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Forgotten Realms: The Harpers #14
Stormlight
Strange magic is on the loose in Firefall Keep -- magic that kills.
The mightiest War Wizards are baffled, and the shadow of destruction threatens valiant Harpers and nobles of the fair realm of Cormyr alike. With Harpers in jeopardy, it is up to the legendary Bard of Shadowdale, Storm Silverhand, to overcome this lethal and mysterious force.
"Whenever I think I can relax at last, someone hastens to brutally point out to me that I've fresh work to do. It's time to save the world again." -- Storm Silverhand
Stormlight is the fourteenth in an open-ended series of novels focusing on the Harpers, the secret organization for Good in the Forgotten Realms fantasy world.
The mightiest War Wizards are baffled, and the shadow of destruction threatens valiant Harpers and nobles of the fair realm of Cormyr alike. With Harpers in jeopardy, it is up to the legendary Bard of Shadowdale, Storm Silverhand, to overcome this lethal and mysterious force.
"Whenever I think I can relax at last, someone hastens to brutally point out to me that I've fresh work to do. It's time to save the world again." -- Storm Silverhand
Stormlight is the fourteenth in an open-ended series of novels focusing on the Harpers, the secret organization for Good in the Forgotten Realms fantasy world.
320 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 1, 1996
14 people are currently reading
791 people want to read
About the author
Ed Greenwood
364 books875 followersEd Greenwood is the creator of the Forgotten Realms fantasy world, which became the setting for his home D&D game in 1975. Play still continues in this long-running campaign, and Ed also keeps busy producing Realmslore for various TSR publications.
Ed has published over two hundred articles in Dragon magazine and Polyhedron newszine, is a lifetime charter member of the Role Playing Game Associaton (RPGA) network, has written over thirty books and modules for TSR, and been Gen Con Game Fair guest of honor several times.
In addition to all these activities, Ed works as a library clerk and has edited over a dozen small press magazines.
Invented the character Elminster from the popular Forgotten Realms RPG series. Currently resides in an old farmhouse in the countryside of Ontario, Canada.
Ed has published over two hundred articles in Dragon magazine and Polyhedron newszine, is a lifetime charter member of the Role Playing Game Associaton (RPGA) network, has written over thirty books and modules for TSR, and been Gen Con Game Fair guest of honor several times.
In addition to all these activities, Ed works as a library clerk and has edited over a dozen small press magazines.
Invented the character Elminster from the popular Forgotten Realms RPG series. Currently resides in an old farmhouse in the countryside of Ontario, Canada.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
September 3, 2025
Storm has been inexplicably naked in prior Ed Greenwood books, but never as many times as in this one.
The book opens with her carrying large logs (literally as heavy as three horses) and chopping wood, all while naked. Later there are multiple reasons for her to be naked: she just woke up (sleeping naked) and has to jump into action, her clothes all burn off in the midst of action, her clothes are torn to shreds during a battle, she has to take them off for a spell that turns her into a ghost and of course she had to rematerialize in the midst of a bunch of wizards instead of, you know, the safe isolated place where she left her clothes. It's great that she's not ashamed of her body, but does she have to force her nudist beliefs onto everyone else who clearly doesn't share them?
That was the only interesting part of the book.
As for the rest, like all of Greenwood's books, it's wall to wall unneeded scenes, renaissance faire style dialogue, dull stock characters (of which Greenwood has perhaps three variations,) uninteresting climactic battles that literally last for over 24 hours, redshirt deaths galore, and diversions to distant characters for moments that accomplish nothing other than padding the page count. The book's plot could have been condensed into a short story or a novelette, tops.
Also, shapeshifters. His prior half dozen novels were stuffed with shapeshifters, so of course for variety this book instead featured a shapeshifter. Greenwood apparently believes that the only interesting villains are shapeshifters. I suppose it is possible to make a shapeshifter villain interesting. If so, Greenwood has yet to accomplished this.
And, of course, the Mary Sues. Greenwood never met a main character who wasn't eternally wise and skilled and magically endowed and able to prove all critics fools and draw from unending wells of power.
When I read his first novel, Spellfire, there was a lot of all that, but at the time I gave him the benefit of the doubt. At this point he had written so many more novels yet completely failed to improve in any way, and by all accounts this is as good as he ever gets. Hooray. At least with my current maximally tolerated rate of reading Forgotten Realms novels, it will be almost a year before one of his comes up again. It's an Elminster novel, a.k.a. "horny Gandalf." Good times ahead. At least there's potential that the intervening novels will be at least tolerable.
The book opens with her carrying large logs (literally as heavy as three horses) and chopping wood, all while naked. Later there are multiple reasons for her to be naked: she just woke up (sleeping naked) and has to jump into action, her clothes all burn off in the midst of action, her clothes are torn to shreds during a battle, she has to take them off for a spell that turns her into a ghost and of course she had to rematerialize in the midst of a bunch of wizards instead of, you know, the safe isolated place where she left her clothes. It's great that she's not ashamed of her body, but does she have to force her nudist beliefs onto everyone else who clearly doesn't share them?
That was the only interesting part of the book.
As for the rest, like all of Greenwood's books, it's wall to wall unneeded scenes, renaissance faire style dialogue, dull stock characters (of which Greenwood has perhaps three variations,) uninteresting climactic battles that literally last for over 24 hours, redshirt deaths galore, and diversions to distant characters for moments that accomplish nothing other than padding the page count. The book's plot could have been condensed into a short story or a novelette, tops.
Also, shapeshifters. His prior half dozen novels were stuffed with shapeshifters, so of course for variety this book instead featured a shapeshifter. Greenwood apparently believes that the only interesting villains are shapeshifters. I suppose it is possible to make a shapeshifter villain interesting. If so, Greenwood has yet to accomplished this.
And, of course, the Mary Sues. Greenwood never met a main character who wasn't eternally wise and skilled and magically endowed and able to prove all critics fools and draw from unending wells of power.
When I read his first novel, Spellfire, there was a lot of all that, but at the time I gave him the benefit of the doubt. At this point he had written so many more novels yet completely failed to improve in any way, and by all accounts this is as good as he ever gets. Hooray. At least with my current maximally tolerated rate of reading Forgotten Realms novels, it will be almost a year before one of his comes up again. It's an Elminster novel, a.k.a. "horny Gandalf." Good times ahead. At least there's potential that the intervening novels will be at least tolerable.
May 16, 2012
Evidence that Ed Greenwood should not be allowed near a typewriter.
Skip to the 'epilogue' chapter for the most ridiculous slash-fanfic-by-the-original-author you've ever had the misfortune to read. Really, the only redeeming quality of this hideous Mary-Sue of a novel is laughing at the finale.
Skip to the 'epilogue' chapter for the most ridiculous slash-fanfic-by-the-original-author you've ever had the misfortune to read. Really, the only redeeming quality of this hideous Mary-Sue of a novel is laughing at the finale.
February 2, 2020
Disclosure: I dread reading this guy's novels. Apart from his naked girl fetishism and prolixity, he exemplifies most things that are wrong with these D&D novels. The characterisations are poor and the character motivations aren't much clearer. The protagonist Storm Silverhand, one of the vaunted Seven Sisters in the Forgotten Realms, has been relegated to nuclear-blasting wisecracker who solves every problem and conundrum with facile ease. She's a less Mary-Sue version of Greenwood's Shandril, but even with that concession, her godlike powers render every challenge she faces a non-issue. The upshot of this, is that the novel itself loses any impact and fire, and becomes a mass of words about a noble family and their shape-shifting boogerboo.
*Sigh* You know, Mr Greenwood has created a world I enjoy playing games in, and reading about, but he must be stopped from writing novels about his creation. Somebody? Please?
*Sigh* You know, Mr Greenwood has created a world I enjoy playing games in, and reading about, but he must be stopped from writing novels about his creation. Somebody? Please?
January 8, 2013
This was a typical Greenwood novel. The hero was continually running around naked, the fight scenes were blurry and piled one on top of the other. The characters behaved with unbelievable candor and rediculious stupidity at times. Of course, in the end, the hero prevails and all is well.
I was really disapointed in the bad guy being just another shape changer (Greenwood is so fond of them...it feels like a cop-out). However, the one redemption of the book was that I didn't know that it was the story in which the fallen god, Bane, reemerged. So, that was cool.
I was really disapointed in the bad guy being just another shape changer (Greenwood is so fond of them...it feels like a cop-out). However, the one redemption of the book was that I didn't know that it was the story in which the fallen god, Bane, reemerged. So, that was cool.
April 23, 2008
Any Ed Greenwood book is worth reading at least once. This one I have read about 8 times. I love the stories of the seven sisters. Storm in particular is a character that proves hard to forget. Any fan of the Realms will appreciate Greenwood's humour and creative storylines. A very good read.
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April 1, 2024Kaladin needs to get over himself...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfTMj...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfTMj...
September 27, 2016
I got to know Ed Greenwood as a frequent contributor to Dragon Magazine when I was a D&D enthusiast in the 1980s. He was also running a campaign in the “Forgotten Realms” that would become very important – perhaps the most-used fantasy-world setting for gamers apart from “The World of Greyhawk” invented by Gary Gygax. Perhaps even more used after Gygax’s ouster from TSR. Anyway, although what I’d read by him in the past were fantasy-related, they were more like gaming articles and adventure aids, not “fiction” in the normal sense, so this novel was my first foray into his fiction writing.
Having just read “The Anubis Murders” by Gygax, I inevitably compared this to that story. It fares reasonably well, but still wasn’t really my cup of tea. It starts as a murder mystery, which gave me an “uh oh” sense after the disappointment of the aforementioned novel, but it quickly moves into a fairly open clash between the monstrous and super-powerful “foe” and the equally powerful protagonist, Storm Silverhand, chosen of the goddess Mystra and representative of the Harpers. I get the impression that fans of the Realms would be familiar, if not with Storm, than with the goddess and organization at least, and I have some vague inkling of them from my exposure to D&D, but it isn’t really necessary to understand the novel – you’ll get the idea from what is here. Generally, the plot is that the “foe” is a shapeshifting monster with aspirations to godhood who has learned to steal the powers and memories of the people he kills and transforms into. As it grows more powerful, it becomes bolder and more destructive, and Storm has to figure out a way to stop it at Firefall Keep (where it first emerges) before it gets loose and either destroys or takes over the world.
It’s a fairly straightforward plot, but I have no problem with its simplicity. I do have some criticisms of the execution. The biggest problem I had was the characters. First, there were just too many to keep track of, the entire population of the Keep, which seems to number in the hundreds, and all of them have names like “Ergluth” and “Broglan” that are hard to remember and keep separate. Beyond that, however, few of them are written as distinct personalities. Toward the end of the book, Storm reveals romantic feelings towards one of the characters who up to this point has been a cypher – I couldn’t imagine what she saw in him, because he just seemed to be yet another faceless magic user. Part of the problem is the slasher-movie scenario, which means that characters are frequently killed within a few pages of being introduced. I stopped trying to find distinctive personality traits, because of the short life expectancies. Some characters I noticed at the beginning seem to have died without me even noticing, because they aren’t mentioned in the last hundred pages or so.
Because of this, Storm Silverhand becomes more or less the “anchor” of the story – you know she’s going to live, even when she sometimes loses a battle and gets into pretty dire situations. I wasn’t crazy about her as a character, either. I don’t think Greenwood is especially good with writing strong female characters. He intends Storm to seem confident and powerful, with the accumulated wisdom of centuries of experience combined with a devil-may-care whimsy, but she spends a lot of the novel nude for no particular reason. It’s all the more noticeable because this doesn’t happen to any of the male characters. Ultimately, she seems to be a kind of puerile sexual fantasy, despite the fact that she can lift trees out of the ground and shoot silver flame from her eyes.
So, in the end I wasn’t crazy about this book as literature, but I did find it an amusing read with lots of action. It’s not bad for what it is, it just doesn’t aspire to be anything more than that.
Having just read “The Anubis Murders” by Gygax, I inevitably compared this to that story. It fares reasonably well, but still wasn’t really my cup of tea. It starts as a murder mystery, which gave me an “uh oh” sense after the disappointment of the aforementioned novel, but it quickly moves into a fairly open clash between the monstrous and super-powerful “foe” and the equally powerful protagonist, Storm Silverhand, chosen of the goddess Mystra and representative of the Harpers. I get the impression that fans of the Realms would be familiar, if not with Storm, than with the goddess and organization at least, and I have some vague inkling of them from my exposure to D&D, but it isn’t really necessary to understand the novel – you’ll get the idea from what is here. Generally, the plot is that the “foe” is a shapeshifting monster with aspirations to godhood who has learned to steal the powers and memories of the people he kills and transforms into. As it grows more powerful, it becomes bolder and more destructive, and Storm has to figure out a way to stop it at Firefall Keep (where it first emerges) before it gets loose and either destroys or takes over the world.
It’s a fairly straightforward plot, but I have no problem with its simplicity. I do have some criticisms of the execution. The biggest problem I had was the characters. First, there were just too many to keep track of, the entire population of the Keep, which seems to number in the hundreds, and all of them have names like “Ergluth” and “Broglan” that are hard to remember and keep separate. Beyond that, however, few of them are written as distinct personalities. Toward the end of the book, Storm reveals romantic feelings towards one of the characters who up to this point has been a cypher – I couldn’t imagine what she saw in him, because he just seemed to be yet another faceless magic user. Part of the problem is the slasher-movie scenario, which means that characters are frequently killed within a few pages of being introduced. I stopped trying to find distinctive personality traits, because of the short life expectancies. Some characters I noticed at the beginning seem to have died without me even noticing, because they aren’t mentioned in the last hundred pages or so.
Because of this, Storm Silverhand becomes more or less the “anchor” of the story – you know she’s going to live, even when she sometimes loses a battle and gets into pretty dire situations. I wasn’t crazy about her as a character, either. I don’t think Greenwood is especially good with writing strong female characters. He intends Storm to seem confident and powerful, with the accumulated wisdom of centuries of experience combined with a devil-may-care whimsy, but she spends a lot of the novel nude for no particular reason. It’s all the more noticeable because this doesn’t happen to any of the male characters. Ultimately, she seems to be a kind of puerile sexual fantasy, despite the fact that she can lift trees out of the ground and shoot silver flame from her eyes.
So, in the end I wasn’t crazy about this book as literature, but I did find it an amusing read with lots of action. It’s not bad for what it is, it just doesn’t aspire to be anything more than that.
August 30, 2023
Another example of how Ed Greenwood can't write, which is a remarkable feat for a legendary world-builder. At this point, I listen to the audiobooks as a lighter way of familiarizing myself with Forgotten Realms lore rather than for the actual novel. (GM's Lament)
Two sentences and you know all you need to know about any character, there will be some Mary Sue with unimaginable power running around naked, if there is any mystery it is because the author can't write suspense so he compensates by withholding information.
We love his world but we dread his stories, you know?
Two sentences and you know all you need to know about any character, there will be some Mary Sue with unimaginable power running around naked, if there is any mystery it is because the author can't write suspense so he compensates by withholding information.
We love his world but we dread his stories, you know?
January 22, 2025
It's a typical hot mess of Greenwood's. I've loved his worldbuilding but the novels always involve terrible structure, shallow and unconvincing characters, with a trademark of illogical nudity and sex. It's all in good humor but I did skip most of it.
February 11, 2017
Not good.
Αν ήθελα να διαβάσω πλοκή νηπιακού επιπέδου έβρισκα και αλλού.
Δεν ξέρω αν έχω διαβάσει χειρότερο FG book.
Αν ήθελα να διαβάσω πλοκή νηπιακού επιπέδου έβρισκα και αλλού.
Δεν ξέρω αν έχω διαβάσει χειρότερο FG book.
August 8, 2017
It's one of my favorite forgotten realms books. Storm is a GREAT character. The final battle was awesome. Highly recommended for fans of the Forgotten realms.
January 7, 2020
Great story
I’m always amazed as the Forgotten Realms unfold before me!
I’m always looking forward to the next book to take me to the Realms
I’m always amazed as the Forgotten Realms unfold before me!
I’m always looking forward to the next book to take me to the Realms
March 14, 2024
Before Brandon Sanderson there was a Forgotten Realms novel, by none other than Ed Greenwood, called Stormlight.
April 27, 2024
Good intriguing tale
September 19, 2014
(Mild spoilers)
I just picked this up to fill in an odd bit of time. Being familiar with Forgotten Realms, I was already primed and braced for space-operatic levels of dramatism, so I thought, "How bad can it be?". I actually read it the bath, careless of any damage to it, which shows my level of respect for it straightaway.
What starts off as some light-hearted epic fantasy soon devolves into farce with the literally god-like protagonist cheerfully quaffing deadly poison and waving aside incessant murderous magical attacks with nothing more than a smile and a raised eyebrow. Oh yes, did you know she's naked? Yes, this impeccable, proportioned and impossibly beautiful woman (also wise, being several hundred years old) also spends more than half the book either having her clothes ripped off, or undressing in front of, well, anyone. She can take a sword thrust to the heart and hardly notice, be burnt, crushed, smashed and flayed, and still survive, while wielding the awesome power of Mystra in return, but she's incapable of keeping her clothes on. A better example of Mary Sue cannot be found.
People are dying and being murdered left and right, but let's not focus on those minor details, or any intelligent strategy as the bodies pile up, let's just spend more time swirling long silvery hair and, and deciding what outfits to wear. Especially the jewellery to offset her excellent half-covered (for the moment) chest.
About the time that the nubile and 'oh so innocent' sex slave noble lady volunteers to be raped willingly several times, I had just about had enough and was grimly page turning, willing it to end. After the fourth, or perhaps sixth god-like power turned up to poke their oar in, I was pretty much over the entire thing, and Forgotten Realms once again.
Oh, and the ending is a completely predictable, and cheese-laden slap in the face to any sense of suspense or character development. Rainbows and unicorns everywhere, everyone (and I mean everyone) lives happily ever after.
Fans of the game world will enjoy, everyone else should stay well clear.
I just picked this up to fill in an odd bit of time. Being familiar with Forgotten Realms, I was already primed and braced for space-operatic levels of dramatism, so I thought, "How bad can it be?". I actually read it the bath, careless of any damage to it, which shows my level of respect for it straightaway.
What starts off as some light-hearted epic fantasy soon devolves into farce with the literally god-like protagonist cheerfully quaffing deadly poison and waving aside incessant murderous magical attacks with nothing more than a smile and a raised eyebrow. Oh yes, did you know she's naked? Yes, this impeccable, proportioned and impossibly beautiful woman (also wise, being several hundred years old) also spends more than half the book either having her clothes ripped off, or undressing in front of, well, anyone. She can take a sword thrust to the heart and hardly notice, be burnt, crushed, smashed and flayed, and still survive, while wielding the awesome power of Mystra in return, but she's incapable of keeping her clothes on. A better example of Mary Sue cannot be found.
People are dying and being murdered left and right, but let's not focus on those minor details, or any intelligent strategy as the bodies pile up, let's just spend more time swirling long silvery hair and, and deciding what outfits to wear. Especially the jewellery to offset her excellent half-covered (for the moment) chest.
About the time that the nubile and 'oh so innocent' sex slave noble lady volunteers to be raped willingly several times, I had just about had enough and was grimly page turning, willing it to end. After the fourth, or perhaps sixth god-like power turned up to poke their oar in, I was pretty much over the entire thing, and Forgotten Realms once again.
Oh, and the ending is a completely predictable, and cheese-laden slap in the face to any sense of suspense or character development. Rainbows and unicorns everywhere, everyone (and I mean everyone) lives happily ever after.
Fans of the game world will enjoy, everyone else should stay well clear.
September 18, 2013
Not too bad, but the body count and violence was way too high. Typical mass destruction and mayhem that can be expected from this author. Definitely not much in the way of "downtime" as far as the action is concerned.
May 5, 2013
Third time reading this, always a pleasure, Mr. Greenwood.
April 19, 2017
"...and chat coyly with ladies not so young to be cruel when refusing me."
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews