving the first act of his revenge (well, more escape than revenge in this first entry) is by rallying other victims of the evil wizard he’s fighting to find hope and community with each other and be ready for a chance to escape.

oh, and, small detail that it would have nevertheless probably been impossible for him to escape if it weren’t for the latent wizardry of his girlfriend and he still would’ve died basically immediately if it weren’t for the latent wizardry of his sister.

i’m not saying this is one of the best books i’ve ever read. i’m not saying that it doesn’t have plenty of the trappings of this era of genre fiction that turned me off about arena. i am saying that simply by having people be kind to each other and genuinely try to help each other out, by not having a constant, unrelenting background (and foreground. and midground.) of misanthropy, whispering woods is such a blessed relief.

we also still get plenty of pre-revisionist weirdness in how spells work! in fact, the era’s understanding of the exact mechanisms behind how creature spells (sorry, summon spells) worked is one of the central elements of the book’s plot. this is certainly in the category of things that don’t really fit in with modern understandings of the world of magic the gathering, but that’s honestly part of the appeal here.

also, my boy nightmare appears in this one! i was obsessed with that card as a kid. show less

final sacrifice not only sticks the landing, it also starts to feel a little bit more recognizably aligned with the world of magic we know and love in some pretty small but important ways. although they're painted with a rather frustratingly broad brush, our heroes find themselves meeting the likes of minotaurs, angels, and merfolk as people in their own element rather than just summoning them into battle.

also, a pretty fantastic exception to the lack of space the narrative gave for show more characterization of these different peoples is the encounter between greensleeves and the lord of atlantis. that scene was breathtaking, and perhaps one of the best arguments for him to be errataed to be a legendary creature. (kidding! mostly.)

i also just really appreciated the shift from being primarily from gull's perspective to being primarily from greensleeves’ perspective! and how satisfyingly paid off a lot of the beats of the previous books were. like, when the second book made greensleeves into essentially a parole officer for tyrannical mages, my immediate thought was “seems bad!!” but i didn't expect the narrative to actually see it that way, and especially not to let her have feelings about it. and the running theme of greensleeves’ and gull's army being much more committed to the cause than either of them realize, and importantly being dedicated to the cause rather than to them personally, was a great running thread that got explored in satisfying ways.

which isn't to say this book isn't without its frustrating qualities. it continues to be plagued by the casual racism and misogyny that were so prevalent in 90s genre fiction, and especially in some of the frustratingly over-the-top grimdark depictions of torture and sadism. and i'm saying that as a pretty accomplished masochist who consequently loves a lot of depictions of sadism, but when it serves little to no narrative or character purpose and really seems to just be there to wave its arms and yell “look at me! look how edgy i am!” it's honestly a hard pass for me.

but, again, my prevailing feelings about these books are overwhelmingly more positive than negative, especially adjusting for my expectations for this period in the history of genre fiction, and the small sample size of early magic novels i've read so far. while i was a child and a magic player in the 90s, my tastes in books were decidedly biased more in favor of science fiction than fantasy, so i am experiencing all these early magic novels for the first time. show less

Before I begin this review, I'd like to state that I have had a very hit or miss pattern with Forgotten Realms. I've read a couple of [a:Ed Greenwood|20513|Ed Greenwood|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1248120586p2/20513.jpg]'s Elminster books and found them extremely boring. Then I read the War of the Spider Queen series and absolutely loved it. Then, on recommendation from my brother, I started the Drizz't series. That was just awful! Then I found the sequel to the War of the show more Spider Queen, The Lady Penitent trilogy and once again, loved it! Then I tried the Abolethic Sovereignty trilogy and couldn't finish it.

So I'm always leery when trying a Forgotten Realms book/series, as I just don't know what I'll end up with.

I'd heard of Erevis Cale somewhere or other and wanted to see if he was an interesting character, so I dug around and found this to be the first book with him in it. And then I found it was a bunch of short stories centering around the Uskevren family, of whom Erevis was the butler.

I enjoyed the stories, as they introduced me to the city Selgaunt and the area of Sembia [do you know how long it took me to figure out that Selgaunt and Sembia were actually two different places and not just different names for the same place?!?]. I also found that the short story format worked well with each character, as we get a snaphsot of them without the author of said short story showing all their weaknesses by trying to write a full blown novel about that character.

So I just sped through this book, loving it and looking forward to the next. Which I've finished and will be reviewing tomorrow. Man, when Forgotten Realms is good, it is GOOD! show less