War in Tethyr

Forgotten Realms: The Nobles #2

by Victor Milán

The second installment in the Nobles series introduces the adventures of many striking new characters, who do battle to the death--and beyond--in the Forgotten Realms setting.

Genres: Forgotten Realms, Fantasy, Fiction, Dungeons and Dragons, Science Fiction, Collections, Ebooks

313 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 24, 1995

About the author

Victor Woodward Milán was an American writer known for libertarian science fiction and an interest in cybernetics. In 1986 he won the Prometheus Award for Cybernetic Samurai. He has also written several shared universe works for the Forgotten Realms, Star Trek, and Wild Cards Universes. He has also written books under the pseudonyms Keith Jarrod, Richard Austin (Jove Books The Guardians series), Robert Baron (Jove Books Stormrider series), and S. L. Hunter (Steele series with Simon Hawke, who used the pen name J. D. Masters). He also wrote at least 9 novels under the "house name" of James Axler for the Harlequin Press/Gold Eagle Books Deathlands series & Outlanders series.

Reviews

[Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!* · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, for a libertarian screed with a D&D story shoehorned in, it was still better than the Ed Greenwood Forgotten Realms books.

This book was weird. Just weird. Victor Milán was a good writer by IP-author standards, not particularly hacky, with some original novels under his belt too. He dead now (2018, cancer) but before that, he is probably best remembered for The Dinosaur Lords (2015), released to great appeal but mixed reviews. I found the quality of his prosecraft refreshing (again, this is coming off Ed Greenwood in a publication order Forgotten Realms novel reading project), although it occasionally suggested a need to show off the author's puissant vocabulary, forcing me to look up words like marmoreal and contumacy. I liked his in-setting similes:

Father Pelletyr's face collapsed like a souffle in an oven around which an ettin had just commenced a drunken clog dance.

Or,

She was a few fingers shorter than Zaranda and slender as a kobold’s hope of redemption.

Or,

"They look like a passel of Uthgardt Beast Cultists coming off a half-moon binge."

With some archaic flavour, and mostly stiff, formal dialogue, it's a renaissance fair-style fantasy, with some excellent descriptions and vivid action scenes. The writing style is not what made the book weird.

Part of what made it weird was the agenda. I expected libertarianism, given the content of one other review on Goodreads and the wikipedia bio ("an American writer known for libertarian science fiction and an interest in cybernetics") and the book did not disappoint in this regard. I don't really understand libertarianism or Ayn Rand and won't make an effort to do so, don't politics at me, but here's what I got from this book:

The main character, Zaranda "Mary Sue" Star, who you may be surprised to learn is not like other girls, travels about Tethyr promoting rugged self-reliance. The governments she encounters want a nanny state in which your hard-earned belongings can be seized and held indefinitely, they will bury you in bureaucracy, and only they know what's best for you. Taxation is indistinguishable from banditry, and only under Zaranda's wise guidance can common people be given power without then turning it against their neighbours. To give it some Forgotten Realms flair, we see mobs of Halflings preaching about redistribution of wealth, and anti-Gnomic racism. Agents of factions that go against Zaranda's ideals are invariably described as either grotesque and unwashed, or laughably fancy fops. There's not much of a plot going on around all this; the story meanders because plot and adventure are not the purpose. All of this culminates in a bald public debate between Zaranda and the current rulers of Zazesspur about the tyranny of a strong central government, and the general incompatibility of government and freedom.

My favorite part is when the lead villains are revealed as literal baby-eating satanists, drawing a straight line from Faerun to QAnon.

But all of that also isn't the weirdest part of the book, although it sets a strong foundation. The weirdest part is where, after the political climax, the book remembers that it's supposed to be a fantasy adventure story and tries to shove all that into the last fifty pages. Technically the story elements that lead to the final action pieces appeared earlier, but more like an afterthought than legitimate plot points. Those last pages go way, way over the top with traitors and demons, a descent through a lava-filled cavern, new species of dragons, heroic deaths, declarations of parentage, and Ao knows what else. It's all absurd and clearly tacked on to the "real" story to satisfy the publisher's requirements. It's certainly explosive, but weird. The moment I'll remember best is the silent archer in a solo standoff, stuck with literally two dozen arrows but still fighting back while of course every one of his own shots is lethal, and when he runs out of arrows he starts ripping them out of his body to shoot back at the enemy soldiers. It's a cool sequence for this line of books, but entirely out of sync with the prior 260 pages. The kicker of a finale, where our heroine is acclaimed CEO of Tethyr, couldn't come soon enough.

Weird, weird book.

[Jason Kalinowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's about a hard working noblewoman/adventurer Zaranda Star, who is concerned about the people under her protection while giving every creature a chance; she takes in traditionally evil or neutral characters who end up having a propensity towards good. Zaranda's reputation proceeds her as she is hired by followers of Ao to help patrol for bandits in the country; its a way to make back some money for her impounded goods (no reason why, other than the leaders of the country kinda suck). She proceeds to teach and arm villages that need her help. At this point the villagers are helping her raid a stronghold to help get her goods back that were taken from her. Eventually she is captured and was almost put to death were it not for her allies (the half elf and the orog). In the end, she is betrayed again by the people who hire here as they are not who they seem. Good eventually triumphs over evil due to a dragon related surprise revealed at the end of the story (I didn't see that dragon part coming at all)! Overall I wanted to like this book but it was just a bit unDnD like for me.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a tough one to review for me. I found the author quite talented. He is skilled with language and creates memorable characters.

So what's wrong?

Hackish political (libertarian to be specific) diatribe is wedged into the story in a most unpleasant way. There is a short speech near the end that felt like John Galt's final speech in Atlas Shrugged in a mega-condensed format.

Without the politics, this one is easily 4 stars for me.

[Debra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than the first book of the series. This atleast has magic, and magical creatures. Felt like the ending was a little lacking and seemed rushed. Another chapter at the end would have been enough to conclude it.

[Hyann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to rate that book. It got potential for a higher score but fail to pass to the next level.

The basic story is good. Veteran Mage-warrior Zarranda Starr need money to pay is estate to retire to she organized a caravan to make money. After a few fights she arrived in the city to have it confiscated by corrupted local official.
She got caught in the political intrigue and finish the by fighting deep evil in the city.

The problem is the first half of the book is only about the caravan and fight that are too easily won. You only know that she and her comrades are powerful. Milan introduced too much weirdness in the book: a talking mare, talking skull, bugbear servant, Orc paladin (accept fighting he only make one paladin feat), dying priest... Too much thing that didn't serve the principal intrigue directly. It's more like many good short stories.

The second half is more on the intrigue so it keep you interest. Again you got a character that come from no where and only served to save the day. Lot of repetition (another book that need to tell us that a ranger didn't like cities every 50 pages). Also you need to love hero plucking dozen of arrows from his body to continue to fight by will only.

Again you got many good idea in this book, It would be better if the author has cut some gimmick and developed more the second half of the book. Looking in my collection, I got at least two other Battletech book wrote by Milan, I hope it will be more focus.

Not bad but should have been better!

[Kagan Oztarakci · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Those who trade freedom for security in the end get neither...Who honors promises made to slaves?"

[Summer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alright, I'm on a roll rereading old favorite D&D novels. This is a charming one, involving a lot of politics and philosophy. Feels like a Pratchett book got fed through the wood chipper of D&D chaos. Our heroes have had their hard-earned loot confiscated, and various factions try to strong-arm them into working for them, as racism against demihumans simmers in the city, bandits roam the country, and something ominous is spawning monsters in the darkness underground. A fun sandbox adventure!

In terms of the D&D game behind the plot, boy did this gaming group have drama! There are two problem players here: the guy who built a minmaxed homebrew orc paladin designed to cause conflict with two of the party members, and the guy who is mean in-character and eventually betrays the party and is immediately executed and nobody thinks about him again (I feel like his player got kicked out of the group). (Granted, none of this actually happened, this is a novel written by one person, but that's the D&D experience I feel like it's drawing on.)

So, could this be a D&D game? Yes, absolutely. It really captures the spirit of old-school stronghold-building and followers, a bunch of NPCs and magical items loitering around from a long career of dungeon crawls, and strong-willed players who insist on doing what their characters would do. The party splits every now and then, but even when the book doesn't follow some characters, they're all participating in the adventure. There were some fantastic moments of roleplay - some touching moments between characters, some good zingers as they defeated enemies, and some really funny exchanges that feel like goofy high-energy antics around the table. This book has what adventurers want - as the protagonist says, "all the glory you could hope for, or at least an interesting death."

[John Driscoll · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this a few years ago as research for my own D&D game, which is set in the country of Tethyr. It's... fine, really. D&D books, as with most franchise fiction novels, have a ceiling in terms of quality. None of them are going to be the next Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. With that in mind, War in Tethyr is pretty average as far as D&D fiction goes, which means it's a relatively fun read but not one most people are likely to revisit or even remember in great detail.

War in Tethyr is the story of Zaranda Star, a veteran warrior mage who is looking to make some cash to fund her retirement. So she and her ragtag band of weirdos (including a talking horse and an orc paladin, among others) set out as caravan guards. In the process she gets roped into defending a city from a demonic threat and stumbles into something much bigger than she ever planned for.

There's a reason these characters aren't as well known as Drizzt Do'Urden and his friends, or Raistlin and his companions - the book isn't as good as those. But for a one-off piece of literary junk food, there are much worse ways to spend an afternoon.

[Chase · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of things happened. The fight scenes were good, but the character descriptions were annoyingly overly specific and not subtle.

The most interesting things were good on paper but it all melted together in terms of emotional impact. The character is a mary sue who frequently lectures people. The plot (I think?) was about how the main character Zaranda wanted to make money as a merchant.

The BEST character, and my favorite character by far was Shield of Faith, the orc paladin of Torm. He's a badass, and awesome. Everyone else was annoying in a stupid way. Interesting concepts, like dragons as people, demons in disguise as people, and yeah. Hard to say what I actually read.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second of the six Nobles books, each of which are stand alone novels. The first and second parts of "War in Tethyr" were a little slow at times as you learn who the characters are and a little about each. Also sometimes when going from chapter to chapter it would seem like the story was jumping around or something had been missed. In the end it was just the quick passage of time in the story. The last part of the novel was the most interesting for me as I knew who was who and the real action and developments had started; which in the end lead to a know ruler of Tethyr.

[Matija Drmota · Rating 1 out of 5]

This one hovered on two stars, until the point I realized it just wasn’t worth the trouble anymore. The author had a knack of feeling the story feel disjointed to the point I neither knew nor cared what the plot was supposed to be. The characters have no real motivation, the plot points just happen out of thin air, and the reader is thrust from one situation into the other without really knowing what it’s all supposed to be about. Bad, even for an early FR book.

[Atlas J Stormzand · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of this book was tricky to get through in my opinion. There was a lot of exposition that was done over a great deal of pages. But the second half is where you start seeing a lot of pay offs. If you’re interested in this sort of almost tedious high fantasy thing, you’ll like this book.

[Ogre · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh, just ugh. Disjointed as heck, and the characters don't so much develop as just...suddenly become new characters. The "secret" villain is telegraphed from the beginning and the plot is, frankly, not only uninspired but directly lifted from several other such stories.

[Stuart Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly good.

[Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many thoughts, much to unpack, later

[Diogo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thrilling story about an adventurer's rise in the kingdom of Tethyr.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought that this was going to be the story about a wayward prince-in-hiding's (who has been introduced in several novels before this, and has been stated in other readings to have come back to Tethyr and reclaimed his throne) return to his kingdom. This is not that story.

The book is broken into 3 parts, the first one taking up half the book. Unfortunatly, it was done in the typical style of this genre during this time period (early 90's) The author introduces his characters, who are just bizzare enough to keep us interested, and of course powerful enough to be adventures. Step 2, a good monster joins the group (this always seems to happen) and is persicuted by one or more of the bigoted characters. They all fight several pointless battles while the author hints at the true plot line.

This goes on for about 275 pages.

However, the ending of this book was actually quite entertaining (sans the epilouge, the last sentence of which was sooooo bad). I won't spoil it, but if the writing could have been as good and straight forward as the last 30 pages, this book would have gotten more stars. Even so, I still rated it with 3 only for those last chapters.

I also liked that the book was chock-full of referances of prior books. This might be a deterant for others, but for me it was a smige of justification for getting through all of the lame old fantasy books I've been reading for the last year!

[Francisco Becerra · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the worst FR novel I've read. It's D&D meets My Little Pony, trying in the end to mix Kult to it. The characters are very poorly written, the chapters are almost a succession of random encounters only to be fast-wrapped in the end. The first two-thirds are slow and lame, full of useless descriptions, until it is fast paced but still filled with lame dialogue. The main character, Zaranda Star, is a noble turned wizard turned fighter turned merchant turned adventurer turned entrepreneur ending being queen and stepmother of a construct. Her party includes a mute ranger that can withstand any amount of arrows without even flinching, a hipsterish bard, an angsty ultrapowerful teenager, an orc paladin... A reading to forget. But it is impossible, fantasy this bad is unforgettable.

[James Garman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is apparently the second in a series, and I am thinking that I may have missed some stuff by not reading the first. However, essentially, it is about a female magical/warrior and her band of confederates as they work to bring peace and freedom to the part of the problem they live in.

There are all sorts of beings from Gnomes too Trolls in her society and in her troop. One of the important questions that come out of the novel is "how do we know our friends". Do we choose to hang on to life long prejudice or learn to accept each other as we are?

It is well written but it seems to me it drags a bit in places.

[Ken]

Sold to Lewis White on eBay on 7-Jun-11:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI....

[AndrewP · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Nobles Book #2