The second installment in a four-part saga brings about the return of powerful and mysterious villains who would upset the entire balance of power in the Forgotten Realms world.
It was a long time coming for me to finish this 3 (4?) part series, and overall I would say it was well worth the time.
Troy Denning is one of the first authors I ever read, and I think that I've read just about everything that he's written within Forgotten Realms. It's been interesting and fun to watch him progress as a writer. And I would say that this is one of his best works.
One of the most fun things about this series is that Denning takes aspects of other books he's writen within the Realms and kinda twists them all together. There are giants from "twilight Giant" series, characters from his first stories during the "time of troubles", and of course the never boring "Chosen of Mystra" (who, no offense, I prefer the way Denning writes them to Greenwood's style).
The entire series was quite the epic ride; when mindflayers and beholders are the least of your worries you know it is going to be intense. This book was kind of one continual climax, as the characters must topple the city of shade, fighting the evil shadowvar, and then rush back to evereska to save the mythal from the nefarious phaerim...in the end, the good guys win...
In all fairness, once I remembered what happened in Book 1 after the first twenty pages, this book moved very quickly and I was able to enjoy the dynamic of the various storylines leading into the siege of Evereska. I was hoping to see a late appearance of Elminster to save Tiverton somehow in the end, but it was not meant to be. I look forward to finishing this series this week, but I have to pause in order to read something extraordinary that just dropped into my lap.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
"Being the only way seldom makes something the right way." "Trying is easy, doing is hard." "...a wise adivsor always tells his master what his master is eager to hear."
I've read a number of Troy Dennings books, and loved most of them. This one however feels like the weakest one I've read from him. The first book in this series seemed much better. I am not sure why, but it just was not great. Part of it seemed to be trying to contort around D&D's weird rules about magic.
The action and pacing in this book made is a better read than the first, possibly because there's much more going on now. The main characters are a mixed bunch of being able to emphatise and not being able to, so they're ok. It's also nice to see the major characters of the Forgotten Realms setting starting to much more involved. Too bad the early parts of this book felt disjointed from the first book.