Swords of Dragonfire

Full Review of Swords of Dragonfire

Greenwood has never been the best of novel writers. He tries to write archaically, using wherefore instead of therefore, and constructing sentences to make them seem part of an older age or courtlier. But in Swords of Dragonfire, he has written one of the most protracted, most complicated, most fascinating fight scenes I have ever seen in print. Taking up at least 50 pages of the 352 page novel, the fight at the Oldcoats Inn takes several chapters, and appearance of no less than Vangerdahast, Khelben Blackstaff, Manshoon of the Zhentarim, and Elminster to bring an end to it.

Swords of Dragonfire by Ed Greenwood is the second book of the Knights of Myth Drannor trilogy. The first book, Swords of Eveningstar (Forgotten Realms: The Knights of Myth Drannor, Book 1)was released in 2006 and the third and final bok, The Sword Never Sleeps, will be released in August of 2008. This trilogy is intended to be a prequel for the Knights of Myth Drannor, to give them more `face' time and to better explain how they came together and what some of their early motivations are. Most fans of the forgotten Realms will recognize many characters in this novel, which is both a positive and negative, but I'll explain that later in the review.

The plot of this book is rather jumbled at times. This is mostly due to how the book is show more written and laid out. The main storyline is that the Knights of Myth Drannor are trying to save the royalty of Cormyr (the King, Queen and two princesses, and of course Vangy). Throughout the course of the main plot there are various sub-plots thrown in for good measure. Sub-plots such as internal strife within the Zhents, a love interest between a couple of the main heroes, and trying to discover what really is behind an ancient mystery for a long lost treasure. The plot itself is decent; there really isn't anything new here. It seems all the plot points and `mysteries' in this book have been read countless times before. In fact there were time while I was reading this novel, that the plot felt stale to me. There were moments of it being interesting though. I would say the overall story of this book was better than the first book.

The characters of this book are largely the same as from the previous book. As with the first book, I purchased this largely because one of my favorite characters was present, Florin Falconhand. While he is certainly featured in this book, I still don't feel as though I know much more about him than I did before I started this book, and trilogy for that matter. It almost seems as though Mr. Greenwood does not care entirely too much on the concept of character development in this trilogy, rather he just wants to `tell the story'. I think that is one of the major pitfalls of writing a story, in particular, a trilogy about characters that are already established. The reader already has a very good idea of what will happen, and that certain characters have no chance of being killed - because they are present in books set many years after these events. One of my complaints about the previous book is that some of the characters felt as though they were two dimensional and very clichéd, I am disappointed to say that those feelings are still present in this book as well. The only character I was interested in steadily throughout the book was Florin, but that was largely due to my previous readings about him, not from this book.

The pacing of this novel does not lend itself to easy reading. The scenes jump from one point of view to another several times throughout a chapter. Just when the reader is grasping what the intent is, the book suddenly jumps to something else. This severely hampers the flow of the book and makes it feel like a jumbled, disjointed buffet of stories instead of one continuous tale. The last fifteen to twenty pages are actually the most succinct and concise parts of the story. That is the only part where there is decent flow and continuity other than that it's hit and miss.

It still appears as though Mr. Greenwood has an infinity to use ultra-strong character at points that don't really fit. There is one scene in particular where Vangerdahast is responding to something, suddenly Khelban shows up, then is followed by Elminster showing up. That scene in particular made me feel like Mr. Greenwood was saying, "Oh, I have to get these characters into this book." And then tossed them in one big lump to make sure they were noticed. It felt contrived and useless.

While this book `feels' more like a Forgotten Realms book, it still doesn't measure up to the likes of Paul Kemp and R.A. Salvatore in terms on plot and character development. I am sure `hard core' fans of the Forgotten Realms, those who read all the source books and articles, will find something to appreciate about this novel. However, fans like myself, who merely read the novels, may find this novel lacking in any real depth. It is my belief that novels should be written for a larger fan base and not just the `hard core' gamer. I say that because I can't see myself recommending this book except to the very niche group. This is by no means an introduction to the Realms or to fantasy novels in general.

While this book is slightly better than book one, I am still disappointed in the overall direction this trilogy has gone. As I said before, there is an inherent danger in writing prequels, and Mr. Greenwood, in my opinion, has fallen into that danger. I don't see myself recommending this book to many fellow readers, which is unfortunate. show less