Darkvision

The Wizards #3

by Bruce R. Cordell

Exile of the Hidden City.
Adept of forgotten mysteries.
Sorceress of the Celestial Nadir.
Haunted by nightmares and driven by desire, Ususi defied the will of her people and ran away, venturing alone into the outside world her people abandoned centuries ago.
Now Ususi tracks down the relics that brought both prosperity and doom to her people. But when an old adversary finds her trail, she discovers the danger she thought past might only be beginning.

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

311 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 12, 2006

About the author

Bruce R. Cordell authored books for Dungeons & Dragons over the course of 4 editions (2nd Edition through 5th Edition D&D). These days, he’s a senior designer for Monte Cook Games, LLC designing Numenera , Gods of the Fall, and The Strange. Also a novel author, his credits include several titles set in the Forgotten Realms. Bruce’s tenth novel, Myth of the Maker, is just out from Angry Robot Books:
http://brucecordell.blogspot.com/2017...

Reviews

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was much better than the last one in the Wizard series (really, probably better than both of the others I've read in this series)

I've said in previous reviews that a big reason I read the Forgotten Realms books is to learn the about areas and history of those areas to better play the game. Its a fun world, and I like to explore it. "Darkvision" did not fail to deliver, giving the reader a lot of insight on the far eastern and ancient civilization of Imaskar; one of the oldest human races that fell due to their extravagant magics and slave revolts. They hid what was left of their society deep underground or on demi-planes. In this novel, we learn what brings the Imaskari back to the surface world and what has happened to their powerful magics having been left to grow and propagate on other planes.

Some good characters, interesting settings, insight on the Imaskari and other cities in the region. A lot of fun. Cordell did a great job. He also hints several times that he will be fleshing out the elusive Star Elves in his next Forgotten Realms novel "Stardeep"!

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Darkvision by Bruce R. Cordell- This is the third book in a stand-alone series called The Wizards. The first book is Blackstaff by Steven E. Schend, the second is Bloodwalk by James P. Davis, and the final book is Frostfell by Mark Sehestedt. With this series, each book is a separate entity and can be read out-of-order. The only theme to mention is that each novel revolves around wizards and magic. Darkvision is set in the Forgotten Realms universe of the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons. Bruce R. Cordell has written a number of book site in the Forgotten Realm setting, however, he's written a novel under the pen name of T. H. Lain called Oath of Nerull. His Forgotten Realm novels include Lady of Poison (The Priests series), Stardeep (The Dungeons series), and is currently finishing The Abolethic Sovereignty trilogy (Plague of Spells, City of Torment, and Key of Stars [due out 9/2010:]). He has also contributed a number of short stories to various anthologies. Darkvision was released in 2006 and published by Wizards of the Coast.

Ususi defied her people in order to discover relics and secrets that spelled doom for her ancestors. After studying her people history, she knows the dangers the lurk in the hidden and lost portals she seeks. But when her people send out a vengeance taker to bring her back, she's learns that she's her peoples only hope. At the same time, a geomancer named Thormud begins sensing that the earth is troubled and sets out to go investigate, taking along his grumpy, foul-mouthed elven bodyguard Kiril Dustmourn. As the geomancer starts to discover more about the disturbance, a sickness strikes at Thormud, leaving Kiril to try to take care of the mess and save Thormud's life. We are also introduced to a self-imposed exile by the name of Warian Datharathi, as he discovers that his crystal prosthesis is more than it appears. Returning to the city, family, and family business he abandoned, he is shocked to see others with similar crystal prosthesis' that decorate people bodies. After talking with his family, he realizes that something doesn't seem quite right about the crystal the family mines and augments they create, and decides to investigate. Can Ususi save her people? Can Kiril stop drinking long enough to stop the taint that is afflicting the geomancer? Why is Warian's arm acting oddly and why is his family acting weirdly?

Criticisms:
1) Exposition. This was a real problem throughout the novel. At first, the reader is thrown into a world that seems very foreign and different from normal Forgotten Realms books. There are times when the novel seems to slip into Eberron (the Dungeons and Dragons version of a steam punk fantasy setting) territory. It's not awful, just awkward. I know that the Realms have some 'skyships', but they are fairly rare and not widely known. The big problem I had is with the golem-like prosthesis' that were described. It seemed really 'out there' and didn't quite feel right. Well, at least its still better than a split-in-half golem-human. The other problem with exposition was that there barely was any. I was extremely confused and lost for the first fifty pages. I had no real background in the history of Imaskar and whenever Ususi's chapters came up, I couldn't follow anything. The final problem is the random bursts of exposition. As the story progressed, you would get almost random bursts that describe what something was. There is one example that really annoyed me. Late in the story, we get some background information in Kiril and her sword Angul, that just gets inserted between two paragraphs that really had almost no connection to her and the sword other than her touching it's hilt. It was awkward and immediately took me out of the story. Exposition is the key problem in this story.
2) Source Book. For half of the novel, it seemed like I was reading a Dungeons and Dragons source book or module. The worst part is, I've never read a source book or module, but the descriptions felt like it's something that would be in them. Most of the time, paragraphs and sentences read like they were picture captions. Then parts of the story felt like I was reading a transcript from a Dungeons and Dragons game. However, most of these parts were early in the story and were quickly broken. Heck, there even was a scene where we see something being described with the use of parentheses. It was really bothersome.

Praises:
1) Characters. I really, really enjoyed the characters. Each main character was unique and different. They had wonderful development and always made me seem to care about them in some way. The best characters had to be Kiril, Warian, and Zel. Kiril is a very different type of elf. She's rude, curses a lot, and is a blatant alcoholic. I have yet to read an elf portrayed in this way. The best part was that her character really grew as the story progressed. When we first meet her, she's a unlikeable character, but as her journey with Thormud progressed, we started to see a different side of her emerge. Quite frankly she was just amazing. Warian is pretty much the same way, but he started off as a likeable character. He had this charm and charisma that you couldn't help but like. Then after some events happen, we start to see a different side of him, a touching and heartfelt side. He was just plain charming. Finally, we have Zel. I will admit that he stole a lot of the scenes he was in. When we first meet Warian's uncle Zel, we are lead to believe that he doesn't care about Warian and comes off as a villain. I really don't know why I liked Zel so much. He was basically forgotten toward the end of the story, but even then he had this presence you couldn't ignore. He was the story's scene stealer. The other main characters were good, but nothing really can compare to these three.
2) Plot. I have to say that the overall plot is really interesting, when you actually start to understand what was happening. I'm not going to give much away, but it was unique enough to set itself apart. There are three main plots going on and while the start off totally different, they somehow merge wonderfully. Honestly, when I hit page two hundred, I could never have guessed how Kiril and Thormud would meet up with Warian's or Ususi's group. It was a very nice surprise. It does have times it falters, but overall it's good.

Side Notes:
1) Magic. Honestly, for a book about a wizard, there wasn't very much magic happening. Sure there were some spells here and there, but overall I was kind of disappointed by the lack of magical combat. Not to mention the real lack of a 'wizard' (I know that Ususi is one, but she didn't seem to be the main focus and really never felt like a wizard).
2) Eberron. Now I mentioned this before in the Criticisms, but it needs mentioning again. This story felt like it belonged in Eberron. It just did.
3) Cover Art. I really like it but it's flawed. The heroic pose of Ususi is really striking and eye-catching. The color scheme is nice as well with the usage of green. It really caught my eye. However, green IS NOT the crystal's color in the story. In the story, they are more of a purple or violet color. Does that fact take down the coolness of the cover? Kind of. Would violet or purple work in green's place? Probably not.

Overall: 2/5
Final Thoughts:
Darkvision is a decent story with some hampering problems. The major problem is the lack of exposition in the beginning and the random bursts of it. The other problem is that Darkvision felt more like a source book or module. However, the positives do balance out it's faults! It has uniquely different characters that really stand out. Kiril and Zel need to be mentioned again. The plot felt fresh and came together beautifully at the end. Would a new or casual Forgotten Realms reader like this? I'd have to say no, due to the lack of background information on a lot of things in the first fifty pages. However, if you have some background in the Realms, give it a read.

[Andrei Magasiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great characters

Very good storyline/plot. Wonderful use of magic, magic battles, cursed swords and magical creatures. Definitely recommend reading this one.

[Bradley Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book.

Great story, interesting characters, and awesome world lore.

A spicy meatball if you will.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book polarizes people. Some people I know, I’ve heard that they like this book. Some people I know, I’ve heard that they don’t like this book. I’ve heard one person say they liked the characters very much, and another who said they disliked the characters a great deal. I’ve heard people applaud the plotline, and others condemn it. In the end, the book polarized me, too, because I liked certain aspects of it a great deal, and others, I disliked a great deal.

The first thing, right off the bat: Ususi on the cover. I’m assuming its Ususi on the cover, anyway. No one else fits the bill. An effort needs to be made- not that it really matters anymore- to stick to one description of the character. The Ususi on the cover hardly matches the Ususi on the cover of Lady of Poison, the first novel to feature her. And then, depending on which image you want to pick as “most accurate”, her depiction still varies a great deal from how she is described in both novels, and how Deep Imaskari are described in Lost Empires of Faerûn.

With that out of the way, the characters were the strongest part of this novel. Most of the protagonists were pretty interesting. Ususi, like she was in Lady of Poison was fairly interesting. Iahn, asides for me liking the spelling of the name, was also a strong character. He made something I never really gave two thoughts about- Deep Imaskari Vengeance Takers- interesting. Kiril Duskmourn, at the time I read this novel, I did not like her. My reasoning was this: There is little information about Star Elves available, so I want a Star Elf character who is typical of the subrace, so a little more illumination is shed on what they are like, not a character who is atypical, and as such, doesn’t really shed much illumination on what Star Elves, as a whole, are like. Even though I didn’t like that aspect of her, her history and such with Angul was tantalizing (and I am happy was explained in Stardeep) enough that, when her character was featured, I didn’t feel the urge to skim, rather than read. Thormud the Geomancer was an interesting character. I typically don’t like Dwarves that adhere to that “pseudoScottish” mold. Since Thormud didn’t, I was okay with him. “Desert Druids/Geomancers” are a concept that I think is interesting, anyway, so…He was “sick” for so much of the book, though, that he was hardly very much of a major player. Prince Monolith, also, was a character I mostly enjoyed, though he was never too much of a major player.

The novel introduced us to al Qahera, the home of mysterious “Desert Elves”. I didn’t like that part. Because the city and those Elves were newly introduced, seeing them felt very out of place. Elves are not something I’ve ever associated with Eastern Faerûn (with the exception of Star Elves, in the Yuirwood), and especially the Raurin Desert.

I disliked Warian Datharathi a great deal. I didn’t like his uncle, Zel, either, nor the entire “pit stop” to Vaelan, to be honest. I think that the entire Plangents plot was bad. I mean, let’s start from the top: Plangents come from “The Body Shop”. Strike one. Plangents are pretty cyborgish. Strike Two. The entire concept is pretty hokey. Strike three.

Pandorym, as an antagonist, was interesting. I never read Elder Evils, so I don’t know what information is in there, but as it was described in the book, Pandorym is an interesting entity. Created and/or “bottled” by the Imaskari to be a weapon. The Imaskari are pretty cool like that. Shaddon, Pandorym’s main servitor, I didn’t think was all that great. He had all the makings of a cheesy villain.

The book’s worst part is it’s ending. Qari, Ususi’s “sister”, was really Ususi from another temporal reality that was created when Pandorym meddled with the Time-Space Continuum, to prevent Ususi from being born, because, Pandorym, knowing the future, knew that only Ususi would be able to defeat it. It is not explained how/why both Ususi and Qari exist simultaneously, however. Bruce Cordell has mentioned that he thinks that the Forgotten Realms have room for “everything”, but I’m sorry Bruce. This part was just poorly conceived, asides for something being completely alien to the Forgotten Realms. Any chance for what I think would have been a fairly good book to have a fairly good review was ruined here. In fact, the book is lucky that it has those things mentioned above, otherwise its review would be more dismal than it already is.

[Joel Flank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Darkvision, by Bruce Cordell, is a book in the Forgotten Realms setting and part of the Wizards anthology series. It's a stand alone novel that has a main character of a wizard, which is the only connection to the rest in this series, which is a good thing. Like many of the other anthology series set in the Realms, many of the entries are hit or miss, but I was happy to find out that Darkvision was a strong hit. For those who don't know, Bruce Cordell is one of the long term game designers for Dungeons and Dragons. He's best known for inventing the Far Realm of Cthulhu like horrors from beyond for the game, as well as being a strong proponent and author of psionic related material for the game. Both of these topics make a tangential appearance in the novel, even through they're not called such by name.

Darkvision starts off with 4 different protagonists, each of whom has a connection to the events at the center of the plot. A strange type of crystal has appeared that is the conduit of a bizarre and powerful entity from beyond the mortal world. This entity can grant creatures who wear pieces of the crystal (or implant it into their bodies) great power, but can also control them and use them as agents in the world. Ususi is a wizard from a hidden enclave deep underground, who is searching for artifacts of her people's past, when they ruled a great magical empire. Iahn is a deadly magical bounty hunter and assassin who is on her trail. Warian is a scion of a powerful merchant family and has an artificial arm made of the crystal, which suddenly and without warning starts granting him superhuman strength and speed, but he can't control it, and is concerned about how it might be draining his lifeforce each time he uses it. Kiril is an elven swordswoman, who is running from her past, and serving as the bodyguard of a dwarven geomancer wizard as he searches for the strange force that has upset the balance of magical flow through the world's mantle. Of course, all of these characters eventually meet in their separate quests, as they discover that the ancient force behind the crystals is behind each of their goals.

Cordell does a wonderful job of both writing exciting and interesting scenes and characters, as well as having his story fit both the Dungeons and Dragons rules and the Forgotten Relams setting. The action takes place in a region known as the Shining South, which is at the 'edge of the map' for the Realms setting, which gives Cordell a lot more room to write what he wants, since there is much less content about this region to worry about contradicting. This also lets the novel provide more 'screen time' to this region, which has a distinctly different feel than the more heavily described areas of the setting. He also focuses the plot on the lost Imaskari Empire, which is another area of Realms lore which has had little detail over the decades.

Overall, this was a fun fantasy adventure read, and one of the better Forgotten Relams novels in the past few years. I'm looking forward to reading it's somewhat sequel, which continues the adventures of Kirl, the elf.

[Pierre van Rooden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had only read one earlier novel by Bruce Cordell. That was Lady of Poison, which I didn't really enjoy.
So it was with some doubts that I started on Darkvision. The novel involves Ususi, a character that plays a (very) minor role in a plot line I was working on. To my surprise, I actually did like this novel.

The characters in the novel are worth caring for, and the story is engaging even if the adversary is (again) an unfathomable entity with no clear motivation except utter destruction. In other words, a rather unmemorable villain.
The story is fairly simple as well, but has a few elements that make it quite different, notably the idea of 'plangents', the use of sky ships, and some concepts like geomancy and desert elves.

The setup of having a 'split party', with chapters alternating between them actually worked, even though I am not normally a real fan of cliff-hanger chapter endings.
The characters had enough depth, and I was sorry to see one of them die.
Ususi was actually a bit bland compared to most of the other characters. Vel and Warian made fine anti-heroes, and Kiril was... well, very present. I am going out on a limb and assume she is the heroine in "Stardeep' (so we'll learn what Angul is, then, right?). I hope Thorlund makes it in there as well. He makes a nice contrast to her.

Some elements in the novel are quite 'unreal'. It is difficult to picture certain scenes, especially in the Celestial Nadir. That's ok, as it does not dominate too much of the story.

As I said, the villain was not so interesting. I prefer villains that I can relate to over abstarct abberations. Its defeat seemed a bit easy (basically closing a door), but at least you want the heroes to win - and some of the monsters encountered were a good find.

One things I missed: some scenes set in Deep Imaskar. I think a chapter or two set there, with some local Imaskaran struggling through Pandorym's invasion, might have made a nice cut-away.

[Kagan Oztarakci · Rating 4 out of 5]

"too much thinking is an excuse to avoid what must be done!"

"Everything - hopes, worries, fears - all these pale in the face of death. Only what is important remains."

[David Tanner · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the second time I tried to read this book, and perhaps because I was on vacation with little to distract me, I finished it this time. It was okay, although I was disappointed that the world and people of Ususi weren't clearly described, especially since they seem to play an important part in the newly redefined Forgotten Realms series. I was also surprised that there was no explanation for how Ususi becomes queen - will the people really buy that she saved them if no one but Iahn witnessed it? Why wouldn't they still blame her for causing the problem because she broke the seal on the hidden city and also had been entering the Celestial Nadir. I'm beginning to see a lot of problems/flaws with this whole world after the change. I may stop reading FR altogether which would be a shame since I was there for the first publication.

[Yvensong · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was your classic fantasy adventure novel. A group of adventurers go off to challenge, and hopefully defeat, the big bad that threatens to control and destroy the world. There were times I felt like I was in the middle of a computer game, which was no surprise as this entertaining novel was penned by Bruce R. Cordell, a game designer known for adventure games.

It's not a great piece of literature, but it was fairly well-written by someone who actually has a grasp of the English language.

[Bill Snyder · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the plot & the over all story. But This is suppose to be about the wizards, and frankly the story revolved more about the others than the female wizard herself. Hardly any powerful magic like the previous books before.