What do you think?
Rate this book
Shadows Over Innistrad
375 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2016
1 person is currently reading
123 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 17, 2019
In a world often described as every day is Halloween, there’s an eternal conflict between the light and the dark, between vampires, horrors, werewolves, necromancers, cultist, demons, witches and much more in one side to Angels and humans in the other, But the one and most powerful angel Avacyn who’s church leads the survival effort, has a terrible secret that even she’s unaware of. The conflict starts with a treason that sparks the fury of a powerful mage that takes the mission of destroying that world and causes the downfall and madness of the protector, we see how all starts to crumble and something even bigger is starting to take place. A wonderful story even if you’re not familiar with the characters or the game.
June 8, 2016
Definitely better written than the Zendikar stories.
July 7, 2018
Following on from the previous instalment of 'Magic Stories', 'Shadows Over Innistrad' jumps planes from the now saved Zendikar to the world of Innistrad. It's a world of gothic horror, with werewolves, vampires, necromancers and zombies. And protecting the innocent from the monstrosities is the guardian of Innistrad, the Angel Avacyn. Or at least she would be protecting if it wasn't for the fact that she has somehow become corrupted and is slaughtering anything that she deems impure; werewolves, vampires and even humans are now all the same to her!
Planeswalker Jace Beleren has also arrived on Innistrad in search of Sorin Markov for help in tracking down the third of the Eldrazi, and after coming across an old journal in his search, he gets drawn into the Mysteries of Innistrad.
'Shadows Of Innistrad' is definitely a departure from the previous collection of short stories. Here, it all has a very gothic feel to it, with much more horror elements as well. I enjoyed the stories. The first few stories set up the world building as we are introduced to this plane, and then Jace arrives and instead of just being a collection of different stories, the collection now has some kind of plot and everything seemingly all connected.
Aside from Jace and Sorin Markov, there are other recognisable characters for regular players on this plane. Liliana Vess, of course, but also Thalia, Tamiyo and Arlinn Kord.
Its a good read, that adds a few more layers to the Magic multiverse, and I'm looking forward to the next set of stories, 'Eldritch Moon', to see what other mysteries of Innistrad are revealed.
Planeswalker Jace Beleren has also arrived on Innistrad in search of Sorin Markov for help in tracking down the third of the Eldrazi, and after coming across an old journal in his search, he gets drawn into the Mysteries of Innistrad.
'Shadows Of Innistrad' is definitely a departure from the previous collection of short stories. Here, it all has a very gothic feel to it, with much more horror elements as well. I enjoyed the stories. The first few stories set up the world building as we are introduced to this plane, and then Jace arrives and instead of just being a collection of different stories, the collection now has some kind of plot and everything seemingly all connected.
Aside from Jace and Sorin Markov, there are other recognisable characters for regular players on this plane. Liliana Vess, of course, but also Thalia, Tamiyo and Arlinn Kord.
Its a good read, that adds a few more layers to the Magic multiverse, and I'm looking forward to the next set of stories, 'Eldritch Moon', to see what other mysteries of Innistrad are revealed.
September 3, 2017
I love the world of Innistrad. It is probably my favorite of the different planes of the Magic multiverse and getting to read stories about it is a huge amount of fun for me. This collection is very well written for the most part with a wide range of styles. I like the fact that we have tales from both the average people of the plane trying to figure out why so many bad things are happening such as werewolf's resurging population, a spreading madness among the people of the plane, and the corruption and growing insanity of Innistrad's angelic protector Avacyn; and tales from the direct point of view of Jace and Liliana as he try's to figure out what's happening and she tries to keep doing what she's so good at. Surviving.
I already know how it all turns out mostly but the details are interesting and an excellent read. I want to get to the next book because I am curious to see what the rest of the Gatewatch thinks of Innistrad.
In summary it's a fun quick read for fans of Magic.
I already know how it all turns out mostly but the details are interesting and an excellent read. I want to get to the next book because I am curious to see what the rest of the Gatewatch thinks of Innistrad.
In summary it's a fun quick read for fans of Magic.
September 28, 2022
This book, while having an incredible setting, great writing, and a top tier cast of characters, feels far less focused than Zendikar did. It reads more like an anthology than it does like a single book. When read like a collection of short stories, I think it's a solid 10/10. But the moment you consider that this is one story arc that is meant to flow together, it does feel rather all over the place. I think if the story had put a heavier focus on the Avacyn plot, it would've felt like it had more intention in it's story. But what we end up with is really only two chapters being relevant to the Avacyn story, with the meat of the book being focused on one-shot character studies into daily life in Innistrad, which I can't complain too much about because they're all well written and very cool, and well worth the 4/5 I gave the book. I just hope that Eldritch Moon has a bit more cohesion to it's story, what with it being almost half the length of Shadows over Innistrad.
February 17, 2019
Loved this book. After trying to read the book Forgotten Realms book “Blackstaff”, it was sooooo refreshing to pick up a book with good narrative, that didn’t rely on so many stupid magic items, and so on. Yeah, I hated Blackstaff.
This book was a hoot. And even though each chapter was written by someone else, it doesn’t show or jolt the reading.
And the chapter made of letters between brother and sister was fun to read. Sausage tailor, ha!
This book was a hoot. And even though each chapter was written by someone else, it doesn’t show or jolt the reading.
And the chapter made of letters between brother and sister was fun to read. Sausage tailor, ha!
February 10, 2022
Been brushing up on my Innistrad lore what with the new set releases of 2021. Pretty good as MTG stories go. The writing was certainly better than Origins or Khans of Tarkir (I couldn’t even finish that one…). For some reason I can’t seem to find the rest of the story (compiled as Eldritch Moon) online anywhere though, so I was kinda disappointed not to see how it ends.
February 13, 2020
What's left to say about these? These web-based stories are just awful, and I'm just pushing through out of obligation to get to the new, recent change back to actual novels. (I'm sure those will still be laughable, but I much prefer the long-form narratives to this crap)
January 15, 2018
This was ok definitely better written than the Zendikar stories but nothing fantastic.
September 15, 2018
+1 star if you are curious about Avacyn and the world of Innistrad, -1 if you don't care about Magic the Gathering at all
August 9, 2017
The writing on these feels a bit off. I really enjoyed 'Games' though.
August 1, 2016
Just catching up with the lore. One more to go.
July 3, 2016
Incredibly badly written! But oh so awesome lore!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews