Baldur's Gate 3: Astarion

by T. Kingfisher, Neil Newbon (Narrator)

The roguish charlatan Astarion will free himself from a centuries-long fate of servitude or die (a second time) trying—in this decadently dark fantasy adventure by award-winning author T. Kingfisher.

You’re too pretty to die.

Astarion Ancunin was supposed to be a magistrate, not a vampire spawn. He was supposed to serve the law, not the vicious vampire lord Cazador Szarr. And he was supposed to drink fine wine, not rat blood. Alas—the city of Baldur’s Gate cares little for what’s supposed to happen.

Though he has been powerless to resist his master’s bidding, haunting the nighttime streets to fetch warm blood, Astarion has never surrendered his hope. One day, this nightmare must end. He just has to find out how.

When the vampire lord announces a twisted competition for his favor, an opportunity presents itself in the form of a rare prize . . . and an unlikely alliance. The blood of a dead god is buried deep beneath Baldur’s Gate, and, to get it, Astarion will need the help of a handsome Aasimar paladin named Hahn den Suriel.

There are just a few problems. Astarion is not supposed to trust his fellow spawn. He’s not supposed to go out into the city for his own ends rather than the vampire lord’s. And he’s certainly not supposed to strike a deal with a stranger whose golden eyes can snare even a blackened, undead heart.

But the city of Baldur’s Gate cares little for what’s supposed to happen.

Genres: Fantasy, Vampires, Audiobook, Horror, Fiction, Adult, Queer

8 pages, Audible Audio

First published September 29, 2026

About the author

T. Kingfisher is the vaguely absurd pen-name of Ursula Vernon. In another life, she writes children's books and weird comics, and has won the Hugo, Sequoyah, and Ursa Major awards, as well as a half-dozen Junior Library Guild selections.

This is the name she uses when writing things for grown-ups.

When she is not writing, she is probably out in the garden, trying to make eye contact with butterflies.

Reviews

[lexi (aka newlynova) · Rating 0.5 out of 5]

so. the Astarion book.

Multiple things can be true at once:
1. The drama around this book is pretty nasty and many critiques I’ve seen rely, unnecessarily, on ad hominem and made-up assumptions (“Kingfisher didn’t play the game!”)
2. The book is, in my opinion, an awful depiction of Astarion’s character and history for fans of BG3 who wanted a canon-compliant story
3. That is not solely Kingfisher’s fault, and she’s receiving a disproportionate amount of backlash for decisions that were certainly made by committee at Wizards of the Coast (WOTC)
4. Kingfisher did, despite that, still choose to write this book given these changes. and ignoring that she had agency for that decision implies…what? That she was too dumb to know what she was getting herself into? That feels like a really weird thing to say about an author some people are claiming to defend who does share culpability with the big corporation, even though she’s also being left out to dry by them on this

I made a whole video with my thoughts on this book for youtube that I’ll link here, if you’d like to see all of the receipts I pulled from the game and book to support my argument. I was extremely thorough!

But in short: this is a perfectly average, forgettable adventure prequel. It does feature trauma work, and nobody defending this book who related to how book Astarion deals with what he’s going through (tl;dr - 200 years of extreme physical, emotional, and sexual abuse) is wrong for feeling that way. The spawn, Astarion included, do represent different ways of handling a traumatic situation. The issue here is that it does not accurately represent Astarion’s story and what we see to be his response to that trauma in the game. The work that this book does attempt to do diverges from established canon, and not in a way that’s incidental for all but the most anal-retentive fans. It diverges in a way that defangs the story and flattens a complicated, imperfect survivor of sexual abuse into a silly sexy, not-all-that-bad caricature of himself. All of the most difficult parts of Astarion’s history are sanded off for the sake of—I can only imagine—making him a more palatable face for modern D&D now that WOTC has full creative control of his character and Larian (the studio they commissioned to make BG3) does not.

The result is a cheapened, two-dimensional story that has contains none of the depth or care demonstrated by Larian’s writers in the game. Basically everything wrong with it is plausibly deniable as “just a different interpretation!” which allows for infinite handwaving. the very same handwaving the author has been doing on Bluesky for the past month or two. Anyone who thinks this plausible deniability is not by design is kidding themselves considering how many people this book would have been approved by before publication. It is not coincidental that all of the changes made to Astarion’s history make it a little more hopeful, a little less grim, make him a little less racist, a little less mean.

Taking an existing story of abuse and flattening it the way that WOTC/Kingfisher have here for…what? the sake of making more money, now and in the future? is a pretty gross thing to do IMO, particularly given how few stories there are like this one that feature male victims. There is no singular survivor experience—hence why there are some who are ten toes down defending this book—but many of the things that made Astarion’s story so resonant for so many people are either underwritten or excised entirely because they’re too difficult. If this book was wholly original, sure. It’s an inoffensive adventure story that follows the same boilerplate formula that practically every D&D module follows. I don’t think many people would be mad about it. But it’s not original, and therefore defanging Astarion’s story for a prequel like this becomes a purposeful choice that has a meaningful goal. It isn’t hard to think of what that goal might be, particularly considering how a story like this would actually work quite well as a prequel for a character like Wyll, for example, who had a whole adventuring history that predated his role in the game but who is FAR less popular (and monetizable!) than Astarion.

I don’t think we have to wonder whether or not Kingfisher played the game. She probably did; certainly at least some of the people who approved this book did. That’s actually a naive thing to think, IMO, that all of the problems here are just a result of oversights that were born from her not playing the game very closely. Even if Kingfisher is clueless about Astarion’s story, the people who approved this are not. This means everything about this was, once again, intentional choice. WOTC wanted to make a lot of money, and Kingfisher was cool with playing along if it meant her name was on the check. the result is a complete waste of your time! Even if you’ve never played BG3 and you just want to read a neat adventure story—the best you’ll get with this even going in without expectations is “eh, it’s fine,” and I promise you’ll find higher highs in a different and better book.

[Lana Doodles · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yeah, the fans of the character are right to be angry. The author seems to have taken it personally that she was dumped by pixels for not caring about him enough to pay attention to his story. So she lined her pockets and took the opportunity to dunk all over canon. So much established lore was completely trampled over in this book. Astarion was used for the author's sexual gratification rather than out of any appreciation for him as a whole - just like his many, many conquests. He's Sexy Vampire Trope. He is NOT Astarion. The positive reviews are from people scared to piss off NetGalley and lose access to ARCs in the future. I'm not afraid myself. If you love Astarion, the one presented in the game, you will not like this book. If you're just a romantasy reader with no interest in his deep lore, then I guess it's for you, cause it's certainly not for his fans. I was defensive of this author right up until I read it for myself. I don't support harassing authors or bringing complaints to their doorstep before you've even read the thing. Now, I've read the thing, and I'm actually pretty okay with the fact that people are angry. This was a character that should have been handled delicately. It was not. WOTC got a letter from me, but she'll just be blocked on any platforms I use to buy books.

[rey · Rating 0.25 out of 5]

edit: there’s a vid abt this made by some mutuals of mine, just would like everyone who sees this to know that i have seen the author go on long rants on bluesky and choosing to argue with fans about … a lot of stuff while not responding to genuinely good points + breaching the generally accepted rule of authors not interacting with review spaces. idk just a fyi about how incredibly inane she is acting. also, despite her undeniable lack of professionalism, please don’t harass or threaten the author.

my original placeholder review for this was just “look how they massacred my boy” which some found funny and others overly dramatic, so will anyone believe me when i say that i am not even an astarion fan? thus, the book had less to do with massacring “my boy” and more with massacring a beloved and nuanced character by turning his entire essence on its head with no consideration for anything that made astarion so loved in the first place.
basically all of what i have to say has already been said and worded better than i ever could. however, i did read the book, so this is my two cents. i’ll try to keep it as short as possible.
the fans of astarion have the absolute right to be pissed off. there is zero loyalty nor nuance to his character (nor is there any to other characters in the book???), things that would benefit from having complexity to them or, at the very least, not being made weirdly sexual, are instead always sexualised in a way that gives the impression of the author just trying to get her rocks off. the argument that it is simply “dark fiction” sort of falls off here too, in my opinion. i have read a lot of transgressive fiction in the past few years, and this book isn’t dark nor transgressive, it just reads as gay porn with no plot nor depth catering to an audience of fangirls/boys unfamiliar with astarion’s true character.
the prose is genuinely just bad. not surprising considering the author claims to have been working on like a bajillion other books simultaneously.
the acknowledgements read less professional than some author’s notes from ao3. nothing wrong with banter in author’s notes but shitting on other creatives just shows massive immaturity imo
overall, it feels like the author didn’t truly care about writing a good story and doing astarion justice, nor did she have time for it, which is, along with the result, unfortunate. nearly every part of this book is lazy, inconsiderate or in bad taste.

[Sadie E · Rating 2.5 out of 5]

TL;DR: When I heard this book was happening, I immediately preordered a physical and Kindle copy. Then I finished the ARC… and I cancelled both preorders. 

T. Kingfisher gets Astarion …for about 33% of the book 🫣

The opening sold me: We meet him battered and broken lying in a pool of his own blood and, naturally, thinking about whether that specific shade of red works with his outfit. It's such an efficient introduction to the character, because we immediately see his vanity and wit, and of course his unwavering commitment to aesthetics, on full display. He's theatrical, charming, intelligent, observant, and always with a snarky remark if the alternative's admitting how frightening things actually are. For the first quarter-ish, I could almost hear him in my head

But unfortunately, it falls apart pretty quickly.


There's an interesting approach to the traditional vampire archetype. The beautiful, seductive vampire's normally the predator. And Astarion's very much a predator, but he's also the product of one. 

He's simultaneously the vampire fantasy and the victim trapped inside it. However, the game introduced that, so I think I'm giving the book too much credit as it doesn't expand on that in a meaningful enough way, unfortunately. 

Before I get into the review, I've had accusations of AI. I can see it tbh, I write like a chatbot. So here's:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p... my initial review from before I replayed the game and changed my mind on the book
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R... and the review you're reading right now

Enjoy my typos at the very least 🫡

Anyway, back to it.

It's hard to separate the book from the game. The character’s already fully formed in players’ minds. We've spent hundreds of hours with him. We've romanced him. Many have played his Origin (I personally haven't because I keep making hot Drow Durge sorcerers like a basic bitch 🫠). We've picked apart his dialogue and approvals and filled in any space the game leaves open with our own head canons. 

So writing a prequel means making choices about things the game leaves ambiguous. There's a lot of room to piss people off. And I'm sort of in an between place, because while I enjoyed the book, unfortunately, the characterisation isn't consistently convincing.

Like sometimes I'm like yes that's sooo Astarion, and others I'm like, uh… certainly a choice…?

He flip flops. A lot.

Now, this is a character full of contradictions. And sometimes the book gets those contradictions that make Astarion so compelling exactly right. Vain and insecure, frightened and performatively confident, selfish because survival demands it, cold yet capable of tenderness.

But there are other times where the book feels like it's more interested in the idea of Astarion than the character of Astarion. 

The sections in the palace are the most interesting for me and had the most potential. Cazador's cruelty isn't just simple, individual acts of violence; it's a system of ownership and coercion. And I loved getting more of the spawn. We don't get much of them in the game, but the book gives them personalities, internal lives, relationships, and their own ways of coping. We see genuine moments of care and camaraderie between them, but everything's transactional. A favour becomes a debt. Protection creates obligations.

But it needed to go further and really explore a relationship built on abuse, because there's an element of whitewashing here that just rubs me the wrong way.

I initially appreciated that Astarion's trauma doesn't consume his personality. Terrible things happened to him. Terrible things are still happening to him. And yet he's still sharply funny. He's still vain and sassy and dramatic. He isn't reduced to some damsel in distress. But it also frustrates me because it could have gone darker (do you see the trend to my complaints?)

It's not nearly as dark as the established backstory suggests it should be. There are some genuinely horrible things here, but sometimes it feels like the book's more interested in shock factor than in taking that extra step and exploring the psychological impact. Trauma doesn't consume the character because it doesn't get the chance to and it often feels glossed over when I wanted the book to really examine it.

At times it feels like Cazador's a perfectly nice, albeit slughtly overbearing, father figure while Astarion's nothing more than a spoiled brat going through his moody teenager phase.

It very often feels like we're being shown the ✨️aesthetics✨️ of abuse rather than its reality. 

Like, as much as I enjoyed the sections in the Palace, I also often found myself thinking, is it really that bad? 

I KNOW HOW THAT SOUNDS 😭

But I'm just saying… they get fed, they don't pay rent, they're mostly left alone?? Sign me up.

The Palace sections are supposed to establish Astarion's circumstances. And sometimes they do. But also a lot of what we really see is a few awkward meals and Cazador giving dirty and/or disappointed looks. The spawn spend am insane amount of time just wandering around and getting into hijinks because Cazador seems to sleep a metric fuckton. Why is he always sleeping???? I was so excited for this book because I wanted more Cazador (he's my favourite BG3 character because he's just such a piece of shit and I adore evil characters) and then all he does is pop Valiums, drink wine, host extravagant dinners, and snooze 😭😭

I'd have liked the book to communicate the full extent of their captivity and the underlying psychology. The threat's implied rather than explored, and a lot of the tension comes from the spawn competing for attention. 

Which is interesting! An abuser exerting control while not being physically present is seriously compelling. The tiny calculations that become survival mechanisms are fascinating: where you sit, how you look, how loudly you speak, how quickly you move… anything to avoid bringing unnecessary attention to yourself. But I would have liked more on that rather than me essentially inserting my own headcanon.

I also wanted a lot more about how he became a vampire. What did those 200 years actually look like? What did he have to relearn? What did Cazador do to keep him in line? How did the spawn build their relationships with each other? The book could have gotten around that and avoided clashing so hard with the game lore by setting it 10, 20, 50 years after he was turned, when things were still fresh and maybe dynamics were different from what we hear about in game.

One thing I loved is the atmosphere. The city feels foggy and damp, crowded and grimy, with this constant sense that something unpleasant's skulking in the next alley. It feels like a place where everyone has an angle.

However, somewhere around the halfway point the book changes. We leave the cloying, claustrophobic Szarr Palace where everyone's simultaneously victim, rival, and ally. And suddenly we're in a more conventional, lighthearted fantasy/D&D adventure with romance and quests and banter and all the usual fantasy nonsense.

I like all those things. I really, really do! But I didn't want them here. 

It's jarring. It feels like it loses sight of what made the earlier story interesting and what made the character and setting interesting. It shifts from Astarion's story to a story that just happens to contain a character named Astarion. 

It's around this point that the voice becomes less convincing. There's a shift as the story progresses. Some of that may be den Suriel’s influence, because as the relationship becomes more central, Astarion feels less like a complex, guarded character and more like a generic romantasy protagonist. 

Speaking of romantasy… do we need romance in EVERYTHING?

His relationship with sex is complicated. The book really needed to engage with that on a deeper level (I swear with how many times I've said something like this, my entire review can be summed up as ‘good premise with the depth of a puddle’ 💧). It's like the author didn't know how to address it and just went with a cop out: “More than a century in the vampire’s service had turned sex into a tiresome chore.” Chore is a funny way to spell trauma.

It's not like he had a bad job. We're talking about hundreds of years of control and manipulation where his body's been used as a tool. Where his choices have been stripped away and his survival depends on anticipating the whims of someone who owns him.

Sex is a tool Cazador forced him to use. For 200 years his body hasn't truly been his. Well, according to the game anyway, because the book's weirdly superficial. In the book it's more like:

Cazador: I need victims. Go forth and hunt whichever way you choose my children.
Astarion: I'm sexy. I shall use sex.
The spawn: Wow. This guy fucks.

Thw book still could have explored that. Okay, the spawn have a surprising amount of freedom, but what do those choices mean when you're operating under coercion? Do you actually have agency when the consequences of your failure are controlled by your abuser? 

But even if the book's trying to vaguely gesture at the sexual trauma angle while keeping things frustratingly PG, it obviously doesn't mean he can't enjoy sex or reclaim his sexuality. It doesn't mean he can't feel attraction for someone. But it would be nice to see the author tackle such a heavy, mature subject with a little more grace. Of course everyone handles assault differently, there's no right or wrong way to process trauma. Some might completely close off. Some might become more promiscuous to take back what was taken from them. Others may convince themselves they're totally fine. Those are just a few of the 10,000 ways people might deal with something terrible happening to them. Those are the kind of nuances I wanted to see explored.

But I can't help thinking that the book skips over that becuase it's speedrunning to the romance. 

And that brings me to Hahn den Suriel. An aasimar paladin who easily and almost immediately gets Astarion to open up about his circumstances? That's a bit convenient and cliche. 

It's been like a day and Astarion's like, hey, hot, handsome, golden-retriever-energy stranger who I don't know but is obligated to kill me, wanna hear all my deepest, darkest secrets that I've never told anyone ever?

And I'm over here like, 🤨 wtf dude, why did I have to work so bloody hard to gain your trust??

I've not read a T. Kingfisher book before. I tried Paladin's Grace and got a few pages in before giving up in boredom. According to the author's note (“...which eventually culminated in a series of novels just about paladins…”) milquetoast paladin love interests are her thing. 

From my initial notes: “Update: I'm sorry Den Suriel for what I said, I will die for you”, because I can't not love a man who carries around a wheel of cheese in his bag of holding. Truly a man after my own heart. He's still boring, and I wish we'd gotten less of him, but it did make me laugh.

The man has good taste in cheese, if not in gods. I suppose if you can only have one of the two, cheese is more important.

Aside from the fact that paladins and aasimars are the most boring class and race, respectively, to me, I also feel like we were robbed? When I heard there'd be a romance plot I thought we were getting the Sebastian story. 

Then there had been Sebastian, that first decade after he’d been turned … he was an innocent … Astarion hadn’t been in love with Sebastian so much as with what Sebastian represented … he looked at me as if he had just learned what desire was. I should have turned him down that first night, told him to go home and not come back…

Ms. Kingfisher? Why would you scatter in just enough mentions of him to make me crave that thread? You had to know, deep down, that's a better story than the one we got??

Think about it. Sebastian meets a newly turned Astarion. Astarion sees an innocence in Sebastian that he recognises from his younger self. He's a reminder of a simpler, happier time and he can't help but fall for him. He thinks, for one tiny, stupid moment, that he can find a way around the rules and spare this gentle man from his inevitable fate. But he learns that in the vampire world there are no loopholes.

Gods! That could have been a banger.

It could have been incredible. Dark and brooding. Sad and beautiful. With just enough hope to make you forget how their story ends and really root for these two. It could have been totally devastating while staying true to the character and the lore. 

But instead we get a buddy cop romcom with a bland paladin who yells about badgers. Badgers are mentioned 21 times but it feels like 210 🫠

Additionally, I didn't love the structure. We're constantly jumping between timelines within chapters, sometimes only for a few paragraphs, and while the scenes themselves are well written and provide (mostly) valuable backstory, the transitions aren't always as strong as they could be and make the narrative feel fragmented instead of deliberately layered. 

The author mentions at the end “in no way did I have time to write this book. I had five books due in 2026 already and it was a terrible idea to take on another one. I did it anyway.” 

I respect it. And how are you going to say no to writing about one of the biggest games of the last decade? As someone who has two dozen or so huge projects on the go because I can't say no when I have the bandwidth for like 3, I get it. But also, the rushed second half shows. Because the first half has an understanding of what it wants to be and wants to explore while the second half feels like it's just trying to get somewhere. 

With every page it begins to feel more and more like a product assembled around a popular character for a quick cash grab than a story that needed to exist. And I've also just seen that there are three more BG3 books planned (idk if TK's writing those too) so it really adds to the feeling of 🤗capitalism🤗

Don't get me wrong, despite my complaints, I was having a good time. I wasn't bored or hate reading. I laughed a lot more than I expected to. But I did have to come to terms with the fact that this isn't a Baldur's Gate 3 novel. 

It's a YA dark(ish) fantasy with a D&D(ish) adventure tacked on. 

And the more I think about it, the more uncomfortable I am with how much of the abuse gets softened or transformed into a quirky aesthetic tragedy while the story races towards a romance with the author's OC

Even going into it completely blind and treating it as a standalone with no connection to existing characters or locations, it's still very much two books in one. They're two pretty good books, but it's impossible to ignore the whiplash around the 40% mark.

I don't mind interpretation. We've all got out own headcanons. T. Kingfisher has hers. I mean, some of my interpretations of characters (and the way I treat them in-game) would have people coming for me with pitchforks 🔱🔥

It's essentially fanfiction. I don't object to that. There's plenty of successful books that started out as fanfiction. I do object to using an established character, world, and lore while behaving like it's all optional and sanding down the most interesting and difficult aspects of this character. If you're going to change something, make it make sense. Why is THIS astarion behaving differently from the Astarion I've spent 600+ hours with (I know those are rookie numbers 😭) 

Like the strawberries. Astarion “liked to dip the strawberries in blood occasionally.” It's a tiny detail but there's plenty of established Forgotten Realms vampire lore that states anything other than blood tastes like ash to a vampire. So it leaves you like, hang on… what else are we just making up now?? Like the Thieves Guild. Or the ritual room. Or even the sleeping arrangements.

And of course the line in Act 3? about no one looking out for him or caring for him stands out because this book directly contradicts that. Of course abuse can warp how you perceive things, but I would've liked the book to address that; show me people reaching out to Astarion while he convinces himself he's fundamentally unlovable.

I did enjoy the ending. It's so brutally bittersweet because we already know where Astarion's story’s going. We know he doesn't get a happily ever after here, so every brief moment of contentment's accompanied by the knowledge that it'll end. Every tender moment between Astarion and den Suriel carries this tiny shadow underneath it.

I finished this and immediately started a new BG3 playthrough (hot Drow Durge sorcerer, obviously 🫣) so I could experience Astarion again with the new knowledge and context from this book. Unfortunately, with both the book and the game fresh in my mind, I started seeing things differently. Hence the updated review. Because I originally thought T. Kingfisher had a great grip on this character, but replaying and refreshing my memory made me realise she didn't get quite as much of him as I thought.

Perhaps she should have done a fresh playthrough too?

There are things I like. Like getting more of Cazador and the spawn, and the city atmosphere. I wanted more of that. More about autonomy, identity, abuse, sexuality, and what happens when someone else controls your body and choices for 200 years. While darker doesn't equal better, I wanted more than a wacky side quest with cheese and Marvel-esque quips.

I also adored Rooftop Henry and would happily take a prequel about his shenanigans. 

I initially updated the review after replaying the game following a year and a half break where I'd played and obsessed over a million other games and forgotten a lot of things. And I've come back to my review yet again because I just wrote a review of another game tie-in novel (Gears of War). 

The difference is astounding. 

The GoW author talks in her acknowledgements about working with the game's writers and designers to get the details right. She spent time with soldiers to understand weapons and military dynamics and learned about wounds by shadowing ER staff. 

The author used the book (I've only read the first so far) to bridge lore gaps and explore backstories. Every word's canon and any deviation from the game or out of character moment's been seriously considered and has a believable explanation. The book doesn't change the characters or story, it simply provides more depth, to the point that future games referred to the books for lore and character growth. 

You can feel the love and respect she has for the source material amd the players.

I've basically started reviewing a whole other book 😬 so I'll wrap this up: seeing another author care so much about a game and bring so much passion to their work makes me feel much less generous toward this book and really gives the feeling of a cash grab.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC

[Ricarda]

I didn't even play Baldur's Gate 3, but I guess I will be reading this book.

[Luss · Rating 2 out of 5]

I get the distinct impression the author did not actually play Astarion's story before authoring this book.

[Miranda Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Like the old god, he had no power of belief in him, no blessings to be given. All he had left, all he had had for many years, was the power to endure.”

Once upon a time, Astarion had a bright, shining future. But now? He licks boots. Literally.

“It was astonishing the things you would do of your own free will simply to avoid being forced to do them.”

A chance encounter after some rather unsavory displeased ruffians took out their anger on Magistrate Astarion, leaving him for dead on the streets of Balder's Gate.

And that was when Cazador Szarr offered him a second chance. Astarion took it, not realizing that he was condemning himself to a life in the shadows, as a slave to his master, a life devoid of everything that is worth living.

But one day, Cazador offers a chance - bring him something interesting to drink and he will turn one of the vampire spawn into a full vampire.

Astarion knows the hope is a bird with a broken wing, but he chooses to take flight - all for the chance for the blood of the Gods.

For those just picking up this book, Astarion is a fan favorite character from the wildly popular role playing videogame "Balder's Gate III" -- and when I mean wildly popular, I mean every letter. I don't play videogames. I spent over seventy hours immersed in this world. Seventy. Hours.

So when I saw that a book was being released about Astarion, I was so excited. Doubly so, because it was being narrated by Neil Newbon - the voice actor of the character.

But gosh dang, this book wasn't it.

Starting off with the positives - I will say that I listened to the audiobook and Neil did an amazing job narrating the book. Honestly, if they had anyone else for the narration, I think there'd be riots.

But the story itself felt more than a bit rough to me. Of all the ways I expected the book to go... the boring route wasn't one of them.

Three hours into the audiobook and it felt like we were just slogging through backstory. While things did eventually turn around, I spent most of the first half of the book waiting for SOMETHING interesting to happen.

And maybe I should have seen it coming, cause Astarion's life before Balder's Gate III was pretty terrible...but I didn't expect the book to just take us on the lowlights of everything and only kick off the actual adventure/plot waaaay later.

The characterization felt...okay to me. I went in expecting a version of Astarion, but not the videogame persona and I was correct in that.

He felt much more contained, sadder, and depressed. Which made sense given his arc in the story...but it wasn't particularly fun to read. Eventually we see some of the famous Astarion's personality peek through but it was a long time coming.

Overall, this book does read a bit like fanfiction - where the character presented isn't quite how I pictured it and we spend a lot of time on scenes which really could have been summarized (aka. The. Rat. and the boots. if you know, you know).

I probably won't go in for a reread but at the same time, I am happy that there was a book created for the franchise...though judging from the responses from other reviewers, I have a feeling that the Powers that Be will be verrrrrrry hesitant on releasing any other character books.

[Melanie (meltotheany) · Rating 1 out of 5]

wotc is a big part of my life, not only because of dnd, but because of magic the gathering. and i will never forget the cursed ancient texts of them allowing my pansexual queen, chandra, to say that she’s never been into women, but instead prefers brawny men lol. wotc did issue an apology and chandra is currently living her best sapphic life within the mtg multiverse, but there is an additional layer with astarion’s ip, because the actual creators of all the characters within baulder’s gate 3 (larian studios, pls let this be your sign to play the divinity games), have left wotc and dnd completely. therefore these characters are 100% wotc and they can do whatever they want with them, very much including what i believe is the insensitive cash grab of a book. I will admit, i did have more faith in this project, both because i like t kingfisher, and believed they probably played the video games, and his full story arc(s), before writing this, which now… i’m not so sure of, but also because astarion’s og voice actor is the audio narrator of this one, which i’m still scratching my head over! but now i am sitting here, typing up this review, sad, that yet another confirmed wotc pansexual character was just completely done dirty and was unrecognizable from their canon.

the basic premise of this? an abusive vampire offers a quest to six of his spawn who are living in his servitude, and whoever returns with the most delicious vial of blood, will be turned into a full vampire, finally able to reclaim their autonomy. but during a surprising prison trip, our dark rogue mc meets a paladin of the light, and they work together unexpectedly, for some very rare blood, but also a little piece of solace just for the two of them.

this story so very minimally represents the horrors that we learn that astarion endures, thirty years later, when we meet him in baulder’s gate 3. from having his own bedroom in this story, to also having a bestie with her own complete lab, to seeing astarion be able to choose who he is intimate with, to be given blood that’s not just insects and rat blood, to cazador being 10% as cruel and sadistic as we know him to be, to him hosting a little game to break their spirits instead of horrors we know he he is most capable of, to having astarion see and understand that there are heroes out there who will sacrifice everything to save him, prior to meeting us in baulder’s gate 3. lessening his trauma in a way that is more palattable… more printable. when they could have taken any of the characters from this franchise, and given them a prequel that maybe would have been easier for them to navigate writing, but they chose the most popular bg3 character, and then chose to “clean up” his actual canon story from the video game, because they knew it would sell better. i'm not saying horrible things do not happen within these pages (please check my cw/tw below, they do), but cazador’s castles feels so transformed, that i would never guess this was astarion’s one-hundred-and-seventy years of slavery point in history.

but besides this entire prequel book feeling unrecognizable to the character it’s supposed to be portraying, this was such a boring story all on its own, too. i feel like you’d have 100% more of an enjoyable time if you knew nothing of astarion before going into this, but i still truly believe you’d come out of this thinking it was a boring quest story, with an extremely mediocre romance, and a very unsatisfying ending. like, i truly would have enjoyed this story so much more if it was just completely about astarion’s druid mother.

i do want to add a reminder that there is no right way to live through, survive, heal in all the ways, when horrible things are done to you. this entire review is about a video game character, who i do think is so beloved because of his depiction of living through so many terrible things done to him, where he has no individual agency whatsoever. which is why this book feels so bad to read, when the video game picks up thirty years later, and you are learning things that very much contradict his narrative completely, revolving around his slavery, autonomy, and even living conditions. yet, this is still all about a fictional character, and some people are using this as an excuse to say some really nasty stuff that i think could potentially hurt victims. just because astarion felt bad to read and, in turn, is being poorly received because it feels like it’s erasing a real surviving narrative, does not mean people surviving any way they can is wrong, because there is no way to navigate that incorrectly. this book is an insensitive cash grab from wotc, but actual voices of victims will always be deserving of being heard, believed, and amplified.

and to touch upon my earlier paragraph, wotc should take most of the responsibility for this mess, and should have offered t kingfisher more resources, or at least read this and said “ehhh, let’s make this work and connect with what we know from the source material of the game, especially when talking about trauma and abuse”. but they didn’t and it feels really bad. because as someone who has one foot in the book world, and the other in the gaming world, it does feel like t kingfisher is taking the lashing for this all on their own. should they perhaps have taken more care, especially with these subjects? yes, 500%. but at this point, i don’t think wotc i going to issue an apology, or anything to make this situation feel lighter, and that feels even worse to me.

finally, this video by lexi (aka newlynova) really sums up my feelings on why, as a lover of bg3, this felt insane to read. i highly recommend, and please just take care because i know these conversations can feel really heavy to navigate.

trigger and content warnings: slavery, blood, immense abuse, assault, rape, torture, gore, violence, humiliation, alcoholism, needle mention, maybe mention of beastiality, talk of dead animals, vomit mention, cults, imprisonment, loss of loved ones, grief, talk of death.

blog | instagram | youtube | wishlist | spotify | amazon

♡ Nettle & Bone ★★★★★
♡ A House with Good Bones ★★
♡ Thornhedge ★★
1.) What Moves the Dead ★★★
2.) What Feasts at Night ★★★
3.) What Stalks the Deep ★★★

[Maggie ♡ (Hiatus)]

Pre-release: I never added a book so fast to my TBR 🙂‍↕️🤚 Kingfisher writing about Astarion?? Yes pleaseeee
I gotta go replay the game now 🥹

Neil Newbon is narrating the audiobook, I need it now!! 😭

[Nenia Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Update: I had to delete some over-the-top rude comments from people who didn't like the book. If you didn't like the book, that is fine. You can dislike it in your own space. Please do not come onto my review and insult me for liking it. I'm honestly not interested in fighting with people over my reviews, and I will block people who are rude. I'm not going onto the one-star reviews for this book and telling people their opinions are wrong. Please do me the favor of granting me the same courtesy.

I'm honestly a little surprised at how negative the reviews are for this book, which I personally felt was better than fine, but unfortunately for the author, some very cruel reviews have gone viral for this book that appear to have triggered some bandwagoning (not saying that there aren't honest negative reviews for this book, but it also seems like whenever it becomes "valid" to hate on something, some people take it way too far, as social media is wont to do).

ASTARION is a sanitized backstory of Astarion from Baldur's Gate, the morally charcoal vampire with a tragic backstory who has become hypersexual and superficial as a defense mechanism for his past traumas. In the game, he has multiple paths, the two extreme ones as a romanceable character being one of healing (coming to terms with who and what he is and allowing himself to finally feel safe in love) and one of corruption (embracing evil and becoming essentially what once caused him to fear).

This book feels like it was written for the former audience in mind, and I couldn't help but wonder if the vast majority of people who didn't like this book were fans of ascended Astarion. I also wondered if maybe people were expecting this book to be like ALCHEMISED or A LITTLE LIFE, hoping that Kingfisher would really lean into his past traumas. Because while Astarion does experience a whole litany of abuses, emotional, physical, and implied sexual, in-game, his backstory seems to be much darker. I can only imagine that since this was a commercial undertaking, the publisher and the game publisher didn't want to go too dark, especially in the era of MeToo, where new sexual and high profile assault allegations dominate the headlines-- it feels-- daily.

T. Kinfisher has a cottagecore fantasy x cozy horror vibe to her work, and she brought a lot of that to ASTARION. This is definitely the darkest thing I've read from her, tonally, but it still has a very restrained, 90s fantasy vibe, reminding me of authors like Sharon Shinn and Mickey Zucker Reichert. If you told me that someone took a time machine back to 1995 and hired a pre-millennium fantasy author to write this premise, I'd have believed you. It feels vintagely paced, with a "tongue-in-cheek dungeon master reading off a character sheet" approach to its premise. It feels, in other words, like an actual tabletop game of D&D, which I have to figure-- given the tie-in-- was intentional.

Overall, I liked it. I like T. Kingfisher and I liked her approach to the character. I went into this expecting it to read like canon fanfic, like the Star Trek novels I used to read back in the day (yes, I'm a fucking nerd). After reading this book, it was exactly what I expected, so I'm not mad. I guess I can see how if you were expecting something different, you'd be disappointed, but I don't think that disappointment warrants the abysmal rating or the ad hominem attacks I've seen being weaponized at the author's expense.

3.5 stars

[Sammy DC · Rating 1 out of 5]

I genuinely don't understand how you can take one of the most deeply traumatized and carefully written characters in BG3 and reduce him to “horny, flirty vampire.”

Astarion's sexuality is inseparable from his 200 years of sexual exploitation under Cazador. His story is about bodily autonomy, consent, trust, and learning that his body finally belongs to him. Yet this book repeatedly turns his sexuality into jokes while barely engaging with the trauma underneath it. His abuse, the gore, and the psychological damage are constantly skimmed over, leaving everything feeling strangely weightless.

And the writing itself often feels like a light YA/young-teen D&D adventure. Around the halfway point, that's basically what the book becomes. The tone shifts so dramatically that Astarion's horrific past starts feeling like background decoration rather than something that actually shaped him.

Then he conveniently develops a romance with some random guy, despite his profound mistrust of people and his complicated relationship with intimacy and vulnerability. It doesn't feel like Astarion slowly learning to trust someone. It feels like the plot needed a romance, so suddenly Astarion is ready for one.

The game gave us a deeply broken, complicated, fascinating person hiding behind a mask.

This book took the mask, exaggerated the superficial parts, and called it Astarion.

I wanted Astarion. I got a caricature.

[Samantha Shannon]

I'm seated.

[Idhrenniel · Rating 0.25 out of 5]

If you wanna read the full review and analysis of the book ( Gur, pig and SA scenes Sebastian & darling boy, etc ),everything that’s wrong with it (a lot) I posted the full version here:
https://www.tumblr.com/lady-idhrennie...

First, I wanna say that I'm a fan of Baldur’s Gate 3,Astarion and DnD.I only read one other book by this author.I got this book because of Astarion, same reason I got the game for him.I’m leaving this review because I can’t stay silent and let the character that represents SA victims, human trafficking survivors, the character that I relate to so much and helped me and is a comfort to me and many others get butchered, bastardized and be seen as a liar in this book for greed, personal gain and satisfaction and fetishizations. specially since there’s so little representation of his story in the media.

Second, I DO NOT and WILL NOT consider this book canon. I also will not be supporting or reading any works that come out from WOTC regarding Astarion or other characters from BG3,nor will I read any works by Kingfisher in the future.

The harmful mischaracterization of Astarion’s character:

the author took one of the most horrifying, sadistic, ruthless villain in the game,Cazador,and turned him into a “tired old beleaguered single father” who needs 8-10 hours of beauty sleep with bored,problematic children.she somehow finds ways to make the abuser's point of view valid and fully takes Cazador’s side and agrees with him and depicts Astarion as the problem instead of showing the abuser,Cazador, as the actual monster that he is.

in book Cazador DOESN’T use compulsion on Astarion or other spawns which this goes even against the actual lore of DnD as well. because of this mischaracterization,the whole book falls apart.because of the way she depicted Cazador now she has to adjust everything and everyone according to that.even if it means to portray Astarion as a liar and a predator. Cazador involvement in sex slavery and trafficking is nonexistent in the book,Instead of compulsion,he lovebombs them! he’s a powerful vampire, their creator,with full control over them.they are already his slaves.his puppets beaten into submission.he doesn’t need to manipulate them by lovebombing.

in the GAME Cazador has 1)an education system for the spawns on how to seduce people,there's book in Szarr palace on this subject.2) the spawns are all forced into sex work and even competing with one another.3) Cazador takes notes on their success and how many victims they have brought each night he sends them out and would even rate them.the best spawn,would get to sleep in the favored spawn room. the loser would get tortured by either Cazador or Godey and sleep in the kennel. and the rest would get to sleep in the dormitory that is SHARED between the other spawns.
These are all Astarion’s words from Baldur’s Gate 3 GAME about his feelings towards intimacy,his body,Cazador using compulsion to force Astarion and other spawns into sex work to lure victims:

“A vampire spawn is less than a slave. They’re puppets. We have no choice but to obey our master’s commands. They speak, and our bodies react. It’s all part of the deal. sometimes he’d order us to submit to torture. sometimes he’d have us torture ourselves.”

“Player: it might be safer to run. he wants you after all.
Astarion: to Where? for how long? if this worm shrivels, I’ll be in his power from the second he lays eyes on me. he has to die while my body is still my own to command.”

“I had nothing for so long, NOTHING. not even my own body. I will not give it up, now it’s mine again.”

“For as long as I can remember,I've been used by others.Controlled and puppeted for someone else's pleasure.”

“There were times I would've been thrilled if everyone who put their hands on me burst into flames.”

“Astarion: I was once in your position, in a way.
Sorn Orlith (a sex worker in a brothel):What was it like?
Astarion: I was forced into it,but it sounds as if you weren't.”-Astarion origin

“Player: Have you even enjoyed having sex, in the last decades?
Astarion: Enjoyment? That didn't come into it. I never had a choice.”

“I spent two hundred years using my body to lure pretty things back for my Master. What I wanted, how I felt about what I was doing, it never mattered”

“The entire reason for my existence was to seduce anything with a pulse.”

“Being close to someone, any kind of intimacy, was something I performed… to lure people back for him. even though I know things between us are different, being with someone still feels... tainted. still brings up those feelings of disgust and loathing. I don't know how else to be with someone. no matter how much I'd like to.”

“I suppose there’s not much point in me if I won’t have sex.My only talent,I’m fully aware.”

“Astarion: I don’t think I want you to think of me in terms of sex.I don’t know if I want anyone to.
player: How do you want me to see you?
Astarion: As a person? would that be so much to ask?”

BG3 Game gives considerable weight to Astarion’s lack of autonomy,his discomfort with being reduced to sex,his sexual exploitation,his struggle to understand himself as a person.these are all crucial parts of his story. it’s a story about a survivor and his healing journey to take back his own power,find his voice,rediscover himself and start living again.one of the great things about Astarion’s character in the game is how he subverts the stereotypical sexy nymphomaniac vampire. how that’s not who he really is underneath the mask. it’s what he FORCED to be to survive. and when he let his guards down,you realize that underneath it all he’s a FLAWED VICTIM. someone that sees any form of intimacy as tainted because using sex was his ONLY way of surviving under Cazador,and at the same time a form of torture for him by Cazador. because he had no choice or say in any of it.he’s ashamed and disgusted by the things he was forced to do,by the things that were done to him and lives with that guilt.

in the novel,the author takes away all the core background of Astarion’s character.Cazador doesn’t care how the spawns are bringing him victims,doesn’t force them into sex work.other spawns choose to use force but Astarion chooses sex himself as his method! The author stated that he's weak and didn’t have the strength to overpower the victims,so he chose sex.this is just infantilizing the character and just plain WRONG,Vampire Spawns in the DnD 5e have a BASE strength of 16.once someone is turned, they ALL start with this base stat even if they were weaker in their past life. the average strength of a humanoid (the victims he should bring back) is 10.and this all takes place years before the events of the game,so there’s no tadpole in his brain to make him weak. in what world does Astarion,a 150 year old vampire spawn even if he stayed with his base stat in strength 16, is weaker than an average humanoid with 10 strength? there were some instances where Astarion tricked the victims into coming back to the palace with him without sleeping with them,by manipulation or force. so he can easily bring back victims using the same method as other spawns.he isn’t "weak" or “unable to overpower” them he even changes his mind at the end of the book about having sex with them so what happened all of a sudden?did he remember he has base 16 strength? the actual reason behind retconning and mischaracterizing him from what we read and understand throughout the book is the author is only capable of seeing Astarion in terms of sex and nothing more. portraying him like this in the book,saying that he chose sex himself and wasn’t forced by Cazador,makes this whole thing even more terrible because these victims were never able to consent to sex he coerced them under false pretenses.the blame was always on Cazador because it was clear in the game that Astarion was forced to do it and he couldn’t do otherwise,even if he refused,he would be compelled to do it anyway and then severely punished.but now in the book it's Astarion's doing. which makes him a predator. something that he is NOT.

Astarion being Hypersexual is not necessarily a problem on its own. the problem is it could’ve been believable if it was early on not 150 years into his enslavement.beside it’s the fact that Astarion is a pre established character, and he tells us many times in the game about how he felt during that time.choosing a different direction than the game should’ve been in service of his story,not going against who he truly is.hypersexuality is not even done in the exploration of a sexual assault victim using it as their way to feel in control. it’s not Astarion's coping mechanism after turning into a spawn and facing abuse, because the author didn’t just start to write him that way past turning. No, she wrote the character as always horny and hypersexual since childhood,and that carries over through all phases of his life,even spawnhood.
There are few short lines where the author mentions him having difficulties with intimacy, this topic is the CORE of his character,it should’ve been emphasized more because of how important it is.these empty phrases come out of nowhere that it feels unbelievable considering how sex obsessed the whole book is. where did all of these feelings come from? he chose sex himself in this novel and can stop at any moment, he’s not being forced into it, so when did sex become a tiresome chore? what changed his mind? the sole purpose of these few fleeting lines is for the author to check her “problem with intimacy” box.

the way the author portrayed Astarion is extremely harmful.she puts all the blame and fault on him for his trauma and everything that ever happened to him instead of the actual abuser,Cazador. victim blames the survivor of extreme abuse and complex trauma and turns him into something that he’s not:a predator and a liar. she is literally mirroring what the SA victims in the real world go through by showing him as a liar. it's extremely tone deaf and disgusting! the whole mischaracterization and retconning are done to fit him in the box of the sexy vampire dark romantasy trope. it’s all only done to fetishize him,something that Astarion specifically asks you in the game to not do!

The main plot,the Paladin:

after reading useless scenes with the sole purpose of author meeting her word count,you reach The adventure that feels like an RPG side quest,has no resolution,climax and leads nowhere.
The Paladin is the most boring,BASIC,“author’s favorite OC insert” imaginable.the character isn't flashed out at all,and is expected from the readers to like him without giving us any reason.He's an Aasimar and paladin of Lathander. of course he is. a vampire spawn, an evil undead, paired with the Paladin that worships Lathander.a God that explicitly despises the undead.

how…original!

the romance is instalove,too fast to be believable(Edward & Bella style) Astarion,for some reason,after knowing him for just an hour,trusts him and tells him EVERYTHING about himself,his life,trauma,even his 1 year of entombment. something completely OOC for Astarion.He would NEVER do this.the paladin's dialogues are extremely cringy and the scene between them lacks any passion or chemistry and is just filled with forced flirting,cringy salacious dialogues,humorless jokes and banter and dry smut to the point that it is impossible not to sigh and look up at the sky on each page.

Astarion convinced Cazador to spare the paladin and saved his life twice.one of which is when the Paladin is storming the Palace to kill Cazador!yet Astarion somehow convinced Cazador to not kill the Paladin and Cazador just accepts it! more importantly,Astarion convinced the paladin to leave and even refused the paladin’s help to raise an army to kill Cazador and free him and other spawns!because in this book Astarion’s main goal isn't Freedom,isn't to be free of Cazador so he never has to fear him again.his deepest desire as he tells us in Astarion origin while talking to Naoise Nallinto is not to be Safe. No! in this book his only goal is to become a True Vampire!

The existence of the paladin as someone this impactful in his story,“the hero that came to save him”,“his lover”goes against everything Astarion tells us in the game.Astarion explicitly says many times that he was always alone.there were no heroes or any help.even the Gods didn’t care and didn’t do anything to save him from Cazador.

“I realize now I've never really had anyone. Not really.”-Astarion BG3 Game

“No one ever looked out for me. No one ever said a kind thing to me.”

“You're only the first person I truly care for."

“The strong had two centuries to pluck me from torture, but no one came. No, it was the mind flayers that rescued me.”

“Heroes didn't save me from Cazador.mind flayers did.”

“Gale: you never felt the call of the divine, Astarion?
Astarion: oh, I tried them all. None of them answered.”-BG3 Game

The Paladin and this book make the entire Astarion’s story and quest in the game, your Player Character part in it,his healing journey,all the things that give his backstory reliability pointless as well, because he was well fed in the book,his situation in the palace wasn’t that bad,he had people helping him many times, the other spawns, the paladin.he wasn’t forced into sex work. it also doesn’t make sense for him that at the start of the game on the beach (before he finds out about the artifact and the protection) instead of going after this paladin that he knows is on his side, willing to help,he goes out of his way and agrees to team up with the player character, a total stranger that he doesn’t trust.

This is NOT Astarion being an unreliable narrator, there’s no indication or reveal that the mask slips or anything that proves things aren’t as they seem, to reveal the lies. these aren’t artistic changes by the author to his story either. it's ignoring Astarion’s own words in the game, completely mischaracterizing him, retconning all of his pre stablished backstory and turning him into a liar.
it truly feels like the author wrote this book as the prequel to her own OC’s adventure in the game instead of a well thought out,researched backstory for Astarion. Astarion is there so the author can shoehorn her own OC as his main,true love and his hero. which honestly going to THIS length to write and publish your headcanon fanfiction marketed as “backstory” of Astarion and demanding acceptance for it as canon is definitely…a choice!

Cazador-lore inaccuracy:

one major lore inaccuracy in the novel is that Cazador doesn’t collect the 7000 victims and turn them into vampire spawns from the start of Astarion’s 200 years of enslavement, he’s making the Vampire Ascendant deal with Mephistopheles during the course of this book, which takes place in the last 50 years of Astarion's enslavement and before the events of the game. Cazador also carves the scars on the back of his spawns and Astarion towards the end of this book! which is completely wrong in every way possible and is against the actual lore of the game and LOGIC!
“Two centuries carrying this, and I can finally see it.”-Astarion BG3 Game

It doesn’t make any sense that the spawns have been bringing Cazador victims for the last 150 years and he was just keeping them alive and hoarding them in the dungeon below for no reason! it also doesn't make sense to say he was turning the victims into spawns from the start because he didn’t have any reason to do this. there wasn’t any deal 150 years ago.

Player:“ We know all about the ritual. We’re here to stop you.
Cazador: The cattle low about things of which they know nothing. The ritual is centuries in the making. Nothing shall stop it now.”-BG3 Game

Writing and Conclusion:

The Whedon-esque, Marvel writing style fit the author perfectly. she uses modern phrasing and even references to memes and pop culture in a fantasy setting that takes place in medieval times! the author loves to fetishize Astarion and portrays him as 'the funny sex guy' and finds Astarion’s trauma boring and bothersome to the story she likes to write.
the book shows repeatedly its refusal to engage and sit in the discomfort of trauma with the readers, the pain and trauma that should’ve been the whole point of this book and tries to make the heavy, sensitive scenes light hearted or jovial!
author goes out of her way to try to make this book funny and shows her refusal to take his pain and trauma seriously.

in the game, Astarion uses sarcasm as a shield, the author doesn’t understand that about his character. in the book, sarcasm becomes EVERYTHING. she constantly forces Astarion to joke about his pain, trauma and torture to the point that it feels like she’s mocking his pain and bullying him, she ruins heavy scenes that should’ve been written with care to convey the discomfort and pain with tasteless, borderline offensive,inappropriate jokes.

she’s masterful at telling and not showing.all scenes are just the description of things instead of showing any type of emotion or setting any tone.many scenes feel like fillers,she doesn’t bother to explain anything.on many instances she doesn’t just contradict the actual DnD or bg3 lore but even herself as well.

There’re so many unforced errors and changes,retconning and mischaracterizations that have a profound impact on the characters,to the point that they are unrecognizable from the game and they have to act OOC because of it.there’s no acceptable reason for all of these other than the author’s own inertia to write the only type of character she knows how to write.I truly don’t know if she didn’t research and play the game fully or if she did everything she claims but still decided that she didn’t care and wrote whatever she wanted and I don’t know which is worse.there’s no actual gain for the readers to read this book with this many inconsistencies.from removing the gur,spawns having their own private lavish bedrooms,bossing around Dufay,eating normal food,drinking wine for pleasure,having so much blood they can hoard,knowing about the ritual room even having access to it,nine fingers being the guildmaster in the book,Astarion a guild member, Astarion having a preference between neck and femoral artery despite never drinking the blood of a humanoid,the author not even knowing Sebastian and the Darling Boy are two different characters in Astarion’s backstory and merging them together and removing their significance for his story, giving Astarion blond hair,heartbeat,new surname even making him religious, to removing his most well known personality traits and his speech pattern and voice to the point that he's unrecognizable and MANY MORE.the author not even once adds anything meaningful to Astarion’s backstory definitely not through all the retconning or mischaracterizations that be beneficial for his story or the readers.specifically not the readers who know and love his character and relate to him.

This book is NOT canon and shouldn’t be seen as one either. The Astarion in Baldur’s Gate 3 game and everything we learn about him,what he tells us in the game is true and canon. this book doesn’t even qualify as headcanon fanfiction because the author of this book,unlike the fan fic writers,obviously is not a fan of Astarion or his story and at least fanfic writers are loyal to the character they write about.

This book is nothing but Character Assassination, total bastardization of an amazing character loved by many. to write him this way feels like an insult and a slap in the face to his fans. Astarion's story deserves so much better, so do all the people he has helped.

Final words regarding Kingfisher, WOTC and everyone involved in the writing and shameless promotion of this drivel,
Astarion has a quote that would make for the perfect response:

"I am so much more than what you made me.”

[rosie [exams - trying to keep up!] · Rating 5 out of 5]

ʚɞ baldur’s gate 3: astarion by t. kingfisher ⋆.˚

⋆.˚ 29/7/26 — 6/8/26

⊱ ۫ ׅ book no. 83 of 2026 ── .✦

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

𑣲 ꜰɪʀꜱᴛ ɪᴍᴘʀᴇꜱꜱɪᴏɴꜱ/ᴘʀᴇ-ʀᴇᴀᴅ:

𑣲 28/07: I GOT ITTTTTTT OH MY GOD OH MY GOD, FORGET SCHOOL I’M READING THIS RN

𑣲 26/07: I JUST REQUESTED THIS ON NETGALLEY. crossing all my fingers and toes rn. you have no idea how hard i am manifesting this book in my inbox rn.

𑣲 1/05 (pre-release):

I’M GOING ABSOLUTELY INSANE CUZ OMG???? ONE OF MY FAV AUTHORS WRITING A BOOK ABOUT ONE OF MY FAV GAME CHARACTERS EVER??? AM I HALLUCINATING??? 😃😃 this book genuinely sounds like it was made with me specifically in mind. time to play baldur’s gate 3 to satiate my cravings until this comes out.

i do NOT apologise for the person i will become when this releases 🫶🏻

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

╰› (⭐5)

❝ are you alive? ❞ ❝ i find that question in very poor taste. ❞

⋆.˚ ᴍʏ ᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜᴛꜱ:

── .✦ 𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒕

T KINGFISHER I TRUSTED YOOOUUUU 😭😭😭 YOU BROKE MY HEARTTTT OH MY GOODNESS (i’d let her do it again because oh my god this was unimaginably perfect)

by the end i was saying “WHAT DO YOU MEAAAAAN” like that one video of jennifer lawrence eating spicy chicken wings. 🥲

this book should come with a warning. i’m so serious, i was in a stupor fuelled by denial and grief by the end. i was reading the acknowledgments, still waiting for an extra chapter because WHYYY LEAVE IT THEEEERE (i know why. but still 😭💔)

this book is 100% for the fans. i missed faerûn so so much and now all i want to do is replay the entire game. 🥲💞

while the plot itself took a bit to warm up, i really appreciated setting the scene and expectations for what life was like for astarion under cazador’s control. it was heartbreaking — all i wanted to do was reach through the screen and give cazador a right hook to the jaw 😭💔

── .✦ 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔

oh astarion my baby. i may be incredibly biased (due to having used up hours of baldur’s gate 3 playtime just staring at this beautiful man and replaying his voice lines) but he is genuinely one of my favourite characters in all media, ever 🙂‍↕️☝️ i love the fact that he gets genuinely offended when people wear bad outfits 😭 like omg he’s such a nerd i adore him sm <3

his sass and his habit of calling everyone ‘darling’ (even himself, in his internal monologue, which is the cutest thing ever 😭), his confidence in his own beauty and his endearingly annoying personality… there is not a thing i’d change about this dude 🥹💓

i felt so maternal towards him in the little flashbacks, like he’s just a lil guy 😭 i adore him so so much, my heart is ready to burst with affection for every version and every part of this man 🥹💕

den suriel was such a pleasant surprise 🥹💞 he is possibly the cutest patootie of all time, tbh 😋 i love his goofy ahh little ‘for the ardent badger’ thing 😭 what a nerd, i adore him !! this honestly really made me crave t. kingfisher’s clockwork boys and saints of steel series, cuz MAN i need more paladins right this second 😭🫶🏻

and i CANNOT write a characters section without mentioning the one, the only, rooftop henry. arguably, the MVP of this novel. what a KING. i absolutely adored this talking bird 😭 he was such a silly goober, i cheered his name every time he was mentioned. he deserves all the sauce in the world 💗

── .✦ 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈

t. kingfisher, the incredible woman she is, manages to ensure that astarion’s sardonic humour is strewn throughout this book in the most beautiful way — it had me giggling OUT LOUD.

i don’t think they could have asked a better person to author this novel 🥹💓

also can we talk about the PHENOMENAL language?? like oh my goodness the metaphors and similes had my jaw DROPPING. how does one’s mind even come up with that beautiful phrasing?? 🫢🫶🏻

honestly this has cemented t. kingfisher as one of my favourite authors — maybe even my number one. 🤭 i’m craving her entire backlog, so don’t worry if you see me picking up the rest of her works, it’s just me obsessing 🙂‍↕️🤞

・・・・・

thank you so much to Netgalley, Del Rey and Random House for an advance reader’s e-copy!! 🥹🫶🏻 this book releases on September 29, 2026!

・・・・・

𑣲 ᴅᴏ ɪ ʀᴇᴄᴏᴍᴍᴇɴᴅ ᴛʜɪꜱ ʙᴏᴏᴋ?

YES. if you like: sassy vampires, tragic mlm paladins, or crude sexual humour, then DOUBLE YES.

[Lexie · Rating 2.75 out of 5]

smashed that 'want to read' so fast

-----

Full disclosure: I am a Gale Girlie, but I really enjoyed Astarion's character development through BG3 and was interested to learn more about him.

An additional disclosure: I am also a T. Kingfisher girlie, and I was excited to see what she would do with this character and the world of Faerun.

That said, I'm trying to keep my review pretty fair and balanced. I know people feel protective over this character, and there's a lot of extreme feelings surrounding this book, but I also think some of the accusations being lobbed at Kingfisher are harsh at best and misogynist at worst. Y'all need to chill.

So let's get on with it, shall we?

So, first off: Neil Newbon did a great job narrating the audiobook. He clearly loves and understands Astarion as a character, and his performance, especially the dialogue, really shined. Even his range of accents was impressive! My one complaint is that some of the exposition had a weird rhythm to it. Neil is a talented actor, but audiobook narration is its own beast, and sometimes I struggled to stay engaged. I'm also not quite sure of the decision to give Den Suriel such a comedic accent. There were times where I felt like I was listening to a playthrough of Skyrim or something. I was half expecting him to cry out "For the Nords!" instead of for his god. I sort of struggled to take him seriously as a love interest for Astarion because of it, to be honest. Not sure if that was an acting choice or a direction he was given, but regardless, it was one of the weaker points for me.

Now, the writing. As I previously mentioned, I'm quite a big fan of T. Kingfisher. I discovered her back in 2022 with Nettle & Bone, and I've been slowly making my way through her catalogue ever since. And I think the decision to have her write this book made sense. She's an experienced fantasy writer, and she's talented at both wry humor and dark themes - two things that I think are rather important when it comes to Astarion. And I think the first 30-40% of this book really worked! The opening scene with Astarion bleeding out in the alley was effective at hooking me in, and later learning about what he and the other spawn had to deal with from Cazador was chilling. It was really interesting being able to get his first-hand perspective of how he dealt with the abuse he suffered, and I think that was probably quite challenging to write in a way that didn't come across as gratuitous. Kingfisher really seemed to have a grasp on how strongly Astarion deflects and dissociates to get through his existence as a vampire spawn.

At a certain point, however, this book started to feel like a D&D campaign, complete with a romantic side quest, and that just didn't do it for me as much. Obviously, the story needed to be about something, but the dungeon crawl was both too drawn out to be interesting enough to carry the story and too rushed to be the backdrop of a romance with this random paladin. Feelings about Astarion's relationship with sex aside, this whole subplot just felt a bit unnecessary and honestly the least interesting thing that happened in the book. And I say that as someone who normally enjoys Kingfisher's romances. A paladin/rogue dynamic can be fun, and there were moments where Astarion was able to manipulate Den Suriel with the truth that I found to be well written, but it's hard to be invested in a budding romance when you know from the game that Astarion was doomed to like 200 years of loneliness before Tav came along.

I also think the structure of the story was really weak. I don't mind a past that's revealed through flashbacks intermittently throughout the narrative, but there should be a reason why the story is told in that manner. A reveal, a parallel, something. This kind of just felt like Kingfisher really wanted to open the book with Astarion's death instead of his childhood and had to come up with a way to get around the chronology of it all. I didn't necessarily mind learning about his humble origins and how he found himself becoming a magistrate in Baldur's Gate, but I don't think the novel benefited from being broken up in this particular way.

Overall, I found this to be a really mid book for T. Kingfisher. Maybe it was rushed, maybe it didn't need to exist in the first place, idk. I know it's hard to write a prequel to a story that's so well-established and beloved, and it was never going to please everyone, but I definitely had higher hopes for it.

[Ian Kirkpatrick · Rating 0.25 out of 5]

If an author is contracted to do 5 books already in a year, they shouldn't take on another. 5 is already a lot, bragging in the acknowledgements of that very book about how you didn't have time to work on a book that, from the writing, shows you didn't have time to work on it, is really trashy and gross. Readers aren't just paypigs, and known characters/IPs are not cheat codes to sell garbage.

Readers deserve better than the author bragging they spent no time on this book, but paid for a mortgage for a year. Ultimately, it's a poorly written book, that seems to have been contracted because of greed (and maybe she was butthurt at being dumped by Astarion when she played the game, so this was getting back at him. That, too, is the first thing she mentions in the **acknowledgements**, so it stuck with her and she wanted everyone to know). What's been wilder is the glazing pretending this author can do no wrong when it's just bad (which is FINE. Every author writes books that don't land or are just bad in their career). If you liked it, that's fine, but allow others to dislike it and talk about it without being called stupid or going through wave after wave of GR deleting legitimate reviews and ratings.

The readers making insulting other readers or trying to manipulate them with “how dare yous” and made up threats are gross. if you liked the book then like the book. if you have to make studf up and go after other readers because they didnt like it, your opinion isnt able to stand on its own. the gaslighting taking place that anyone who dislikes this book is an unhinged fan is actually crazy.

Edit: "stopped in tracks" located at 46%. This has been your stopped in tracks chronologist. It was then said a total of 4-5 more times after that.

[The Reading Frog (Less online ATM) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to T. Kingfisher, Del Rey, Random House Worlds, Inklore & NetGalley for this free ARC in exchange for my honest review

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UPDATE (22 October 2026)
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Even though I played BG3, my knowledge of Astarion wasn't as extensive as many other readers', which is probably why, even though I wasn't enthused about this book after reading, I didn't fully understand the intense backlash.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ But now, after reading more reviews, I see how this inconsistent, inaccurate portrayal of Astarion and his life makes it seem like the project wasn't approached with the right amount of care.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ I won't rewrite my review, but do know that I felt a bit differently when I wrote it compared to now.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Check out Melanie (meltotheany)'s review for opinions from a more knowledgeable reviewer.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Rating: 3/5 ⭐
CW: I urge you to check the content warnings for this one if needed.
Explicit | Abuse of power, abuse through humiliation and dehumanisation, animal death, blood, gore, injury description, mental/physical/sexual abuse, physical and psychological torture
Moderate | Being unsure about what is real or isn't real, confinement, death, dissociation/depersonalisation, sexual content, starvation, suicidal ideation
Mild | Enslavement, mention of bestiality
Content warnings as stated by the author | "Please note that this novel contains depictions of torture and sexual assault. The author and publisher are committed to handling such themes to the best of their ability, but readers must decide for themselves whether they wish to read on."
My chosen soundtrack(s): My Dog - Honeycrush | Family Tree (Intro) - Ethel Cain | The Taste Of Blood - SQÜRL, Jozef van Wissem

"All he had left, all he had had for many years, was the power to endure."

Representation
╰┈➤ Queer characters and dynamics
‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ✴︎ Bi/Pan MC, Astarion
‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ✴︎ Unspecified queer MC whose name I won't spoil
‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ✴︎ (Past) MLM dynamic(s)
‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ✴︎ Unspecified queer BGCs


Themes
Abuse, bodily autonomy or the lack thereof, dehumanisation, desensitisation, forced servitude/slavery, free will or the lack thereof, hunger in all its forms, insatiability, lies and truths, mind control/manipulation, overindulgence, physical/psychological torture and abuse, sex/seduction as currency/tool/bargaining chip, the torture of boredom


Tropes/What to expect
‎ ‎ ‎ ❥ Vampires and vampire-spawn
‎ ‎ ‎ ❥ Found Forced family
‎ ‎ ‎ ❥ Morally grey and evil characters
‎ ‎ ‎ ❥ Dual timeline
‎ ‎ ‎ ❥ Dark fantasy
‎ ‎ ‎ ❥ Reluctant allies to ???
‎ ‎ ‎ ❥ New canon Astarion lore

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What I liked/loved
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ I am a huge BG3 lover, so of course I immediately had to request this ARC! I knew it'd be worth it for the new lore alone, and anything else would be a bonus. I'm happy to confirm we do indeed get new info about Astarion, and I had a good time with what else it offered.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ The opener was captivating, horrifying and immediately pulled me in, which is all I want from a first chapter. Though the word chapter might be a bit generous. I'll come back to that detail in my 'What I didn't like/felt lacklustre about' list.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ This book follows two timelines that continuously either mirror or contrast each other. Some aspects come full circle, or feel like an echo that still reverberates, while other moments show how extremely Astarion has been forced to change over the centuries (or has he?).
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ The two timelines are as follows:
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ✵ Astarion before becoming a vampire spawn. We delve into his childhood, family, the hopes and dreams he had and how he ended up in the city of Baldur's Gate. Which I won't delve into as deeply as the other timeline for the sake of spoilers, but just know, "rat catcher", I still think of you.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ✵ Astarion after becoming a vampire spawn. This timeline delves into the nitty-gritty of living under the horrific, abusive rule of Cazador (their vampire lord/master), what goes through Astarion's mind while actively being in that environment, and the complex "sibling" dynamics between Astarion and all the other spawn who reside in Cazador's palace.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ Astarion's past as a magistrate. I do believe this is knowledge that can be found somewhere in the game, but it definitely wasn't as explored as it was in this prequel.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ In both timelines, it's clear how magistrate principles and ideas shaped Astarion's way of thinking and solving problems. He looks for loopholes, fine print, grey areas and is able to wield the law or someone's own words in ways that end up benefiting him or his goals.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ It also includes a huge focus on lies, truths and the blurry line that divides them. It explores lies that are "almost" truths, lying through withholding information and bending the truth in smart little ways. This feels true to his character as a charlatan. It has that devious yet charming flair I love about in-game Astarion.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ This book is heavy with a capital H. Though not extremely explicit and sometimes very downplayed because of how Astarion distances himself from certain traumatic events, it still delves into torture, abuse and trauma. The approach to it reminded me a bit of Jean Moreau in the AFTG series, in which he would mention or think about the most insane, diabolical, obviously abusive situations, yet regard them as completely normal.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Some of the aspects explored:
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ✵ Discourse on physical and emotional scarring and how being undead affects this.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ✵ The constant mind games that permanently warp the spawn's sense of what is real/truth or an illusion/lie.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ✵ The blurred lines between punishment and reward.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ✵ Hypervigilance, dissociation and depersonalization as a way of survival.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ✵ Starvation, isolation, boredom, humiliation, introducing and taking away hope as a form of abuse.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ✵ Abuse in such creative and evil ways that really emphasised what a deranged individual Cazador is.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ As mentioned before, I was really intrigued by this deeper delve into the super complex spawn-sibling dynamics. We get a more up-close and personal look at all of them.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ✵ On an individual level, there is a contrast between who the spawn are as people and who they are forced to be under Cazador's rule. They all developed their own ways of survival, and unfortunately this often means stepping on others to save their own hide. But can you really blame them when the alternative is so much worse?
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ✵ On a group/family level, I was extremely intrigued by the dichotomies of their dynamics. They at times hate each other, betray each other, want/try to kill each other, and are envious of any relief one earns from their abusive "father".
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Yet they alone can understand what it is like to be in this specific situation. And thus, they have an inherent understanding of each other in ways that no other being could ever comprehend.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ To a certain degree, they also care for each other, though in very non-conventional ways. There was a lot of "I'm sorry this is happening to you, but I'm glad it's you and not me" or "even though I hate this person, no one deserves this". Which brings me to my next point.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ An exploration of the survival of kindness and love in an environment that punishes anything even slightly resembling it.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Astarion's opinion of himself is that he is not a kind or good man. Whether that statement is the truth, a half-truth, a lie or something in between, he can't afford to act on any of it. An eternity of servitude, one very hard lesson learned more than a century ago and being humiliated and tortured more often than not leaves him with no choice but to kill the part of his heart that still holds some warmth.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ This prequel does a good job of exploring that inner conflict between emotions/morality and survival, as well as the risks of not being completely detached.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ A plot point I hadn't expected to find in this read managed to capture my attention (sorry for being cryptic. You're gonna have to find this out for yourself).
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ This prequel introduces new characters to the BG3 universe. One of them has a very unique dynamic with Astarion and ties in a lot of the themes/aspects I've mentioned so far. I loved everything about it. They were so different from each other, yet in some ways unexpectedly similar.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ I can't say much more without spoiling, except that I enjoyed this addition but am now craving more info about them.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ You won't get it until you've read it, but I loved the recurring imagery/symbolism of silk and other types of cloth and clothing.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ There were some surprisingly funny moments here and there, which I definitely needed in between all the heaviness this read served me.



What I didn't like/felt lacklustre about
‎ ‎ ‎ ✦ So a bout those chapters I mentioned before... There are none. Like, literally.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ We got the Title Page, Copyright, Dedication, Content Warning, TEXT (yes, all the text. Many, many pages of text), and the Acknowledgements. Which left me a bit confused.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ I don't know if this format will change in the final published version, but I do hope so. I really didn't enjoy this lack of structure.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✦ I'm not fully clear on what caused this, but somewhere in the middle, the pacing slowed down, and I had to push myself more than I commonly have to, to keep reading. Disclaimer, though: I didn't have this problem AT ALL with its start and the last +/-30%
‎ ‎ ‎ ✦ I didn't feel as emotionally invested or affected as I had expected. It still hit me personally at times, but I expected it to hit me a little harder.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ I suspect that Astarion's own efforts to distance himself from the traumatic events depicted in this book kind of distanced me alongside him.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ At some point, Astarion does begin to feel more, which in turn made me feel more as well. Which probably also contributed to me liking that part more than the middle.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ I do think it feels correct to tell the story in that somewhat detached way since it IS Astarion's POV, and narratively serves a purpose in displaying and emphasising his survival strategies, but I wish we could've gotten the best of both worlds.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✦ I read this book with the knowledge that comes from having played 205 hours of BG3, including one campaign with friends who have over 500 hours and a lot of knowledge about its universe, and thus had no issues understanding this book.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ That being said, I think this could be quite a difficult read for those who haven't played BG3 or aren't familiar with DnD. It's still possible to read and enjoy this book, but I suspect there'll be a lot of Googling involved since it doesn't hold your hand when it comes to all the different races, classes, creatures, cultures, and religions.
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ On the other hand, this book is very clearly made for and marketed to gamers and BG3 enjoyers, and I don't think many readers outside of that market will pick up this read, but I decided to mention it just in case.


Conclusion/Notes
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Though some aspects made this not a perfect read to me personally, I still had a good time! I loved getting a deeper understanding of the spawn siblings and the horrific events that shaped the Astarion we get to meet in Baldur's Gate 3. Learning all this new lore about him, especially what his life looked like before becoming a vampire spawn, made it worth checking out.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ It also really opened my eyes to the potential of more prequels focusing on other characters. Plus, not naming any names, but I'd probably be interested in media expanding on the newly introduced characters in this read as well.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ This is a must-read for those who love Astarion and BG3. Thank you, T. Kingfisher for gifting us this vulnerable portrayal of our favourite bloodsucking charlatan.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Baldur's Gate 3: Astarion is set to release on 29 September, 2026. Make sure to add it to your TBR and/or pre-order a copy to read immediately upon release.


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"All the best lies are true."

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Immediate thoughts after reading 24 August, 2026:
I don't smoke, but I'm craving a cig and a glass of wine after finishing this.

FULL REVIEW TO COME

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31 July, 2026
Guess who just got their ARC request approved???!!
I'm truly suffering from success with all these amazing ARCs!!

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24 April, 2026
NO WAY! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

Never added a book to my TBR as fast! I am beyond excited about this!!!

[bee · Rating 2 out of 5]

i roughly have about 700 hours in baldurs gate 3 and by far is my favourite game of all time. most of those hours was spent with astarion in my party, so he is obviously my favourite character. i screamed when i saw this was announced, and when i saw who it was written by i could’ve cried.

however, sadly, i don’t think my expectations were met. while i did enjoy some parts of it, i expected much more dark and gritty themes.

what i didn’t like:
• not that i enjoy seeing my favourite characters go through hardships, even though its so integral to astarion character. i did expect much more. having read a lot of Kingfishers work it makes sense as her books aren’t typically as dark as astarion’s backstory but i still expected it.
• towards the end i do think astarion lost his voice and didn’t feel like him.
• similarly towards the end i kind of forgot about the past pov of astarion and his journey towards baldurs gate. it felt forgotten about. i wish it was touched on more and how he became a vampire.

i’m sure this might be received differently from others who haven’t played the game and doesn’t already know part of his backstory, but for me unfortunately didn’t meet my expectations, but to be fair my expectations were quite high so please bare that in mind!

[Angelique · Rating 0.25 out of 5]

I found it extremely funny that when I finished the audiobook (because let's be honest, I would have DNF'ed the book if it hadn't been for Neil Newbon's narration), and tried to write a review on Goodreads, there was a popup to say that "This book has temporary limitations on submitting ratings and reviews. This may be because we’ve detected unusual behavior that doesn’t follow our review guidelines." In other words, this book is getting extremely negative reviews, gee, wonder why?

The acknowledgements of this book instantly address why this book is so bad, in the very first point she makes, the author notes that she is already annoyed with, and has a bit of a vendetta against the main character, the second point she makes, is that she had no time at all to take on this project. And all of it shows. Maybe even more points were made, but I couldn't be bothered to continue reading it.

In all honesty, there is such mischaracterisation that I will in no way be implementing any of it in my canon when I replay BG3, and in part that is also because it's a very forgettable story, all I will remember is how badly Astarion was interpreted by someone who clearly lacked the passion and time to write him.

Anywho, I don't think I have much to add that hasn't already been said, and is continually being said, by others. Astarion is done incredibly dirty, and he sounded out of character about 95% of the time, the other five 5% might just be because the audiobook had the added benefit of Neil's actual voice.

[Booksblabbering || Cait❣️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think T Kingfisher was made to write in Astarion’s head. 

This is a prequel story following a (fan favourite) vampire spawn years before the video game. Plaything to his sadistic master, Astarion gets himself embroiled in a heist to win a twisted competition for his Sire’s favour. 
Astarion strikes an unlikely alliance with a handsome Aasimar paladin - someone sworn to kill all undead, unluckily enough. 

Astarion is snide and crude and broken. Like a lot of T Kingfisher’s protagonists, he uses humour as a defence. However, unlike her usual fare, he is also vindictive and occasionally monstrous. An anti-hero that you pity even as you know he’d happily drain you dry.

When I am finally made a true vampire, I shall keep a tame doppelganger on staff to mimic me so that I know precisely how good I look.

Astarion’s sardonic wit paired with Kingfisher’s clear passion for the franchise and her own unique feel-good style amidst depravity and darkness pair perfectly.

The action scenes were slightly lacking. If you’ve read any of Kingfisher’s books before, you know she excels at softer character moments. Here, the actions scenes are less visual and immersive and come across more tongue-in-cheek.

The Rat’s Run was a dreadful place, but it was a place where he was welcome. It was far too grubby to feel like home, but it at least felt like something you might scrape off your shoe at home.

You don’t have to have any prior knowledge of Baldur’s Gate before picking this up. It throws you into the world, but if you have even an inkling of Dungeons and Dragons, or fantasy tropes (a lot of which are based off D&D anyway), you’ll find your footing.

I want to end with a note from the author herself as she puts it best:

Writing a tie-in like this isn’t always easy, because you must end the book before the game starts. Since Astarion has a tragic backstory, this meant no triumphant, neatly wrapped ending.

And YET it was still satisfying.

Arc gifted by Del Rey.

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[m. · Rating 0.25 out of 5]

if i ever write a book, i'll be sure to spitefully mention how awful this one was in my acknowledgements section.

[sara ₍^. .^₎⟆ · Rating 0.25 out of 5]

If you love Astarion do not read this book.
T. Kingfisher handles Astarion’s sexual trauma horribly and it is truly indefensible and not true to the source material. She changes him from a victim of SA to a perpetrator, serial r*pist and liar. Who just r*ped for fun, knowing he was bringing victims to their deaths before bringing them to Cazador. I also dont think T. Kingfisher has done Astarions main quest in the palace in act 3 because then she would know that Astarion was forced to sleep with these people in the guest room, something that does not happen in the book, he just sleeps with these people bc he feels like it? And its a choice? This argubly makes book- astarion a terrible and awful person. This is very sad considering all the SA survivors who sees themselves in Astarion and relate to his story. Shame on you T. Kingfisher

Besides this there is nothing from game-Astarion in this book at all, i don’t recognize him. This weird version of Astarion is obsessed with being a tailor? And he is hypersexal ever since hes like twelve, all he thinks about is sex sex sex cock sex sex and it was so insufferable. This version of Astarion does not want to kill Cazador, witch is kind of hilarious.

The pig orgy scene was unecessary and disgusting, the OC paladin was also unecessary and made the book even more horrible around the 50% mark, i think Badja would have been a better option instead of introducing the paladin as a love interest for Astarion ( i think T. kingfisher has some weird obsessions with paladins for some reason and forces them into every story even trough they dont belong) the paladin is written so millennial cringe literally going «arf arf» and im to belive Astarion wants this guy?
This book suffers from T.Kingfisher wanting to prove that she knows about D&D and all the «lore», but it just becomes annoying and i think she should have focused rather on knowing about Astarion’s story and gotten everything about HIM right down to his personality, the way he speaks and his SA story, but no, she wants to mention all the D&D classes and all of this stuff that argubly does not make sense in a book. i dont care about spiderclimb or all these weird names she comes up for tavern names (warlock and COCK) ?

All in all i had ro drag myself to finish it because it was so terribly written. i think shes okay at writing horror but not sex, spice or SA. I also think the tone of this book just felt very millenial, quirky and silly , not fitting for a prequel novel about a gothic vampire.
I have read thornhedge, nettle and bone and hemlock and silver before, and while i dont necissaily think those where the peak of litterature i do think she is capable of writing a good- ish book, but just didn’t want to bother with this one.
How this woman talks about this pixelated fictional vampire on bluesky , and how she talks about his fanbase, she seems to view us in this spesific weird way. «I am the god of sex and darkness» is a literal line in this book, it was hilarious.

I honestly cant ever see myself picking up another book by this author ever again and im donating the two books of hers that i own to charity.
I do not get the sense that this woman supports victims of SA , witch might be true after her tweets about not beliving Neil Gaiman’s victims.

If this review gets deleted, or made fun of on bluesky by the author (this actually happened to one of my oomfs) just know that i despise her and this awful awful book and i will keep reposting it👍😁


i hope none of the other companions from Baldurs gate gets butchered like this… seems unlikely when WOTC is moneyhungry and evil.

[Oliver · Rating 2 out of 5]

edit 22th September 2026: After sitting on this book for more than a month, I've come to realize that I was being too kind and I didn't enjoy the book as much as I thought I was. I've lowered the rating from 3 to 2 to better reflect my feelings now. The rest of the review is left as-is.

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Ray Imprint for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are my own and subjective.

2.5 rounded up to 3.

Like most people, I have hundreds of hours in Baldur's Gate 3 throughout multiple playthroughs and have all achievements. When Larian Studios announced that they're moving on from the Forgotten Realms universe and back to making their own stuff i.e. Divinity 3, I wondered what Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast was going to do about the game's cast now with the writers over at Larian relinquishing the characters to them. I have my own criticisms about the writing in the game, but I still felt like it's a shame that these characters that people have come to know and love are just going to be left in limbo, with only the occasional crossovers here and there as breadcrumbs, because I understand that a new Baldur's Gate game that actually lives up to the legacy of the franchise would never be made in the current gaming industry landscape.

(And, personally, thank god that Larian Studios bailed when they did. I would've hated to see them become The Company That Makes Baldur's Gate Games as someone who has known them since Divinity: Original Sin.)

So, I was surprised to hear that a book that's set in the Baldur's Gate 3 world was getting published (but of course it's about Astarion - what fictional deity to I have to worship for a Lae'zel book?), by an author that I've been meaning to read but haven't gotten around to. I figure a book about a character that I'm familiar with would be an easy introduction to Kingfisher's works, and I went in both wanting to see what their vision of Astarion's past is, and getting a taste of their writing.

If I hadn't made it obvious with my tone, I'm not the biggest fan of Astarion, for reasons that correlate to my criticisms of Larian's writing. Let's just say that what's in the game is not quite enough to hit the mark for me. Despite that, I was still eager to learn more about him and perhaps walk away with a new perspective on his character.

I'm unsure what the process of drafting this book was like behind the scenes, as in if Kingfisher had a 'guideline' of a plot they had to follow from WoTC, or if they were told to freestyle it. But, I'll go right ahead and say that I did really enjoy the first half of the book! We know that Astarion's life under Cazador was a nightmare, and it was interesting to finally peel back the veil and see it for myself. I find the flashbacks to his younger days a brief respite in between the cruel, difficult days at present, and appreciated them as they revealed an aspect of life in this universe that shaped Astarion into the man he was. I especially loved the brand new characterization to his spawn siblings, as we only get to see them at their worst and most desperate in the game, how they chose to carry out their interactions with each other and their master, and I genuinely wished I've gotten more of this. I wanted to see the struggles of trying to form connections with the only people they were allowed to know, while simultaneously second guessing if they were right to place trust and love, and how ultimately they share the same tormentor and are all equal in their suffering.

The blurb mentioned a new character. Hahn den Suriel the Aasimar paladin. I'm an aromantic skeptic, and I so desperately wanted him to be someone Astarion made a connection to, a common ground in between holy and undead, but instead he was the reason the second half of the book was unreadable to me. I've said before in another review, but once you've read a Baldur's Gate 3 fanfic, you've read them all. The intrigue with Astarion, his siblings, and the way they lived was tossed to the side just to fit this half-assed romance. It was completely trope-ridden, biggest offender being instalove, where I was meant to be convinced that these two were into each other within the first five pages of Hahn's introduction. The common ground I wanted them to have was barely mentioned within one sentence and by then the book was over.

I get that this book is a prequel to an existing story, and any new character mentioned comes under the scrutiny of, "Well, where do you fit this character into the bigger narrative?". But this story reads unbelievably rushed. The first half and second half do not mesh well at all, and they feel like antithesis to each other. To allow myself a bit of bad faith hating for a moment - no, I do not care for your Aasimar OC Kingfisher. He was not given them time to be fleshed out, and he was nothing more than character tropes pieced together like a square in a circle. Of course, he has to be big! Size difference for Astarion! And he has to be stereotypically righteous too, because that's what paladins do, right? He's gotta be a bit silly, a himbo but wait! He... flirts... And he fucks... Oooh... Dame Aylin had barely a few scenes in the game and I feel like I know her better than I do Hahn after 150 something pages.

Quite frankly, the second half reads like watching someone mashing dolls together while making kissing noises (and going by the author's notes at the end, that is exactly what this is). I would unironically say that I feel duped, because the first half was so good, even if I wanted it go further and delve into the horror of it all. I was lured in only to end up reading fanfic-tier shipping. Ao3 is right there if I wanted that, and god, I do not want that. This is a real published book that people have to pay money for!

The second half with its half-baked romance and inserted OC turned me off completely from wanting to read more from this author. It's one thing to have Astarion cracking bad, cringe-worthy jokes, that's his character and coping mechanism. It's another thing to read very modern jokes like 'I hardly knew her' in a sword and shield fantasy world (and yes, the writing in Baldur's Gate 3 isn't exactly trying to be fantastical, but the writers at Larian knew how far they could push it before it becomes too anachronistic.)

With Neil Newbon narrating the audiobook, I suspect this would be a hit for a lot of the Ancunin spouses. I do wish this book works for its intended audience if only it would convince WoTC to fund books for the other companions that desperately need it. Wyll and Karlach my baddies your times will come. If you also feel the way I do, please please please let me know so I know I'm not alone.

[La Criatura]

Where do I even start.

First things first: I don't envy the author's position, here. You're coming in to write a tie-in book for a game franchise owned by a company notorious for being very particular about their big moneymaker IPs, to write about a character who has achieved mascot status in spite of-- or perhaps because of-- him being an incredible mess of a person in ways that are often either complicated or unpalatable or both, who is also known for having some fans who are... peculiar about him, in the way that they perceive any slight against him as actual harm coming to a real person. I get it. It's a difficult proposition, and I wouldn't want to be fielding some of the batshit insane tweets and other social media pings she's getting from people who aren't smart enough to realize their favorite elf does not actually exist, and that no harm is actually being done to him. I know she's a talented author; her work has come across as highly recommended by several people whose opinions I trust as well as being lauded by actual institutions. It should also be noted that I have a very high tolerance for "bad to mediocre TTRPG tie-in novels" (and if you look to the left you will see the 70+ Warhammer 40,000 books I have read).

That all being said: this is bad. This is not good!

Astarion is a character who is infamous for being imperfect. His story is thus: he was abused, horrifically. In life, in death, and in the game he is an asshole who did/does/will do horrible things. He is not a kind person; he's not even a good person most of the time. All of that does not change that he is undeserving of the abuse that he received. This has historically been difficult for people to grapple with-- even in fiction, the concept of someone who has gone through the specific type of physical/emotional/sexual trauma that he's been though and come out the other side jagged, jaded, distrustful, and cruel is tough to deal with, when many would prefer the trauma response to manifest perhaps as something kinder and softer. This book grapples with that extremely complicated and controversial topic by retroactively changing much of Astarion's backstory and personality to make him seem like a kinder person who has done fewer awful things.

This starts from basically page 1, with the retcon about the Gur, who in the game were a tribal ethnic/cultural minority of monster hunters who Astarion passed a biased ruling against as a magistrate (the implication being that he was bribed to do so by, you know, the vampire that they were hunting) and subsequently were responsible for his first death. The book changes this significantly-- not only are the people Astarion hears the case against not part of any named group (they are only ever referred to as "poachers"), but the judgement he passes is explicitly a merciful one (jail time instead of execution-- specified by law, in case one might argue a case of Unreliable Narrator). After which the families of the accused still beat him to death. And I will cut the author a bit of slack here because I know (because she said so) that this retcon was made by WOTC themselves, but it's still deeply stupid and annoying, because it is a transparent attempt to scrub a less attractive flaw out of the character who's currently achieved Baldur's Gate Mascot Status. In the process it makes him flatter, less interesting, and also makes the narrative come across as bizarrely pro-cop for no good reason. Why bother being merciful to criminals who haven't endangered lives or anything particularly awful, even, if they're just going to kill the fair and honest judge who showed them mercy anyway?

At every possible opportunity, the book narrative shies away from showing Astarion doing anything that might actually qualify as cruel. It is allergic to having him do anything that might engender the idea that he has any part of his tragic backstory coming, or even that he's kind of a prick. He puts himself in harm's way to help his little sister not once but twice, both times for essentially no reason-- no payment, no blackmail, no deal, just "I'm bored and I need something to do". He puts himself in danger to save the life of someone who explicitly has orders to kill him in multiple situations where he could have let that person die, where the game character absolutely would have let that person die. And my personal favorite, lifted right from the text: “One of the things that made him better than Cazador was that he was completely uninterested in tormenting the weak.”

This is from the person who you can farm approval from in Act 1 of the game mostly by stealing from orphan children and bullying animals. This from the person who is BIG UP on you killing a bunch of defenseless refugees. This from the person who gives you a thumbs up when, after listening to a woman pour her heart out about her dead best friend, you take her friend's lute and smash it on the ground.

Well, okay. Agree to disagree, I guess.

Astarion is at the very least not unique in the way the narrative shies away from showing him do anything particularly awful. Bizarrely, the book also seems reticent to show Cazador-- his vampire sire and the person who tormented him for two centuries-- doing anything awful either.

Full disclosure, because this is important context: Cazador Szarr is my favorite character in Baldur's Gate 3 the video game. I love him. He's an awful, neurotic, abusive helicopter mother who pimps out his kids for food and is meant among other things to demonstrate what will happen if Astarion cannot break the cycle of abuse himself. He sucks really, really bad. My love for him is informed by the fact that he is all of this and also a complicated person unto himself. If Astarion's "good" end shows what happens when someone who is a victim of abuse is given the space to realize not everyone wants to hurt them and they can hope for better (even if better is not "perfect"), then Cazador is what happens when the victim of abuse has no place to heal, believes they will never be safe, and spirals into destructive control freak paranoia. I remember when news about this book was first coming out, and a lot of the TikTok Astarion girlies (cursed phrase) were getting Big Mad about it, hearing the phrase "this book is Cazador propaganda" which at the time I just took to mean they were taking onus with Astarion being portrayed as kind of a dick.

I hate to agree with them on anything, but while they're not strictly right (and are still fucking insane), the girlies were correct about one thing, which is that Cazador comes out of this novel looking like he's barely done anything wrong. Mostly this is because he comes out of this book having barely done anything. Astarion in the game talks constantly about how dogshit his life was in Szarr palace. He talks about torture, starvation, being fed putrid rats, being humiliated, being whored out without his consent, verbal abuse, physical abuse, and Cazador's all-consuming obsession with him being a font of misery and also other more complicated emotions he mislikes addressing. This novel takes place at the tail end of the 200 years of vampire slavery Astarion suffered through, and barely addresses any of that.

And look-- I don't think it NECESSARILY needs to have a horrific, graphic torture scene where Astarion gets flayed or whatever. But the book brings up exactly three instances of actual torture across two centuries. One of them is quite bad, though hilariously the author gives Astarion plausible deniability for the horrible thing that might have happened to him during it (not elaborating-- it is one of the few bits in the novel I actually respected for being kind of gross, and I do not wish to spoil it). One of them is something Astarion talks about in the game-- the time Cazador locked him in a tomb for a year, which the novel somehow softens because the way Astarion describes it makes it sound like he was physically locked in a coffin for a year straight, whereas in the book he's just locked in a crypt (which: still not great, but really lessens the "horrible claustrophobia" torture of it, no?). The third is an instance of Cazador demonstrating that the sun can hurt him by burning his hand off in it. Which again-- quite horrible, although for some inexplicable reason Astarion caps off the account with "to be fair it did teach me a valuable lesson". I don't know why he did that, because Astarion as I know him has never once missed out on an opportunity to play up how maligned he is to engender sympathy.

On top of the torture being more alluded to than shown and being more infrequent than not, Cazador is also maybe the most hands-off a pseudo-parent can possibly be for like 90% of this book. Among other things he lets the spawn all have their own room (which they do NOT in game-- the "favored spawn" quarters are EXPLICITLY SPECIAL because they are a private bedroom!), lets them be card-carrying Thieves Guild members (Astarion mentions in game party chatter that Cazador does not allow them to go anywhere near the Guildhall because he "hated questions" from Guild members), lets them take bubble baths(????), and just seemingly doesn't give a fuck if any of them wander off and get lost on a fun little romantasy adventure. He regularly feeds his children wine and fresh pig's blood. He lets Astarion have his stupid little books and stupid little clothing collection.

Literally what does he do in this book that is so evil that isn't just alluded to or ambiguously recounted? He makes Astarion lick his boots once and then goes to take his Vampire Xanax and sleep for 8-10 hours (canonical). There's one instance of son-whoring that's described as vaguely as such a thing can be described for about two sentences before the story moves on as if it didn't happen. The scar carving (which-- holy timeline fudging, Batman) is so nothingburger in the way it's presented as to be meaningless, despite it being so fundamental to Astarion's entire story in the game.

The bastardization of his and Astarion's characters aside, is this not just atrocious optics? Astarion comes out of this book looking like all the complaining he does in the game about how awful he had it is for basically no reason. Oh wow, he had a strict mom who beat him once a century. Like maybe still not great, but hardly worse than some of the other characters in game. Shadowheart was kidnapped and raised in a militant cult, Lae'zel was a child soldier, Karlach got sold into slavery and underwent a nonconsensual organ transplant. Maybe suck it up a bit!

In shying away from everything that makes the character what he is, his story is cheapened to a degree that's laughable. It makes him seem like he's hysterically overreacting, like it wasn't so bad. It makes him seem like a liar. And granted-- he does lie in the game about some aspects of his story, but the interesting thing about that is because he is trying to convince you as the player that he is a Perfect Victim and gain your trust. He does not need to do that in the book that is from his perspective, and frankly I can't imagine being someone who's reading this book because they found Astarion's story relatable and then seeing all of this. It feels like a really shitty way to handle it from a "representation of an abuse victim" POV. I just don't understand why these choices were made.

This isn't even getting into the structural issue mountain that is the rest of the text. I'm trying to keep this review relatively spoiler-free so detailing the stuff I didn't like in the second half of it is kind of a no-can-do on that front, but the direction it goes in is not interesting. The flashbacks to Astarion's pre-vampire past could have gone in an interesting direction (I was saying the whole time I was reading it that Astarion's mother could have been fascinating to directly parallel with Cazador but the text did not seem invested in that parallel, despite the seeming obviousness of it? Whatever) but mostly serve to check off a list of "how he got this skill/to this place". The spawn dynamics in the palace are easily the best part and it's frustrating that the story truncates that whole baked-in bit of character intrigue to do intrigue with someone I care significantly less about. I do not like your Cool Paladin OC, I do not find him appealing, I do not find the stakes in this part of the story adequate enough to capture my attention, nor do I find this relationship at all compelling or convincing. I could go on another 5000 word tangent about how aggravating Den Suriel is to me both as a character and conceptually. Jesus Christ.

Anyway. WOTC or some other power-that-be's has been deleting low-starred reviews of this book in an effort to keep people from cancelling preorders etc. which is a dogshit stupid coward move that lacks any type of integrity, though I don't know why I'm surprised considering all the other bullshit they've pulled over the years and are continuing to pull as we speak. You can force me to delay my review but you can't make me forget how much I dislike this book. Do not purchase this novel. It is a waste of your time and money which would both be better served some other way. Maybe play the game again if you want more Astarion and imagine whatever backstory you think suits him best.

[cassie · Rating 0.25 out of 5]

for some reason goodreads didn‘t only delete my review but the book itself from my library?

the way this book handles sex gives off a whole different vibe than what we experience from astarion in the game as a survivor of sa. it makes his life before the game look a lot lighter and not as dark as it was depicted in his original story. in the game, astarion was very much compelled by cazador to do what he had to do it — he didn’t have a choice. the book makes him seem like a nymphomaniac who lures his victims with sex all by his own choice (and kingfisher claims on social media that astarion is just as much a predator due to this).
astarion is deeply traumatized in the game; he was never allowed human blood and no nice things; in the book, cazador lovebombs his spawns and it’s painted as an abusive father-children-relationship and nothing more (i really, really despise that astarion calls him „old man“ when cazador is everything but a fragile, senile father figure to him).

the story itself felt flat with unnecessary shock value scenes and the timeline felt all over the place.

edit: i dnf'ed this book halfway through because i wanted to spend my precious time for something more enjoyable.

[Panda · Rating 0.25 out of 5]

What a long, strange trip it has been to post a review for this book...

Before we begin, can I offer you an Astarion meme in these trying times?


Somehow, the image of Astarion above is less distorted than the author's.

The quotes throughout this review are from Astarion in the game, not this book. Much as I enjoyed the banal, juvenile drivel from the book such as, "I am a god of sex and darkness," the original story makes for far better quoting. This book offended me, so I do not mince words.

The longer reviews were suppressed, the more I felt compelled to speak up, and the more I had to say about this book and the controversy surrounding it. The book is disappointing at best, downright offensive if you truly know the character it is based on and have conscience and consciousness. Many fans are mad about it, and rightfully so.

An earlier version of this review is on Storygraph. Reviews were blocked for so long, I got to spend time with this piece and funnel all of my fury into it.

On to the Reviewing, After a Brief Word About Our Sponsors Who Enjoyed This Book

I'll be one of the rare negative reviewers to briefly address other reviewers of this book, since so many of the "positive" reviews and various commenters have taken the time to trash other fans (very telling on its own). If you're "enjoying" this book solely in defiance of others, or rating it highly because others hate it, or coming to the author's defense with playground insults, or hating it because someone told you to, or spending half your review being incendiary to other reviewers, perhaps you might consider easing up on whatever ragebait trash content you're consuming. Perhaps you could think about how social media is designed to stress you out and make you hate everything, or read more (and better) books, or spend more time with the dialogue and scenes of Baldur's Gate 3. Maybe do an Astarion origin run if you've never done so.

But please, let's discuss the "subtext" in this exceedingly vapid book that literally is not there and about how people who hate the book are "just not getting it", or just hating stuff for fun, or hysterical, or evil people, or whatever.

The reality of this book is that it is shallow. There's nothing in between the lines to read, because there's nothing of substance in the lines in the first place. What the book DOES have is plenty of attention-grabbing, senseless vulgarity to seem "edgy" and "dark", the incessant randiness of a poorly socialized teenager, literally an oversexed teenage boy, a romance carelessly thrown into the story solely for the author's masturbatory and tiresome character, and franchise movie-style banter. How fun. Snarky, horny, Astarion, whee!

Don't get me wrong, I love a good bad boy vampire trope as much as the next fantasy fan. But this is neither a good vampire trope, nor is it Astarion.


T Kingfisher is Clueless About Astarion's Story

I had nothing for so long. Nothing. Not even my own body.

For fans of BG3 who know Astarion's character, you would have to acknowlege that there are clear, glaring issues with Astarion's characterization and backstory throughout the book. It's not just "little details" the author gets wrong here and there; it's huge swaths of inaccuracies and mischaracterization. Does she get him wrong the whole time? No, but it's a caricature at best that resembles the masks of Astarion you meet in Act 1. It's as if, hear me out, the author didn't actually play through the game. If you absorbed anything when you played through his storyline, you can tell this book roughly handled Astarion's victimization. Entirely too roughly for my tastes.

Among many problems with this book's handling of the original story, Cazador is defanged. The Vampire Lord Szarr is one of the biggest BBEGs of the whole BG3 canon, and in the original story he is not only Astarion's tormentor; he has victimized thousands over the centuries. Cazador's victims are brought to him by his "children", vampire spawn who are essentially undead sex slaves that have very, very little free will of their own, and even fewer comforts. Any agency the spawn have can be erased by Cazador's compulsion in an instant, as he can grip any and all of their bodies and control them at will like puppets. Which he did. All the time. Because he's evil. And he tortured them, mutilated, flayed, and buried them alive, among other truly gruesome things, because he is evil. When Cazador Szarr makes a choice, it is always the cruelest option. He's cruel in both obvious and more subtle ways. As Astarion tells it in Act 1 he, "likes to play with people". Yet the author who allegedly played the same game characterizes the vampire lord as an opulent. languid father figure who keeps his spawn well fed and gives them tons of free time (including freedom to go anywhere in the palace) and the privacy of their own bedrooms. Whose torments are treated as "things of the past" and mere toothless threats in the present, not a crux of the narrative. Whose palace is less house of horrors and more palace where horrific things occasionally happen. Who lets his "children" bring him his victims with no real urgency and however they choose.

Record scratch. 😵‍💫

Wait, what? Yes, you read that right. The author erased one of the most compelling and harrowing aspects of Astarion's backstory. The coercion into sex slavery.

And then she turned Astarion into a rapist of his own volition. The other spawn? Well, they had a choice thanks to the author, so they didn't have sex with their victims. They get to be the "fun banter foil characters that everyone likes" instead of the tortured sex slaves they actually were in the original story.

Gone is the complicated character who defied vampire stereotypes, who is a completely different person under the many masks he wears and presents to the PC in Act 1 of the game, who has incredibly limited memory of his mortal life (dude can't even remember his original eye color), whose ultimate desire is freedom from slavery, whose mental concept of freedom is power through cruelty because that's all he's known. Instead we get the "bad boy vampire stereotype". And this "bad boy vampire" also somehow has a paladin aasimar, who are supposed to be immortal children of the gods (this one for some reason has also sworn a holy oath to top it off as if he weren't holy enough already) in his story. And we're supposed to believe he DOESN'T smash evil vampire lord Cazador's face in with a holy smite or three? And Cazador LETS him go?? And we're supposed to believe THIS is Astarion's prologue??? It's utterly thoughtless. Sebastian would never. I'm not even going to touch how badly Sebastian was fumbled in the interest of protecting my own sanity.

What I wanted, how I felt about what I was doing, it never mattered.

You will not find respectful representation of sexual trauma in this book. While I understand hypersexuality can be a response to trauma, that was NOT Astarion's experience, and the game makes that abundantly clear, over and over throughout. You don't even have to romance the guy to get that one. Moreover, I don't think this would even be a fair representation of hypersexuality as a trauma response. Rather than being disgusted by all the sex Cazador forces him to have, Bookstarion is characterized like a dysfunctional sex addict, and the tragedy of his story is repeatedly glossed over at best, outright ignored at worst. He experiences horrible violence, drinks some blood, then feels "fine" and he's back to thinking about all the sex he wants to have. Narrative moves on to the next action. He briefly discusses horrific imprisonment and deprivation, then we immediately get to read about how his groin feels horny for some paladin he just met. Astarion can't introspect at this point in his unlife, indeed, but why would the author leave us with nothing as well? The book isn't even narrated in the first person, for gods' sake. There's no hollow space where the tragedy could be either, the narrative simply jumps to the next bit every time. Rinse and repeat. Touch on the traumatic thing, then quickly move on to the banter and horny stuff! It's giving "horrific", not horror. Every time there is a potential for depth with his character or his experiences, the narrative blunders along instead, which is not only offensive following nonconsensual and graphic scenes, it's wholly frustrating to read. Instead of really engaging with the heavier, darker aspects of Astarion's story and persona, the entirety of the text is padded with constant horniness, tailoring tidbits, herpderp adventuring, edgelord jokes that are deeply unfunny, and "lalala I'm not feeling this" (aka the most shallow understanding of trauma dissociation possible). The author will throw in the word "manipulation" occasionally about all the "bad stuff" to seem like she "gets it", along with some Easter eggs from the game so the author can prove to fans that she... read a page of the wiki of the game.

T Kingfisher or whatever her name is really knows Act 1 Astarion, you guys!


✨I hate it here✨

Throughout the book the author used Astarion much in the way he was used by others in his actual backstory. For sexual gratification. It brings to print every awful thing Astarion believes about himself and the rest of the world, that the only thing he's "good for"/useful for is as a sex object for others. A fop. A punchline.

Yes, I suppose there's not much point in me if I won't have sex. My only talent, I'm fully aware.

By the time I got to the "romance", I felt nauseous. I won't waste too many words on the humdrum paladin stereotype love interest. It was yet another terrible aspect of the book to me. The second half of this book is so disastrous it felt torturous to finish it.

This book was written by someone who does not know the major points of Astarion's character arc. There were so many ways this could have been done better, and frankly it infuriates me. As a survivor and as a fan of the character and game.

I've heard and read others comparing this to "bad fan fiction", or asserting that this book IS just fan fiction as it deviates off the rails from canon, but Kingfisher is obviously not a fan, and real fanfic authors do it for the love of the game, not corporate money. Moreover, to even call a book this awful fan fiction would be an insult to fanfic.

T Kingfisher, you could have asked actual fans what they love about Astarion's story and what it means to them. You could have read fan fiction. You could have played the damn game and paid attention to Astarion's story. Instead you wrote a slop book and garnered the righteous ire of Astarion fans for money. 👏👏👏 Well done.

By the way, I heard Astarion broke up with you at the beginning of Act 3. I love that, because you literally have to ignore what he says and ignore his needs for him to break up with you at that point in the game. Says it all, really. Way to absolutely trainwreck it. 👏👏👏

As my copium, I'm going to pretend Volo wrote this book and imagine Astarion winning a huge lawsuit against him for that pig scene alone.


The Writing Quality

Let's set Astarion aside for now to touch on the writing itself; he needs rest after all that mistreatment. The writing quality is... whew. Typically when the quality of the writing in a book is this bad, I do not finish it. I fully intend to resume that practice after suffering through this book, because life is too short to spend time with stuff that sucks all the joy out of you.

From a literary standpoint this is one of the worst books I've ever read. I don't have a list of "worst books", but if I did this one would easily make the top 5. It is obvious to me the book was rushed to print, and the writing itself is super... unpolished, to put it kindly. It's very repetitive, lacking in basic structure, the tone is overly casual and blase (especially considering the subject matter), and it feels totally disjointed as it jumps throughout time. It's an incoherent series of vignettes posing as a narrative.

The plot is a nothing burger.

At varying points throughout the book, I would be genuinely interested to find out what happened next or wish she would go into more depth, flesh out this or that character that gets thrown into the narrative. It's almost as though I got glimpses of the potential of the author, perhaps even her talent, but then it would inevitably fall flat and remain a fleck as the narrative rushed over to the next bit.

To experience this book, imagine slogging through a recklessly written romantasy book with the blandest possible love interest, the writing itself occasionally sparks your interest and leaves you begging for depth over and over.

Depth never comes, by the way. Depth isn't here. Just corporate money, watered down product for the masses. Enjoy your Astarion-flavored slop, everyone!

This book makes for a great "naughty" beach read. Be sure to get lots of sand in it, as it would add the real substance and texture the book lacks.

Even as a fan of the author, I don't know if I would be able to justify how shabby this writing truly is. As someone who never read a book by this author before, I will never read anything this author writes again. It left a really, really bad impression to say the least.

I thought this author was well known/liked or an award winner or something in the fantasy genre, but she failed to write compelling vampires on even a basic level. They're definitely not vampires from Dungeons and Dragons. The vampire characters are pretty alive for supposedly being undead. Apparently T Kingfisher's "vampires" have body heat, take breaths, eat human food, and their hair turns white??? They might as well sparkle too, and those are just a handful of the super lame misrepresentations of vampires that jump out at me in this moment. It seemed every time the author broached the topic of vampirehood, it was nonsensical. It didn't even feel like an attempt at creativity or portraying vampires in a novel manner. It screamed pure laziness and carelessness, like she just conveniently forgets they're dead.

The irony of Kingfisher not even being able to properly write vampire basics while vampires often symbolize violation/abuse/loss of innocence/sexual trauma and how that is an isolating and transformative experience is not lost on me. There was such a beautiful setup here with exceptional source material to write something truly great and dive deep into the psychological horror of sexual violence, and just how much that can change a person. Instead, we got 1-dimensional, sex-obsessed garbage. The book is terrible on so many levels, and I could go on for days, but in the interest of my own sanity and life I will stop here.


The Audiobook

I would like to touch on the audiobook as I'm a fan of Neil Newbon and gave it a listen. It's a mess. Neil's performance could never save a book this bad, but truly it's... not his best work. Embarrassing, really. I think Neil was rushed through the reading; at times he's mumbling or not properly articulating, even difficult to understand.

I'm looking at you, "Astarion farted away."

I don't think he had an opportunity to play with and really find the dialogue voices either; many of them sound inconsistent and some are so cartoonish they're truly distracting (the paladin especially, ye gods). You can tell he didn't get to really polish or retake anything, at times character dialogue lines are absolutely slurred and incoherent.

It's also very difficult to navigate and listen to the audiobook because there are no chapter titles or even numbers. The version I listened to had multiple duplicate chapter "titles". A significant pause or even a chime would have been tremendously helpful for listeners, but that would require attention and caring about the quality of it. Who has time for any of that when you've gotta make money?!!!!


Final Thoughts

Speaking of money, this book could very well be emblematic of all things Baldur's Gate 3 going forward, unfortunately. This is what it means to be "bought out". We no longer get Larian Studios' Baldur's Gate 3. This is Wizards of the Coast's (owned by Hasbro), version of Baldur's Gate 3. It doesn't bode well to me, honestly. I'm not looking forward to the slew of future watered down corporate slop products of my all time favorite game.

To the reader who made it this far, I say, you're better off reading Astarion fan fiction. Seriously. I have read much better fan fiction of Astarion than this book. Genuinely superior in every way: having passion for the story of BG3 and being true to character, quality writing, actually engaging and interesting storytelling with a depth to it that makes me think and feel things other than the anger that comes from being offended (imagine that). Best of all, you can read fan fiction for free!

[Sanne (forlornreverie) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really tried to give this book a chance, even when I saw the negative reviews coming in. Not even Neil's performance for the audiobook managed to elevate the experience because this was just so boring.

There are bits and pieces that genuinely echo Astarion's character, but this product lacks the courage to grace those with depth. This version of the character feels like a criminally sanitized, easy to digest caricature of what Astarion is supposed to be. I'm not sure who this book is for. Because you would know, only dedicated fans would go out on their way to buy a book from their favourite game. I don't think casual players of Baldur's Gate 3 would even know of its existence. But somehow, someone at WOTC made a decision to produce a lukewarm take on their most popular character, because why wouldn't they - make the most amount of money with the least amount of effort.

This is deeply disappointing as I was looking forward to this book since it was announced. Astarion is my favourite character from BG3 and there's not a run where I bring it over myself to not romance him. I don't consider myself to know everything about him, but at least I've played his whole arc in the game, something I don't think the author can say.

I don't want to go into much detail, there are a lot of in-depth reviews who do that already. I know I shouldn't have expected a 250-page-book to deep dive into the darkest moment of the character, but as I paid 30 bucks for this, I at least expected it to have some respect for him and for his audience. I can go on AO3 and get better written things without paying anything. You know, I avoid fanfictions because I'm afraid of people not getting the characters right, but as it turns out, licenced products aren't exempt from that, and they come with a bill. Next time I will re-evaluate the risks of reading a bad take on a character...

The thing is, this could be just an adventure with OCs set in Baldur's Gate and it'd still be, at best, an under average book. The premise is fine, the romance could maybe work, if this wasn't Astarion, but still it'd would need some edits to have it something going for itself, because Astarion's name and ghost - because his depiction is just that, it's a mere shell - does some heavy lifting for this.

I'm not sure if I ever want to pick up anything by this author in the future. I know this isn't 100% on them, but what is, is their reaction online. They also admitted that they didn't have time to write this book. I think her version of Astarion would say something along the lines of Darling, we know. And it shows. And he'd be right.

[Izzie · Rating 0.25 out of 5]

When Larian Studio’s Baldur’s Gate 3 was released in 2023, it raised the bar in the genre of computer role-playing games with the complexity of its narrative storytelling. At the core of its success was a team of creatives working together to tell a story about cycles of abuse, how we can perpetuate them and how we can break free. The player is given unprecedented agency to affect the narrative and the award-winning motion capture performances of the cast gave depth to the characters.

The darling of the game, an instantly polarizing character who elicited both instant adoration and intense dislike, was the elven vampire spawn Astarion. Astarion’s quest arc explores heavy themes around trauma, agency and power dynamics. The character resonates with sufferers of Complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and especially survivors of sexual abuse, including the actor who portrays him, Neil Newbon. News that the owners of the Forgotten Realms IP, Wizards of the Coast, had commissioned a character-focused tie-in prequel novel was met with both excitement and trepidation. Would the author T. Kingfisher, a prolific and award-winning author of genre fiction, and WoTC treat this character’s story with sensitivity and remain faithful to the essence of the character? Kingfisher assured fans that she understood the assignment and we had nothing to worry about. She’d consulted with Astarion’s lead character writer and with sensitivity readers, she said.

I went into reading this novella hoping for a new take on a beloved character. I’d heard positive things about this author. I enjoy seeing stories adapted for new media. I anticipated that, at worst, I would be disappointed. As I read, however, what I experienced wasn’t merely a gross mischaracterization. The characterization violated the foundational narrative core of this character in a way that heinously mirrors societal biases against real victims of sexual abuse. Kingfisher’s character is, no doubt, tormented. He is going through it. But what he is going through is different from Astarion’s backstory in a way that fundamentally changes the entire character.

Larian Studios made the choice to have a vampire spawn as a companion character, despite spawn being monsters and not a playable race by DnD 5e rules, for the sake of the story they were telling. In the Forgotten Realms setting, spawn do not have free will. They are puppets, extensions of the vampire lord’s will. Astarion is freed of his master’s control via the game’s narrative and has, when you meet him, been given autonomy for the first time since he became a spawn. This fact is foundational to the character, his motivations and the nature of his trauma. The player, if they care to engage with his story, may be shown throughout the game — in dialogue choices, in character approvals, in cut scenes, in artifacts within the environment, in skill checks for insight and wisdom and deception and persuasion and by the omniscient narrator — that a core part of Astarion’s trauma is that he was forced against his will to use his body to lure victims for his master, Cazador Szarr, for 200 years. It is a fantasy setting narrative about sex trafficking.

“I’m so used to my body being used as a tool to get what someone else wants. But I’m free now. It shouldn’t be like that.”

Kingfisher has given Cazador’s spawn a degree of autonomy that not only undermines this foundational element of his backstory, it reframes him as a serial rapist and an unreliable narrator of his own trauma. In this telling, the spawn are given seemingly total autonomy on the method by which they deliver Cazador’s victims. The spawn deliver marks not to the “never once slept in” boudoir to be “entertained” until “Cazador appeared and…took them away” but to one of several “collection points” around the palace where they’re whisked away by animated skeletons. Astarion’s sister spawn Aurelia simply lures malcontents into alleyways and bludgeons them over the head. Astarion himself is shown luring a bard with a gig offer. When Kingfisher’s character recalls the enjoyable sexual encounters he’s had with Cazador’s victims, it is from the perspective of choosing to use his victims for his own sexual gratification as he lures them to their deaths. This makes Astarion a willing perpetrator rather than an unwilling instrument of Cazador’s sexual violence. To the player, Astarion will recount that in the early years as a spawn, he might have been able to take some fleeting enjoyment from sex with his marks. This is in the context of forced prostitution, of sex trafficking, and is an example of the stellar work that Larian did in avoiding the “perfect victim” troupe. Sex can feel good even when you don’t want it. According to Kingfisher, he wanted it.

As ARC reviews began circulating and previews were released, backlash ignited across social media. Kingfisher has repeatedly characterized this as fans wanting a “perfect victim”. Ironically, her characterization sands down all “imperfections” until Astarion is unrecognizable. Many players identified with Astarion because, like him, trauma molded us into someone who is difficult to love; slow to trust, mercenary and perhaps even cruel. Neil Newbon, Astarion’s actor, has likened him to a feral cat in this way. Astarion has known only cruelty under the absolute control of a sadist whose guiding principals dictate, “Always dominate. Allow none to be your equal” and says that “One of his (Astarion’s) few redeeming features is that he never trusts.” Astarion is often characterized by players as “liking evil choices” but the pattern is one that many abuse victims instantly recognize. He is cruel because kindness has no place in the world he inhabits. He distrusts altruism because no one was ever kind to him. The game does not leave this to inference but spells it out repeatedly in his dialogue as well:

“The strong had two centuries to pluck me from torture, but no one came.”

“You’re the only one. Other people don’t have a heart like you. You’re you. No one is like that.”

“Heroes are half the damn problem. Fools that believe in right and wrong — good and evil.”

“Heroes didn’t save me from Cazador: mind flayers did.”

“No one ever looked out for me. No one ever said a kind thing to me.”

Kingfisher happens to know “no one” and his name is Han den Suriel, the answer to Astarion’s unanswered prayers to every god! The characterization of den Suriel approaches a level of naive altruism that is difficult to read as anything other than satire. He is perfectly the opposite of the kind of person to whom Astarion could extend trust and affection. Kingfisher even calls back to a voice line from the game when Astarion makes a disparaging comment about folk hero Wyll Ravenguard, “Wyll’s the sort of prince-type I would have once dreamed of marrying. When I was about thirteen.” Of den Suriel he asks, “Where were you when I was sixteen and daydreaming about heroes?” Totally absent is Astarion’s harsh cynicism and the selfishness that has allowed him to survive under Cazador. In the course of the whirlwind buddy comedy heist adventure that they find themselves in, Astarion risks his own life to save this oath-sworn enemy of the undead no fewer than three times.

There are only two people in Astarion’s backstory to whom he is shown to extend empathy and they represent inflection points for his character. Astarion’s darkest moment, his worst memory, the event that “broke” him and marked an end to any defiance of Cazador was his year long entombment. “A year of silence. Months of scratching my hands raw, trying to carve my way out. More months of not moving at all. Months wishing only for death.” This was a punishment for running away rather than delivering a “darling boy” to Cazador “in the first decade” of his enslavement. Later, in Szarr Palace, if your adventuring party chooses to confront Cazador, you encounter another “sweet man” who was lured to his death by Astarion twenty years after his entombment, Sebastian. Astarion had thought all of his victims dead and is so rattled by being confronted by Sebastian, now a spawn, that it impairs the character’s combat performance in-game. Sebastian is there as a contrast to the “darling boy”, the proof that Astarion’s entombment served its purpose in molding him into the seemingly callous person you meet.

Kingfisher has conflated these two characters and “Sebastian” haunts the narrative of her novel, not as an emblem of the complex perpetrator trauma that Astarion experiences as the instrument of Cazador’s sexual violence, but as a rare exception to the monotony of his conquests. The character’s musings on Sebastian are wistful and longing.

With this central trauma written out of the narrative, what replaces it? Kingfisher replaces it with rape by Cazador and his associates. The rape scene in this book is framed in a truly bizarre and inexcusable fashion. Kingfisher has gone to the trouble of introducing entirely new lore around vampiric healing to allow the character to shrug off traumatic dissociation within moments of being raped. Providing an “explanation” like this does not excuse the grotesque minimization of trauma. Cazador offers sexual use of Astarion to an associate in order to curry favor. Cazador threatens him with both bodily harm and magical compulsion if he resists. He submits to being raped over the soup course during a formal dinner. What the narrative says about this is, “It was astonishing the things you would do of your own free will simply to avoid being forced to do them.” I find it astonishing that this needs to be said, but compliance under duress is not an exercise of one’s “free will”.

Another thing that is lost in this telling is the impact of Astarion’s loss of his sense of self. The book transitions, somewhat jarringly, between current events and his mortal life. He makes reference to his mortal life in the narrative. It is not simply that the reader is being given insight into his past, he also recalls these events. In contrast, in the game, he reveals that he remembers nothing before the moment of his death, not even the color of his own eyes. Astarion’s entire world before your meeting has been shaped by Cazador’s cruelty and absolute power over him “mind, body and soul.” This is a powerful allegory for the effects of parental abuse and religious trauma. To the player Astarion says, “There’s almost nothing left of the person I was. Just a name on a rock. … For nearly two centuries, I stalked the streets like a ghost while the person I was lay here, dead and buried. Now I need to figure out who I am. What I want.”

I know what I want. I want an apology for the psychic damage I took from reading this.

This review is also published here as a free-access article on Medium: https://medium.com/@rockdovelady/the-...

[Lizzy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Finally I can rate this after goodreads was censoring negative reviews! This book sucks! Kingfisher admits to having too many book deadlines in the year, and this feels like that- rushed and sloppy and generic. Her usual tone overwhelms, and the magic and vibes of the BG3 world are absent. If you love her books, you probably would like this, but with her rapid fire publishing rate lately, her books have homogenized, her characters blur together, and they start to suffer from “Whedonism.” I went from an avid fan loving her books to annoyed and bored and frustrated by each new release- too much of a good thing.

I have strong feelings about the character and about how sexual abuse should be handled in books. This ends up being a corny love story, doesn’t feel canon, and feels too fluffy and disrespectful to a character with a lot of complexity and darkness that resonates strongly for a lot of fans. I understand the intense emotions felt by readers disappointed by this book. Kingfisher shouldn’t have written this without having the time and sensitivity to handle this, and it really feels like a gross cash grab.

Stick to fanfic.

[Sophie]

SCREAMING