Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows

by Jaym Gates (Editor), Matt McElroy (Editor), Natania Barron

This is the tale of a forgotten age before the seas were bent, when the world was flat and floated atop a sea of chaos. This is the tale of a decadent empire raised up on the bones of the fallen Golden Age, whose splendor it faintly echoed but could not match. This is a tale of primal frontiers, of the restless dead, of jeweled cities ruled openly by spirits in defiance of Heaven’s law. This is a tale of glorious heroes blessed by the gods, and of their passions and the wars they waged in the final era of legends.

Genres: Fantasy

126 pages, ebook

First published December 31, 2015

About the author

Jaym is an editor, author, and freelance publicist.

Reviews

[Marco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty disappointing. This anthology was one of the stretchgoals of the Kickstarter for the 3rd edition of the role-playing game Exalted.
Some stories were good, more were... less so. Most of the stories could have been written for just about any anthology of fantasy fiction and some don't make any sense at all in the context of the game/setting.
Apparently more than a few of the authors do not really know their way around Creation (the world of Exalted) and even the better stories had some glaring setting mistakes that could have been evaded with better editorial oversight. Which is especially jarring as some of those had already been called out in the Kickstarter comments after the preview PDF had been released and could have been fixed prior to the final version release.

[Chuck Dee · Rating 2 out of 5]

In any anthology, I've found that the quality of the writing is uneven, but there is usually some bit that makes the reading worthwhile. That is not the case here. I finished it because I paid for it, but did not enjoy it in the least. There were nuggets if a good idea in places, and themes that I'd pondered before about the subject of Exalted, and things that I'd not even thought of before. But the writing was so sloppy, even from writers whose other works I like, that it was a real slog to get through. Very disappointing.

[Carol Lai · Rating 2 out of 5]

The short stories each vary in quality. None of the of them stuck out as amazing. The use of lore was inconsistent, and each piece could have used some guidance or heavy editing.

The old devs and editors at Onyx Path really show their lack of focus and dedication to the Exalted line by not reviewing and having revisions done before publishing.