Shattered Chains

Magic: The Gathering: Greensleeves #2

by Clayton Emery

"Spare us from plague, drought, and wizardly duels..."

To common folk like Gull and Greensleeves, wizards were a blight on the land. When Greensleeves discovered her own magical ability, she decided to use it to break the power of the other wizards.

Gull's army helped, but not much--and Gull wasn't much of a general. Their mana vault might have helped, but she hadn't learned how to control it. Then a Hero of Benalia was sent to stop them and their "mana vault" came alive.
Things couldn't get any worse.

Or so they thought until the other wizards caught on to what Greensleeves was doing.

Shattered Chains

Based on the bestselling Magic: The Gathering trading card game.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Magic, Collections, Gaming, Science Fiction Fantasy, Science Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published February 16, 1995

About the author

Clayton Emery is an umpteen-generations Yankee, Navy brat, and aging hippie who grew up playing Robin Hood in the forests of New England.

He's been a blacksmith, dishwasher, schoolteacher in Australia, carpenter, zookeeper, farmhand, land surveyor, volunteer firefighter, and award-winning technical writer.

He's a member of the Mystery Writers of America and Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers of America.

Clayton lives with his sweetie in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where his ancestors came ashore in 1635.

From: http://www.claytonemery.com/CE_bio.html

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like the mythology is finally becoming a bit more solid in this one. A few things from Arena were retconned, which made sense. Turning those medallions for spells into just "oh wizards use these to remind them of things they've 'tagged' and places they've been" was kind of a clever way to undo the stupidest of precedents (though that still leaves the whole Ante aspect of wizard duels as a problem, but since they got rid of Ante in the game they just ignore it).

The cube thing turning out to be Helm of Obedience rather than Mana Vault was a little weird. On the one hand, was it just a coincidence it looked exactly like a Mana Vault? But on the other, it's interesting to have another definite signpost to know, reading this 23 years after the fact, just what was around in the game to draw from. I wasn't quite sure if we were past Alpha/Beta yet, though the previous book hinted at Arabian Nights. Now I have clear confirmation we're up to Alliances.

I wasn't a huge fan of bringing back characters from Arena, but they made it work. In the opposite of the usual pattern, our female hero gets fleshed out as a human being, and Garth is turned into a one-dimensional caricature for the whole five pages he exists for.

Similarly, Greensleeves is insta-aged up into a functioning adult all of a sudden, while Lily is reduced to a flailing puddle of feelings. It's all kind of resolved without effort in the end, but it was not a fun development to read. I feel like this author wasn't really sure of what to do with continuing storylines and serialization, so just invented a few one-off episodic character arcs, regardless of whether they fit the larger narrative.

Otherwise it was entertaining, if mostly a simple training montage and I couldn't get the South Park out of my head the entire time.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

i enjoyed this one a bit more than whispering woods! the biggest thing that jumped out at me was that the fight scenes felt more character-motivated and consequently didn’t feel like they dragged in places like happened a few times in whispering woods. and literally every single time in arena.

i’m sorry! i know arena keeps catching strays in these reviews, i promise i’ll let it go, but it was just such a genuinely unpleasant read! plus, it’s actually much more relevant to talking about shattered chains than it was to talking about whispering woods, since norreen (or rakel? unclear which name she prefers) was a major character and garth shows up a couple of times. i kinda love that emery writes garth in a way that makes it feel like he’s much more aware that garth is kinda shitty? and norreen/rakel gets far more agency in this book than she does in arena. though like, she is damseled and put through some pretty grisly torture that borders on fridging even though she survives, so i don’t want to give this book too much credit in that regard. (but, like. i would certainly rather be tortured than be a supporting character in arena.)

when it comes to pre-revisionist story, i still think most of the good stuff has been in duelist articles rather than the novels, but with a sample size of 3 the novels are incrementally improving each time so far! so that’s nice at least.

[Nataeo Kane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Personal Response
The book gave me some more lore for the multiverse that is part of Magic: The Gathering that I had no knowledge of. This book was one that kept me thinking of all the ways the book could take.

Plot
It starts with the camp getting hit by a tornado. Then the ‘army’ is attacked by a wizard, and a few days later they are attacked again by a group of assassins who are sent to kill Gull the woodcutter and his sister Greensleeves. An assassin was left behind, and her name was Rakel. The assassins were from the city-state of Benalia.

Recommendation
I would recommend this book to people who like Magic: The Gathering. It is a great book that does not need knowledge of the game in order to understand it. It has a thought-provoking story.

Characterization
At the beginning, Greensleeves was portrayed as simple-minded. As the book progresses, she becomes more effective with her magic and far more confident. She goes from someone that knows very little about magic to someone that able to wear the Brain in the Box. Gull goes from someone who knows very little about how to lead an army to an experienced leader in the art of war.

[Jeff Jellets · Rating 3 out of 5]

”This bauble,” Chaney concluded, “is the single most powerful artifact in all of history.”

The third book in the original Magic the Gathering series continues the story of Gull and Greensleeves as the siblings seek to purge their world of the rapaciousness of its wizards. The meta-textual implications of continuing to portray the game’s card players as analogues to the novels’ villains continues to fascinate me and, while this can hardly be compared to the classic fantasy of say The Hobbit, as low-brow sword and sorcery, I continue to be entertained.

Author Clayton Emery is able to add a lot more of the card game’s flavor to this one, taking readers to a few locations familiar to most Magic players — Benalia and Phyrexia — while also adding in spells and creatures from the game’s first two expansion sets: Arabian Nights and Antiquities. The connection to the series’ first book Arena is less successful as its hero Garth gets pwned just about as badly as Luke Skywalker in episode eight. As Garth doges out on his wife Norreen and toddler Hammen to do a little planeswalkin’, the girl and boy both get kidnapped and name-changed, then tortured and brainwashed while daddy’s off sightseeing.

Weirdly, Rakel — née Norreen — also ends up in Gull’s bedroll while Gull’s girlfriend from the previous book conveniently stands aside for the duration of the fling. The connection between the two prior books feels forced; clearly somewhere in the real world, a HarperPrism editor suddenly realized that readers expected books branded as part of the same series to have some connections to each other — so get that shoehorned into this one please, Mr. Emery! And be sure to add several gratuitous references to lactation too … for some really odd reason?

Mother’s milk and shoddy romances aside, Emery pulls off a throughly entertaining final act as Gull and Greensleeves split their forces to wage simultaneous assaults on Benalia and Phyrexia that turn out remarkably bloody. The denouement is also quite good as Emery rallies the opposition in the epilogue, completely convincing me to go on an immediate hunt for the final book in this trilogy just to see just how things work out for the woodcutter and his sister. As slightly flawed as this series might be, I’m still early looking forward to the Final Sacrifice.

[Francisco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuing my trip down the avenues of not so great tie-in fantasy novels I get to the third novel in the Magic The Gathering tie-ins. The first like 10 novels in the franchise are actually not really related to any plot line followed by the cards and while you get the occasional beast or artifact or even place name which have a corresponding card, it still feels quite free of following strictures from head-office, something which will happen later on in the series, including today.

It follows from the second book in the series and is loosely related to the first one. It keeps telling the story of Greensleeves and Gull as they fight exploitative wizards who use the masses as their own playthings. I am sorry but it's hard to read this supposedly light novel without getting a bunch of political overtones from it. So we have a rag-tag army of discontents and victims of wizardly oppression organizing to violently overthrow wizards who exploit people for their own personal gain. At times their methods come very close to those of their oppressors but they do manage to hold back enough to keep on the right side of things.

As a fantasy novel it's ok, but as a marxist-leninist revolutionary opus it's great. Punch them nazi wizards!

[Dan DalMonte · Rating 3 out of 5]

We continue the saga of Gull and Greensleeves as they try to liberate the domains from tyrannical wizards. Greensleeves manages to control a stone brain that, when placed on her head, threatens her sanity but gives her immense power. Rakel from Benalia emerges as a hero who trains Gull's army. Gull's army enjoys a number of successes against other wizards, and they act as a liberating force that frees many creatures from being slaves of wizards. There is always the temptation for Greensleeves to use her power for abusive purposes, but she is committed to integrity. Garth from Arena returns, but he has abandoned his wife Rakel in quest of magic. Different forces and individuals seeks to become gods in a constant battle for dominance, but Gull and Greensleeves represent the forces of goodness. They even liberate wizard they have captured, although they are tagged through their contact with the stone brain.

[Sherrey Worley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second book of the Greensleeves trilogy! How amazing the rollercoaster of emotions the book gives you! The plot takes you on a winding path that makes you question your own sanity, much as Greensleeves has. A pure battle between good and evil.
The crossover of characters from Arena made a stupendous impact on the story. From the arrival of Rakel and her deep rooted pain, to her heartwarming departure, the character and her plight really coincide with the growth of Greensleeves and Gull as they quest on for knowledge and vengeance.
Despite some frantic description sprinkled throughout the pages, the book reads well and gives a full story. Some characters received more growth than others, such as Gull. Yet, it still felt like it was appropriate for him to remain mostly the same as the beginning of the story as he is intended to be a very headstrong character.
Overall , I loved the book and greatly look forward to the next one!

[Cheyenne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was about as good as the first in the trilogy if not slightly better. There were fewer places where I felt my mind wandering in the heat of battle, though it still happened a little. I enjoyed the character development that happened over the course of this book, and the ending intrigued me to go on to the next one. The writing is neither impressive nor bad, though the author does have the unfortunate habit of using elegant variation.

[Thom · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good follow-up to Whispering Woods, which also ties nicely into Arena. The expansion of the cast manages to feel quite natural, even though an oversized cast is usually a major pet peeve of mine, and the plot, while a little too slow, is solid. One I’d definitely recommend, but definitely only if you’ve read Whispering Woods.

[Parish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not crazy about Garth's character assassination throughout the majority of this book, but I'm glad he came around in the end. I find Garth to be a more fun protagonist to follow, although Gull has grown on me, so I was sad to see he's retiring (although part of me wonders if that will truly last)...

[Israel Colunga · Rating 3 out of 5]

A better book than the previous one, more complex characters and a less naive than it's predecessor. MTG references are more closer to the card game on this one, i enjoyed that. Ultra cliche situations are still a thing, but, at least this was not a torture to read.

[Mk · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story has it's flaws, but I really enjoyed it as a Magic novel. I wish some of the more modern books were like this.

[Scott T.E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book makes me want to play MTG so badly :p

[Jack Doud · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fun to pick out the game references but ultimately not great writing. Read it for the nostalgia.

[Bruno Ports · Rating 5 out of 5]

awesome for mtg immersion

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, but I'd be hard pressed to call it good. Halfway through, every single plot point has a convenient solution revealed a page or two later. What follows is simply a string of events that proceed as if on rails. No drama, no suspense. You don't see a character or object or spell coming per say, but eventually it becomes obvious that SOMETHING will just so happen to show up or be revealed that will solve the current problem.

The book is not without its charm though. I continue to appreciate that women have many strong roles throughout this story, more than male characters even. And not one is a female stereotype. I like the focus on the human side of the wizard wars too. it's very compelling and I look forward to the conclusion.

[Chip Hunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The characters from Arena and Whispering Woods (the first two MTG novels) are brought together in this book. Noreen (Garth's Benalian lover from the first book) plays an important role here, having an affair with Gull before finally getting back with Garth... While this one reads a little too much like a soap opera for me, there are still some of the gory and tragic incidents that make the MTG books worth reading.

The evolution of Gull's army into a real fighting force and Greensleeve's training as a master druid are cool aspects of this book (although the appearance of Chanel the druid was not explained at all).

Overall, I wasn't too impressed by this one but I will continue reading the series.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a large step in this series. The first one made me not want to read it. However, this brought old characters and new ones to make up for the previous novels. The beginning took awhile to get started but once the plot was established had a good flow to it. I think the best part of the whole novel was the last third of the book. The characters that they met, the places they went, and the battles they fought were the best at the end. The resolution of the novel was well planned and it lays out the makings of the third novel. I am looking forward to the next installment in this series.

[Karlie Nyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best Magic novel that I've ever read, that's for sure. The book was entertaining, for the actual tie ins to the game. However, the characters didn't really develop that much, and frankly, the plot was poor. It's too bad really - I think the story could have had real potential. But - it was an entertaining book, even though poorly developed.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have really enjoyed this series so far. I think I rate it so highly only because I am a Magic: the Gathering player and this series is filled with game references and nostalgia for the cards that I remember from the early days of the game.

[Jeffrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I could write a better book.

[Tom Folsom · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was... just terrible.

[Nick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Best part of the book: The dated cover.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good Story based on the card game. Quick and easy read. Recommended

[Derp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Emery can certainly write an exciting battle scene. Not sure why he brings up Norreen's breasts and breastmilk so many times though.