City of Ravens

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Title: The City of Ravens
Series: The Cities
Author: Richard Baker
Rating: of 5 Battle Axes
Genre: SFF
Pages: 324
Format: Kindle










Synopsis:
Jack Ravenwild is a dandy, a thief, a magician and an utterly pompous kind of guy. So it isn't a surprise when he gets 3 different commissions from 3 different beautiful women. But since they all tie together in the end, it makes for a very show more light and fun adventure.

My Thoughts:
This was so deliberately over the top that I was rolling my eyes the entire time. Thankfully, Baker had enough skill and deftness of touch that I was also laughing while rolling my eyes.

Jack was an irrepressible character and had a flair for the fanciful. While most Forgotten Realms' books go for the faux-epic feel, or the dark and gritty, this was unabashed mockery of that. Either that or Baker is such a bad writer that he's a genius.
I wouldn't be able to take a steady diet of this, but every once in a while something silly is needed to counteract all the ridiculous authors who are miserable and take it out on us the readers.

After the bad experience I had with The Citadels series, I am encouraged that this started out so lightly. " show less

I wish every D&D novel was written like this. For so many reasons. Here goes:

* An excellent rogue - I can't think of a better rogue in all of fiction, and yes I've seen Star Wars, so I know my literature
* A plot that manages to be interesting, tight, local, and finishes within this one book. I could write about each of those words "tight, local, interesting, one book" to help describe why I like the plot, but let me just repeat them and move on. Me likey plot, me good words making.
* The encounter with the dragon was particularly ... right. Without spoiling it, let me say that one does not simply slay a dragon.

So yes, I recommend this to anyone.

Meanwhile I'm disappointed that Mr. Baker's other books aren't as excellent, or anyone else's show more for that matter. Every Forgotten Realms novel gets the trilogy disease (or worse, follow-on trilogy), every story is a quest to save the entire realm, every clash of great powers cheapens those written before. c.f. Greenwood's projecting himself into the virile powerful Elminster, RA Salvatore writing Drizzt into some kind of weirdo avatar that will sever Toril from the shadowrealm, the Rage of Dragons series kills dragons by the hundred (so many that most are not even named), Melegaunt fighting an army of 10x powerful mages...only a few other books or series manage to show even some restraint. show less