Matt Forbeck

After abandoning one novel about the Titanic because the stretched out narrative was boring me silly, I mistakenly jumped off the sinking ship and into the North Atlantic. Carpathia has a clever premise - and the name of the ship which picked up the survivors of the Titanic also has vague connotations to Stoker's novel - but the writing is dreadful, on a schoolboy fan fiction/b-movie level of bad grammar and clumsy dialogue. If one more character 'stabbed their finger' instead of simply show more pointing, I would have had to destroy a library book. Anyway. The cleverest element of this novel is the cover and the tagline - 'The lucky ones went down with the Titanic'. Mr Forbeck should have printed an apology to the survivors of the unsinkable ship, not a dedication in their memory. And I should think Bram Stoker is turning in his grave, too. show less

At first I was all "I wonder if it's a good thing or a bad thing when novels written for thirteen-year-olds come out like they were written BY thirteen-year-olds," but on closer investigation this is apparently not a YA book! It's intended for adults, which knocks me back a bit bemused on my heels. Luckily, the other reviewers have done a flawless job summarizing the dispiriting and occasionally troubling hackery on display here, so just a few supplementary points:

-in the first chapter the show more one guy confines his friend at gunpoint, Russian roulette style with the squeezing the trigger and the stale tension, and the friend's response isn't along the lines of "Are you insane"? but (actual quote) "You suck, man." Could anything be more teenagery?
-The rules of blackjack are explained at length (two pages), as are those of stud poker. Only for Forbeck it's Blackjack, Poker, Craps, and Sundrie Other Capitalls like it's 1723 in Lady Montagu's salon.
-Forbeck likes to lie to us by showing us cool guys (his idea of what a cool guy is has a lot to do with fist bumps, bad sideburns, mall clothes, and calling each other "brother") being into the same shit he's into (Fatboy Slim, Magic: The Gathering) in order to (illegitimately; one also assumes unsuccesfully) raise his own cultural capital
-(on Magic, the part where he tries to make it cool by namedropping a bunch of competitive Magic players who made the jump to the so-sexy world of tournament poker is a true low point in the culture)
-The love interest is called "Powaqa Strega" or "Powi"; she is half-Italian and half-"Hopi Indian"; she is a "medicine man," which Forbeck thinks means she sexily heals her golden-boy boyfriend. So masturbatory and pathetic.
-everyone's favourite expletive is "damned," which to my mind is one step above "curses"
-everything everyone else says below about how shitty this book is is true, but let me leave you with a taste: "He looked like he should have a Mexican accent, but when he spoke he sounded like he came from New York a long time ago instead." That's an actual quote too. show less

As someone rather invested in Waterdeep as a writer (2 novels, several game supplements) and reader (everything), I was skeptical that Matt Forbeck could make me feel like I was in MY City of Splendors. I'm very glad to say I was wrong and this book swept me along the fog-shrouded streets of the Realms' most fabled of cities.

Matt's characters and scenarios and backdrops are always evocative and draw the reader into the story almost immediately. As someone rather picky about how Forgotten show more Realms books feel/sound to me, I'm happy to say this book is among the most fun reads I've had in Waterdeep in a long time.

Alas, the Netgalley copy I received for a review failed to allow the branching choices to alter the narrative flow while I read this on my Kindle, so I can't comment on the choose-a-path nature of the story. show less

I loved "Choose Your Own Adventure" books as a kid, so whenever there's a new version of that type of book--containing multiple endings, where you have various decision points to "Attack! Go to page 10" or "Flee! Go to page 20!" and so forth--I just have to check them out. This one, set in the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy world, is a lot of fun. The reader is a cleric who wakes up in the guest room of a spooky castle, with the castle's owner, a creepy vampire named Strahd, there to greet show more them. What ensues is a lot of skulking around the castle, climbing steep winding stone staircases or dropping into gloomy dungeons, trying to escape but encountering other vampires, a mechanical clockwork creature, wolves, werewolves, a ghost, a supposed damsel in distress, and even zombies! Of course, that's only if you, like me, keep reading the book even when your character has met an untimely end. I always end up reading ALL of the possible endings to the story, just to see what all of the options were. I liked the illustrations in this book, too, they were mostly full color paintings and really nice fantasy-style art. The book is listed as for ages 8-12, and I'd agree with that; the typeface is a little large and while it's got some spooky content it's certainly fine for any 3rd or 4th grader who loves monsters! show less