What do you think?
Rate this book
Lorwyn Eclipsed
RETURN TO THE LAND OF
LIGHT AND SHADOW
Dare to enter the ever-changing plane of Lorwyn and Shadowmoor and discover your true self.
LIGHT AND SHADOW
Dare to enter the ever-changing plane of Lorwyn and Shadowmoor and discover your true self.
- GenresFantasy
153 pages, ebook
Published December 1, 2025
2 people want to read
About the author
Seanan McGuire
508 books17.2k followersHi! I'm Seanan McGuire, author of the Toby Daye series (Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night, Late Eclipses), as well as a lot of other things. I'm also Mira Grant (www.miragrant.com), author of Feed and Deadline.
Born and raised in Northern California, I fear weather and am remarkably laid-back about rattlesnakes. I watch too many horror movies, read too many comic books, and share my house with two monsters in feline form, Lilly and Alice (Siamese and Maine Coon).
I do not check this inbox. Please don't send me messages through Goodreads; they won't be answered. I don't want to have to delete this account. :(
Born and raised in Northern California, I fear weather and am remarkably laid-back about rattlesnakes. I watch too many horror movies, read too many comic books, and share my house with two monsters in feline form, Lilly and Alice (Siamese and Maine Coon).
I do not check this inbox. Please don't send me messages through Goodreads; they won't be answered. I don't want to have to delete this account. :(
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 10, 2026
Lots of thoughts on this one. Definitely another MTG story where the provided word count was too short to flesh things out. The most glaring aspect is Lluwen's decision to betray the High-Perfect. The scene where he starts to realize maybe he's on the side of the bad guys is missing entirely, so his heel-turn comes out of left field and is completely unmotivated.
Even within confines of 7 chapters some of the choices of what to focus time on were strange to me. Abigaile's side story felt pointless. We don't get to read about her facing some sort of challenge to awaken Eirdru or interact with merfolk society- all of that happens "off-screen", so when Abigaile shows up with Eirdru at the end it doesn't feel meaningfully different than if Eirdru had just shown up of her (his? its?) own will.
Oh, and there's the beginning where the students spend a bunch of time debating whether they should have Abigaile fly back through the Omenpath to get help or go through the dolmen gate to get help instead, and I just kept wondering why Abigaile couldn't fly everybody else back through the Omenpath one by one. She's shown to be strong enough to carry her companions while flying later on. It would've made more sense and saved words for something more important if the Omenpath had just closed moments after they fell through it. It also would've been simpler and made more sense if the Strixhaven students really had tumbled through the Omenpath on accident. We're told later on that Oko tricked them into falling through so that they could unwittingly awaken Isilu for him, but why? Surely there was a better way for Oko to awaken Isilu than by tricking 4 random Strixhaven students to fall through an Omenpath to Lorwyn (that conveniently dumped them very close to the cave Isilu was sleeping in).
The moment where Rhys tries to kill Maralen, only for Tamira to use her probability magic to make him slip and fall out a window made me laugh out loud. Slapstick is definitely at home on Lorwyn, but not during a dramatic moment of someone trying to kill their dearest friend. Also, I was convinced that there would be a plot twist revealing that moment was actually a case of tragic miscommunication- that Rhys' line of "Why didn't you tell me?" was in fact referring to Maralen having never told him that she had a brother (Oko) and that Rhys had somehow figured out that the fairy buzzing over Maralen's shoulder was Oko and that was who he was really trying to kill. It wouldn't have been a great use of tragic miscommunication, but I was convinced that had to be the case because the alternative- that Rhys had burst in and tried to kill his dear friend Maralen without stopping to ask any questions, do any further investigating, or otherwise having any real proof that Maralen was turning into Oona- would make Rhys seem like a jackass. But I guess he really was a jackass.
Some things I enjoyed: Oko's character development, the banter between Lluwen and Kirol, and Morcant being a flamboyant Disney villain. I would've preferred the story focus more on Llorwyn/Shadowmoor denizens, but I liked Abigaile as a character and I'm curious to learn more about Tam (my current guess is her mysterious teacher is Xathrid, but that feels incorrect). I also wonder if there's something interesting you could've been done where visitors to Llorwyn/Shadowmoor were still affected by going through the auroras in some capacity- maybe they don't become a totally different person, but there is still a noticeable personality shift when crossing to Shadowmoor. Could've perhaps been a fun way to explore the characters of the Strixaven students.
I did really enjoy all the side stories, especially "Star-Crossed"- that one went from cute to heart-wrenching in a very effective way.
Even within confines of 7 chapters some of the choices of what to focus time on were strange to me. Abigaile's side story felt pointless. We don't get to read about her facing some sort of challenge to awaken Eirdru or interact with merfolk society- all of that happens "off-screen", so when Abigaile shows up with Eirdru at the end it doesn't feel meaningfully different than if Eirdru had just shown up of her (his? its?) own will.
Oh, and there's the beginning where the students spend a bunch of time debating whether they should have Abigaile fly back through the Omenpath to get help or go through the dolmen gate to get help instead, and I just kept wondering why Abigaile couldn't fly everybody else back through the Omenpath one by one. She's shown to be strong enough to carry her companions while flying later on. It would've made more sense and saved words for something more important if the Omenpath had just closed moments after they fell through it. It also would've been simpler and made more sense if the Strixhaven students really had tumbled through the Omenpath on accident. We're told later on that Oko tricked them into falling through so that they could unwittingly awaken Isilu for him, but why? Surely there was a better way for Oko to awaken Isilu than by tricking 4 random Strixhaven students to fall through an Omenpath to Lorwyn (that conveniently dumped them very close to the cave Isilu was sleeping in).
The moment where Rhys tries to kill Maralen, only for Tamira to use her probability magic to make him slip and fall out a window made me laugh out loud. Slapstick is definitely at home on Lorwyn, but not during a dramatic moment of someone trying to kill their dearest friend. Also, I was convinced that there would be a plot twist revealing that moment was actually a case of tragic miscommunication- that Rhys' line of "Why didn't you tell me?" was in fact referring to Maralen having never told him that she had a brother (Oko) and that Rhys had somehow figured out that the fairy buzzing over Maralen's shoulder was Oko and that was who he was really trying to kill. It wouldn't have been a great use of tragic miscommunication, but I was convinced that had to be the case because the alternative- that Rhys had burst in and tried to kill his dear friend Maralen without stopping to ask any questions, do any further investigating, or otherwise having any real proof that Maralen was turning into Oona- would make Rhys seem like a jackass. But I guess he really was a jackass.
Some things I enjoyed: Oko's character development, the banter between Lluwen and Kirol, and Morcant being a flamboyant Disney villain. I would've preferred the story focus more on Llorwyn/Shadowmoor denizens, but I liked Abigaile as a character and I'm curious to learn more about Tam (my current guess is her mysterious teacher is Xathrid, but that feels incorrect). I also wonder if there's something interesting you could've been done where visitors to Llorwyn/Shadowmoor were still affected by going through the auroras in some capacity- maybe they don't become a totally different person, but there is still a noticeable personality shift when crossing to Shadowmoor. Could've perhaps been a fun way to explore the characters of the Strixaven students.
I did really enjoy all the side stories, especially "Star-Crossed"- that one went from cute to heart-wrenching in a very effective way.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 2, 2026
Listened to this on Youtube and made it through two episodes. I found the characters very annoying and the story inexplicably targeted at a younger audience/children. Magic players have to mostly be in the 30s-40s range. It was very difficult to identify with any of the characters. I was expecting a story about Lorwyn, but this was mostly about Strixhaven.
Furthermore I found the characters a bit cliché. Goblin = stupid is not a very novel concept. The story as a whole lacked focus. After two episodes it was difficult to pinpoint the premise in a concise way. The way that the events started was also a bit of a cardinal error in that it was characters doing something stupid/irresponsible. Also focusing so much on details that don’t matter for the larger whole perplexed me, why should I care about what kind of flowers they are collecting when it has no bearing on the story as a whole whatsoever?
Furthermore I found the characters a bit cliché. Goblin = stupid is not a very novel concept. The story as a whole lacked focus. After two episodes it was difficult to pinpoint the premise in a concise way. The way that the events started was also a bit of a cardinal error in that it was characters doing something stupid/irresponsible. Also focusing so much on details that don’t matter for the larger whole perplexed me, why should I care about what kind of flowers they are collecting when it has no bearing on the story as a whole whatsoever?
January 15, 2026
Lorwyn-Shadormoor is so insanely cool, I really wish I got to see more of it than what was shown in this story. The plot was really disjointed and there were several points where both I and the characters themselves were thinking "what is going on?" I really think it would have benefitted from one more episode somewhere in the middle to help bridge the gaps between plot points. I'm not sure who at WotC determines how many episodes a story is allowed, since Edge of Eternities had a whopping 11 episodes, but they really missed the pacing on this one.
January 27, 2026
Listened on Spotify through the Magic the Gathering Story Podcast. The story was okay, I primarily listened to it in preparation for the Strixhaven story and book otherwise I do not know that I would have bothered with it.
December 17, 2025
3.5 stars
Yes I did read the magic the gathering lore stories for this set, what of it. Story was pretty decent! The plot was kinda all over the place but the setting and characters were fun!
Yes I did read the magic the gathering lore stories for this set, what of it. Story was pretty decent! The plot was kinda all over the place but the setting and characters were fun!
December 18, 2025
Never imagined Ashling having a Texas accent
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews