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Dark Sun: Prism Pentad #4
The Obsidian Oracle: A Prism Pentad Novel
Two former friends seek a powerful ancient oracle—one for good; one for evil—in this fourth Prism Pentad novel that explores the harsh world of Dark Sun The Dark Lens is an ancient oracle that can harvest the magic of the sun, hidden by the last dwarven knights for the sake of a new world. With it, Tithian of Tyr can evolve into a true sorcerer-king. Only Agis of Asticles, who covets the lens to destroy the Dragon Borys, stands between Tithian and his desire. For either man to survive the quest, the hatred between them must be vanquished. If not, they risk falling prey to the beast-headed giants who guard the Obsidian Oracle.
352 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1993
22 people are currently reading
441 people want to read
About the author
Troy Denning
184 books653 followersAlso known as Richard Awlinson.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Den...
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Den...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
May 30, 2024
Kind of an unrelenting bummer of a book to approach the close of the series. Still pretty essential to understand how Athas became like it is, and also the character and creepy personality of King Serial Killer Tithian.
Something that always bugged me: The Dark Sun version of giants are cool, but how do they find enough water to drink when all the seas have dried out?
Something that always bugged me: The Dark Sun version of giants are cool, but how do they find enough water to drink when all the seas have dried out?
May 28, 2020
This series has gone from strength to strength (Crimson Legion being a notable blip). I really enjoyed the last book and The Obsidian Oracle was even better.
This book plays with childhood friends and rivals Agis and Tithian on their quest to retrieve the Dark Lens from a load of nasty giants way out in the estuary leading into the sea of silt.
The adventure is full of so much Dark Sun setting greatness that differs from the fantasy norm, from detailed descriptions of abstract psionic combat, telekinetic boats floating through silt and wading giants.
This is a truly unique fantasy series with twists and turns and fantastical creatures that you just can't see coming and deeply flawed and motivated characters - massively underrated.
This book plays with childhood friends and rivals Agis and Tithian on their quest to retrieve the Dark Lens from a load of nasty giants way out in the estuary leading into the sea of silt.
The adventure is full of so much Dark Sun setting greatness that differs from the fantasy norm, from detailed descriptions of abstract psionic combat, telekinetic boats floating through silt and wading giants.
This is a truly unique fantasy series with twists and turns and fantastical creatures that you just can't see coming and deeply flawed and motivated characters - massively underrated.
February 19, 2021
This book follows Agis as he tracks down his frenemy king Tithian. The Athas weirdness is really cranked up to MAX here -- but book 4 of a 5-novel series is probably the right place for that. If you made it this far, you're invested, and book 5 will need to focus on tying everything back together. In the mix are warring tribes of bizarre giants, the Sea of Silt (literally filled with ash instead of water), pirates, abstract psionic duels, and the alternate dimension inside a bag of holding.
Agis was an annoying Mary Sue sort of figure in the earlier books. He's a psionicist, and the D&D trope is that characters with occult powers are specialists that are deficient in other areas. But Agis is rich, powerful, respected, handsome, athletic, and always does the right thing. He wasn't quite so grating here, perhaps because he takes a lot of licks. And as the star, by definition he can't upstage anyone else.
Some of the premises of the lore are half-baked. The balance of power on the Sea is predicated on the giants never thinking of making their own ship, which is unlikely. And the bit about a new species being sired by two males -- who wants to tell him that it doesn't work that way?
The climax is stronger than in the preceding books, this time there are some real stakes, uncertainty, and urgency.
Agis was an annoying Mary Sue sort of figure in the earlier books. He's a psionicist, and the D&D trope is that characters with occult powers are specialists that are deficient in other areas. But Agis is rich, powerful, respected, handsome, athletic, and always does the right thing. He wasn't quite so grating here, perhaps because he takes a lot of licks. And as the star, by definition he can't upstage anyone else.
Some of the premises of the lore are half-baked. The balance of power on the Sea is predicated on the giants never thinking of making their own ship, which is unlikely. And the bit about a new species being sired by two males -- who wants to tell him that it doesn't work that way?
The climax is stronger than in the preceding books, this time there are some real stakes, uncertainty, and urgency.
October 18, 2023
Full review here:
https://jamesgenrebooks.blogspot.com/...
For a D&D novel, this is really heavy material to deal with, as even the dering-do is overshadowed by some really ugly actions on pretty much everyone's part in the narrative.
https://jamesgenrebooks.blogspot.com/...
For a D&D novel, this is really heavy material to deal with, as even the dering-do is overshadowed by some really ugly actions on pretty much everyone's part in the narrative.
January 10, 2016
As goofy and haphazard as the books before though it's a stronger effort. Still no characterisation worth a damn and they survive far too many hair-raising encounters than is plausible, even for fantasy fiction. It's a nasty place, is Athas.
March 20, 2023
Not as good as the three first books in the series, but to read it was totally worth it!
November 21, 2022
I think this novel was the weakest and silliest of the series so far. It’s full of far-fetched and hard to believe shenanigans such as Giants with beast heads, floating disembodied heads and a “sea” of silt and dust where ships magically float over. The main conflict of the book revolves around a struggle between a corrupt king and a dogmatically lawful good main character who is so much of a do-gooder it’s constantly frustrating when he gets betrayed over and over and over again. It’s actually a bit of a small concept because most of the book just happens in the same island dealing with the same villains back-and-forth and just gets really frustrating. I hope the last volume salvages the mess.
December 19, 2008
This story is about Agis, the older noble-born member of the group. He goes traveling on the Sea of Silt (which is a cool concept) and fights "beast-headed" giants (these guys are pretty cool too. They don't start out with Beast-heads, they cut off each other's heads in a ritual and then get their animal head...weird, huh?!)
May 29, 2025
I really did not expect to like this one.
I've been reading this wildly uneven series out of a love for the setting. Dark Sun has always captivated me ever since I firdt heard about it. Mad Max D&D? A world with barely any water and even less metal? Where any use of magic further saps the land of life? Where near everyone is a slave to tyrannical sorceror-kings who are secretly in a race to transform themselves into dragons?
Sign me up!
And so a few years ago, I started reading this bizarrely structured series. The first one is a mostly standard stuff with a gang of oddballs getting together, questing for a magic item, and defeating their cities tyrant. But then it gets weird, as the sequels split the characters into their own personal adventures and tended to give them strange fates. In book 2, one of the mc's from book 1 falls in love with a dwarf and settles down to mother their hybrid child. Didn't see that coming!
Book 2 was tedious, books 3 slightly less so, mainly because the sorceress Sadira was always the most interesting character in the party. But when I saw this one was about Agis, by far the most boring character of the gang, it fell to the bottom of my to read list.
When I finally pulled it out to take a break from Drizzt as my phone book I expected it to be like pulling teeth.
To my surprise, I couldn't put it down. Agis is as boring as ever, the one person somehow of Lawful Stupid alignment in an intensely morally gray world, but this one brings in the (lawfully) evil Tithian as deuteragonist which spices things up. And their adventure takes them across the Sea of Silt, one of the most interesting facets of Dark Sun, and up against feuding giant clans which leads to some confidence game shenanigans that almost reminded me of Cugel the Clever.
And to top it off, the ending was not at all what I expected. Quite a shocker.
And so all in all this book ended up being pretty darn good!
Has me excited to finish up the series.
I've been reading this wildly uneven series out of a love for the setting. Dark Sun has always captivated me ever since I firdt heard about it. Mad Max D&D? A world with barely any water and even less metal? Where any use of magic further saps the land of life? Where near everyone is a slave to tyrannical sorceror-kings who are secretly in a race to transform themselves into dragons?
Sign me up!
And so a few years ago, I started reading this bizarrely structured series. The first one is a mostly standard stuff with a gang of oddballs getting together, questing for a magic item, and defeating their cities tyrant. But then it gets weird, as the sequels split the characters into their own personal adventures and tended to give them strange fates. In book 2, one of the mc's from book 1 falls in love with a dwarf and settles down to mother their hybrid child. Didn't see that coming!
Book 2 was tedious, books 3 slightly less so, mainly because the sorceress Sadira was always the most interesting character in the party. But when I saw this one was about Agis, by far the most boring character of the gang, it fell to the bottom of my to read list.
When I finally pulled it out to take a break from Drizzt as my phone book I expected it to be like pulling teeth.
To my surprise, I couldn't put it down. Agis is as boring as ever, the one person somehow of Lawful Stupid alignment in an intensely morally gray world, but this one brings in the (lawfully) evil Tithian as deuteragonist which spices things up. And their adventure takes them across the Sea of Silt, one of the most interesting facets of Dark Sun, and up against feuding giant clans which leads to some confidence game shenanigans that almost reminded me of Cugel the Clever.
And to top it off, the ending was not at all what I expected. Quite a shocker.
And so all in all this book ended up being pretty darn good!
Has me excited to finish up the series.
April 16, 2022
Through the lens of lore development, this is a reasonable entry in the series, but even the lore appears to have flaws (cf., where the giants originated). But I couldn't get beyond some of the more glaring issues. The main protagonist, Agis, was interesting in the earlier books, but here his presence is not developed or more deeply characterized. The issues with the system tie-in are very apparent in relation to the wounds suffered by some of the characters largely being ignored (their hit points are still above zero, so they'll be fine logic). Still, there are some good aspects that develop the world more generally, but the negatives outweighed the journey for me.
August 4, 2025
In which we get to visit another very interesting part of this fascinating world, and see more very cool magic stuff, but also have a bunch of throwaway characters whose deaths barely rate page time. Also, it’s getting hard to keep track of all the historical and present conspiracies, which actually connects with one of the strengths of this series, that any Lore Dumps are provided by characters you know are editing things heavily for their own purposes, so any piece of lore you get is incomplete and heavily slanted. I get the feeling sometimes that Mr. Denning has it all in his head and forgets that the reader doesn’t.
June 10, 2021
4.5 stars
I really enjoy the psionic and magical use in this book. It seems the author is even getting better in writing these fights.
The world is still what makes the books, this time it’s a story about Augis and Thifian so we get to see more cool psionic fights.
I really wish the author would explain how two (male) dwarfs are the fathers of all giants in the world, but the twist is kind of cool anyway.
Oh, and traveling on a Sea of Silt and fighting "beast-headed" giants is preaty cool!
I really enjoy the psionic and magical use in this book. It seems the author is even getting better in writing these fights.
The world is still what makes the books, this time it’s a story about Augis and Thifian so we get to see more cool psionic fights.
I really wish the author would explain how two (male) dwarfs are the fathers of all giants in the world, but the twist is kind of cool anyway.
Oh, and traveling on a Sea of Silt and fighting "beast-headed" giants is preaty cool!
May 5, 2024
I was looking forward to this one, because Agis was my favorite character in the first book and is the protagonist of this book. His complex relationship to Tithian holds great storytelling potential which is sadly only scratched upon in this novel. Instead I learned more about athasian giants than I ever cared to know. The book is not entirely unentertaining but definetely the weakest one in the series so far - at least for my taste.
August 31, 2023
A grizzly series; a grizzly world.
The plot has many unexpected twists and turns. Enjoyable, but gosh, Dark Sun is a harsh unforgiving world.
It is neat to see some magic items in action in the books, and also to parallel the books versus the history of the first edition and second edition of the game.
The plot has many unexpected twists and turns. Enjoyable, but gosh, Dark Sun is a harsh unforgiving world.
It is neat to see some magic items in action in the books, and also to parallel the books versus the history of the first edition and second edition of the game.
February 23, 2019
A wonderful adventure
The world of Athas is a study in world-building. An original land fully realized with great characters living.and dying on the ragged edge of a shattered land. I highly recommend this title, but start the series at the beginning.
The world of Athas is a study in world-building. An original land fully realized with great characters living.and dying on the ragged edge of a shattered land. I highly recommend this title, but start the series at the beginning.
December 13, 2023
Interesting yet Curious.
This book was exciting and appealing to read. I felt a little lost towards the end. It seemed that the details about the satchel, the Lens and the Oracle were lost on me. Hence this is why, I gave this book 4 stars.
This book was exciting and appealing to read. I felt a little lost towards the end. It seemed that the details about the satchel, the Lens and the Oracle were lost on me. Hence this is why, I gave this book 4 stars.
April 14, 2018
אני חושב שזה הספר החלש ביותר בסדרה, בין היתר כי הוא מתמקד בגיבורים הפחות מעניינים שלה...
October 4, 2022
Lots of back and forth between power and weakness. Never knew exactly where anyone stood. Dust ships are a neat idea. It's supposed to be epic but it doesn't feel like it.
March 9, 2023
Best one in the series so far, it really let's all the weirdness and originality of the setting shine through. Cool characters too.
May 22, 2017
The weaker novel in the series and a reasonable yarn despite that.
June 5, 2014
And just when I thought the series was picking up after book 3...
Book 4 focused on Agis and Tithian, as they sought to recover the Dark Lens (see book 3). The two long-time "friends" being forced to work together felt contrived, especially Tithian's so-called reflection moments explaining his motives for not wanting to kill Agis. It's just not realistic. Same thing with Agis and his "reasonings" - very forced. I used to find Agis "ok" in the earlier books, but after this one, I found him pathetic and annoying, and entirely not believable as a person.
Lore-wise is about the only thing that's a plus. We get to see Balic and a new sorcerer-king, plus the giants of Athas, and most interestingly the Sea of Silt and actual ship battles. Granted, it wasn't very well-described (way too much things dying when there didn't seem that many to start off with - same thing applies to the finale battle), but still, it's something different for me.
Speaking of battles, the author gave his characters "wounds". It's in quotation marks because they are really just superficial inconveniences, since it doesn't really stop them from performing mostly normally, despite how grievous they were described to be. Examples? And I'm not even going to go into how it seems to flout rules on psionics and dehydration.
Continuity-wise... there was a glaring oversight if you're even a little familiar with the lore of the ravagers - the plot mentions them, where each champion was sent to massacre a race. A disturbing chicken and egg issue - but won't apply to most readers I guess.
I won't be have any expectations at all for the final book - just want to finish the series and be done with it.
Book 4 focused on Agis and Tithian, as they sought to recover the Dark Lens (see book 3). The two long-time "friends" being forced to work together felt contrived, especially Tithian's so-called reflection moments explaining his motives for not wanting to kill Agis. It's just not realistic. Same thing with Agis and his "reasonings" - very forced. I used to find Agis "ok" in the earlier books, but after this one, I found him pathetic and annoying, and entirely not believable as a person.
Lore-wise is about the only thing that's a plus. We get to see Balic and a new sorcerer-king, plus the giants of Athas, and most interestingly the Sea of Silt and actual ship battles. Granted, it wasn't very well-described (way too much things dying when there didn't seem that many to start off with - same thing applies to the finale battle), but still, it's something different for me.
Speaking of battles, the author gave his characters "wounds". It's in quotation marks because they are really just superficial inconveniences, since it doesn't really stop them from performing mostly normally, despite how grievous they were described to be. Examples? And I'm not even going to go into how it seems to flout rules on psionics and dehydration.
Continuity-wise... there was a glaring oversight if you're even a little familiar with the lore of the ravagers - the plot mentions them, where each champion was sent to massacre a race. A disturbing chicken and egg issue - but won't apply to most readers I guess.
I won't be have any expectations at all for the final book - just want to finish the series and be done with it.
January 14, 2024
I'm 'all in' on rereading the Prism Pentad and books three and four have made me regret that decision. Just about readable. Weirdly, I kept thinking about how a better written reboot--one with better characterisation, better dialogue, and a firmer idea from the outset of what the plot should be about for the series--would actually be rather good.
April 18, 2009
Again, I am torn on how to rate this but I am able to talk about it.
As a book, it does some confusing things. First, it presents information wrong. It blatantly says X as fact when it already said something else about X. So, it was very confusing. Was the author trying to say that these characters didn't know X? That's strange, though, as the other main characters would know that's wrong. Further, this does a time jump of several years, so the characters here should know what the others know.
Second, the ships on the Sea of Silt are not the best idea. If the ship can "float" with the magic helm, then why does it stay in the silt? Why not float above it and use the wind? Granted, some ships have to push themselves along with poles. Okay, then why not make big wheels and "drive" on the sea, at least in the shallow areas? (That might actually be in the game later.) It seems very inefficient to "sail" as described, when they very rarely go into the deep areas of silt.
Looking at this in game terms, again I don't think it does things very well. It doesn't use hit points but tries to give the characters more "realistic" wounds, including broken bones. In this book, it does serve a purpose, so perhaps it can be forgiven. However, it's still jarring to read about such realistic wounds when most DND novels don't do that.
Psionics are also a problem in how they are handled. The descriptions I read lead me to believe that the main character is almost out of energy several times. Yet, he manages to keep going long after I think he should be out, based on the descriptions we are getting.
Then we get to the history of Athas, and this is interesting. Here is where the book really gets good. We got a lot more information on many things, including a new city-state, the giants and how some other things happened. That information is quite good. However, I keep wanting more. Not Jordan-esque levels of detail but a lot more than I got.
So, I guess I will give this a 3.5 and would round up to four. It's good and was re-readable but isn't great.
jdg
As a book, it does some confusing things. First, it presents information wrong. It blatantly says X as fact when it already said something else about X. So, it was very confusing. Was the author trying to say that these characters didn't know X? That's strange, though, as the other main characters would know that's wrong. Further, this does a time jump of several years, so the characters here should know what the others know.
Second, the ships on the Sea of Silt are not the best idea. If the ship can "float" with the magic helm, then why does it stay in the silt? Why not float above it and use the wind? Granted, some ships have to push themselves along with poles. Okay, then why not make big wheels and "drive" on the sea, at least in the shallow areas? (That might actually be in the game later.) It seems very inefficient to "sail" as described, when they very rarely go into the deep areas of silt.
Looking at this in game terms, again I don't think it does things very well. It doesn't use hit points but tries to give the characters more "realistic" wounds, including broken bones. In this book, it does serve a purpose, so perhaps it can be forgiven. However, it's still jarring to read about such realistic wounds when most DND novels don't do that.
Psionics are also a problem in how they are handled. The descriptions I read lead me to believe that the main character is almost out of energy several times. Yet, he manages to keep going long after I think he should be out, based on the descriptions we are getting.
Then we get to the history of Athas, and this is interesting. Here is where the book really gets good. We got a lot more information on many things, including a new city-state, the giants and how some other things happened. That information is quite good. However, I keep wanting more. Not Jordan-esque levels of detail but a lot more than I got.
So, I guess I will give this a 3.5 and would round up to four. It's good and was re-readable but isn't great.
jdg
February 2, 2014
The Obsidian Oracle is centered around the nobleman Agis of Asticles and his pursuit of the would be sorcerer king of Tyr: Tythian.
After learning that Tythian was behind the sacking of the dwarven village of Kled, Agis sets out in pursuit of Tythian with the goal of bringing him back to Tyr to stand trial for treason. During his journey, Agis befriends a giant by the name of Fylo - a half breed outcast who is bewildered by Agis's honesty and kindness.
Hiring a pirate ship to ferry him across the Sea of Silt, Agis quickly learns the true reason why Tythian has ventured into such perilous territory, where two rival clans of giants wage war for 'The Obsidian Oracle' - which is in fact the 'Dark Lens', the very thing the Tyrians need to destroy Borys the dragon.
The Obsidian Oracle is at it's core a story about two childhood friends that have grown up to be at the very opposite sides of the spectrum. Honor vs ambition collide in a hostile world. The salvation of Tyr resting upon Agis's shoulders and the opportunity to become an immortal on Tythians.
An enjoyable read leading into the Prism Pentad's endgame.
After learning that Tythian was behind the sacking of the dwarven village of Kled, Agis sets out in pursuit of Tythian with the goal of bringing him back to Tyr to stand trial for treason. During his journey, Agis befriends a giant by the name of Fylo - a half breed outcast who is bewildered by Agis's honesty and kindness.
Hiring a pirate ship to ferry him across the Sea of Silt, Agis quickly learns the true reason why Tythian has ventured into such perilous territory, where two rival clans of giants wage war for 'The Obsidian Oracle' - which is in fact the 'Dark Lens', the very thing the Tyrians need to destroy Borys the dragon.
The Obsidian Oracle is at it's core a story about two childhood friends that have grown up to be at the very opposite sides of the spectrum. Honor vs ambition collide in a hostile world. The salvation of Tyr resting upon Agis's shoulders and the opportunity to become an immortal on Tythians.
An enjoyable read leading into the Prism Pentad's endgame.
January 27, 2014
Okay.
I don't hate the ending as much as I did when I first read it (twenty one years ago). It makes sense. It clearly is what is coming the entire novel. Younger me was too tied to standard D&D tropes to see it coming.
But once again, Denning seems to wedge a lot of filler into the story. Instead of lots of weird Elfin tribe bickering (see last novel), this time it is the odd rivalry between the two types of giants. What makes it even more questionable is that there are giants who understand exactly what it going on, so they shouldn't be engaged in the kind of mindless violence between the "tribes".
This time, I am not going to let my reaction be a deterrent to finishing the series. Yeah, one has to invest in Tithian in order to start the fifth book, but I have a feeling that Denning will bring much of the material together to make for a more than satisfactory conclusion.
I don't hate the ending as much as I did when I first read it (twenty one years ago). It makes sense. It clearly is what is coming the entire novel. Younger me was too tied to standard D&D tropes to see it coming.
But once again, Denning seems to wedge a lot of filler into the story. Instead of lots of weird Elfin tribe bickering (see last novel), this time it is the odd rivalry between the two types of giants. What makes it even more questionable is that there are giants who understand exactly what it going on, so they shouldn't be engaged in the kind of mindless violence between the "tribes".
This time, I am not going to let my reaction be a deterrent to finishing the series. Yeah, one has to invest in Tithian in order to start the fifth book, but I have a feeling that Denning will bring much of the material together to make for a more than satisfactory conclusion.
April 11, 2009
Spoiler - Agis gets wacked. Some (most) of the guys in my group were glad to see this character go but he was LN and I would miss playing him as a NPC. Agis was also misguided although he was turning a corner in the road. He knew the sorcerer kings days were numbered but he couldn't understand slavery was wrong. Not until it was too late anyway...
The battles with the giants in the Sea of Silt made for many more great adventures. A good read - albeit sad.
The battles with the giants in the Sea of Silt made for many more great adventures. A good read - albeit sad.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 29, 2010
This fourth volume of the Prism Pentad was fantastic--great psionic battles, wonderful new characters, and just epic plot movements. I really enjoyed this volume a lot--likely as much as the first volume.
February 18, 2013
I read this without reading the rest of the series over 10 years ago, so I don't think I really understood all of what was going on.
December 21, 2015
Well, this one was definitely a filler book. Some good backstory and interesting lore. But not too much real story. Glad to be getting to the final chapter in this series. #excited!!
June 8, 2015
Moved pretty well, the ending felt rushed and left you hanging for the final installment. Which is a good thing.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews