War of the Spark: Ravnica

Magic: The Gathering #1

by Greg Weisman

Experience the first official adventure in Magic The Gathering's multiverse in nearly a decade as an epic conflict engulfs the world-spanning city of Ravnica.

Planeswalkers, powerful mages from many disparate realities, must unite against the elder dragon Nicol Bolas, who has claimed dominion over Ravnica and is perilously close to completing the spell that will grant him godhood. Now, as dozens of Planeswalkers fight alongside the Gatewatch--led by Chandra Nalaar, Jace Beleren, and Gideon Jura--against Bolas and his relentless army of Eternals, nothing less than the fate of the multiverse is at stake.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Magic, High Fantasy, Dragons, Young Adult, Audiobook

365 pages, Hardcover

First published April 23, 2019

About the author

Greg Weisman (BA Stanford, MPW U.S.C.) has been a storyteller all his life. His first professional work was as an Editor for DC Comics, where he also wrote Captain Atom.

Greg worked at Walt Disney Television Animation from 1989 through 1996. In 1991, Greg created and developed a new series for Disney: GARGOYLES, becoming Supervising Producer and Supervising Story Editor of that series.

In 1998, Greg became a full-time Freelancer. He wrote the new Gargoyles and Gargoyles: Bad Guys comic books for SLG Publishing, while producing, writing, story editing and voice acting for Sony’s The Spectacular Spider-Man. He then moved over to Warner Bros., where he produced, story edited, wrote and voice acted on the new series, Young Justice, as well as writing the companion Young Justice monthly comic book for DC.

Greg was a writer and Executive Producer on the first season of Star Wars Rebels for Lucasfilm and Disney, and he’s also writing the spin-off comic Star Wars Kanan: The Last Padawan. His first novel, Rain of the Ghosts, was published in 2013; its sequel, Spirits of Ash and Foam, arrived in bookstores in 2014.

Reviews

[Tzu-Mainn Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

In reality, I kind of want to give this book both 1 star and 5 stars. “War of the Spark: Ravnica” is a tie-in novel that coincides with the release of the newest Magic: the Gathering expansion set. The set itself is the culmination of three years and 12 expansions worth of story, and so I was extremely excited to read the grand finale.

Sadly, the book itself is pretty terrible. Although “War of the Spark” claims that there is a vast cast of characters, there are only two characters in the book: the Glib One and the Brooding One. Action scenes are written with an almost awe-inspiring lack of grandeur; for example, I was impressed with how easily my eyes glazed over a scene featuring the destruction of a gigantic snake zombie god. Half of the chapters end with an ellipsis.

And yet, despite all these flaws (and many many more), I couldn’t help but enjoy myself. Instead of lingering on my issues with the book, I mentally replaced them with the visions that the card game has brought to life for me. Nicol Bolas changed from a mustache-twirling parody of a villain into the cruel and frightening dragon exulting in his power shown in the card ‘Damnation’. Instead of seeing Sorin and Nahiri as squabbling punchlines, I saw them as two tragic figures of immense power unable to move past their crimes against each other for the sake of the greater good.

I would have been happier if “War of the Spark” had been a better book. But I’m appreciative of the fact that it’s just one part of a greater whole that has brought me so much joy and excitement.

[A.E. Marling]

Spoiler-free review:

Reads like an Avengers movie and is gay as fuck. Neither of those two things are criticisms.

An actual criticism: Because of the Avengers-size cast and because it is was written to be inclusive of people unfamiliar with all those characters---and the guilds---the story may tire readers with its exposition.

The War of the Spark does not cover anything from Guilds of Ravnica or Ravnica Allegiance, and you may enjoy it more if you wait for Django Wexler’s free stories. Sign up here: http://www.randomhousebooks.com/campa...

My Kobo eBook had multiple formatting errors, but I would still recommend it over Amazon.
Sounds like the audiobook was not a better option.

The War of the Spark novel was written at a middle-grade fiction reading level, similar to previous Magic Stories but different from most epic fantasy. Characters also speak with modern vernacular. These deliberate choices suggest a broader target market of readers. That said, the story has strong continuity and other details that will delight dedicated Vorthos Magic fans.

[Brian M · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is offensively mediocre.

Before criticizing the novel, I would like to point out that this novel was basically doomed to fail.

"War of the Spark: Ravnica" is the culmination of a long story-arc beginning in the Magic: the Gathering set, "Kaladesh" released in 2016. After several sets of hints and foreshadowing since then, the elder dragon Nicol Bolas is finally enacting his big master-plan. The storyline for Magic has up until recently been told in the form of weekly short fiction posted on the Wizards of the Coast website released alongside each Magic set. These stories are usually enjoyable and written by folks who have a deep understanding of the Magic IP and its 20+ years of lore.

So it is very surprising to learn that Wizards chose to tell the grand conclusion to this unwieldy story arc (there's upwards of 100 characters involved) in the form of a novel. Not only that, but Wizards hired Greg Weisman, who I assume is a perfectly fine career writer, but a writer who does not have any familiarity with the Magic IP. I probably do not need to further explain why it is a bad idea to hire someone unfamiliar with such a massive story to write the final chapter in which characters from all across Magic lore converge into one large battle on Ravnica. Listening to his appearance on Mark Rosewater's Drive to Work podcast, Weisman made it clear that he had no prior familiarity with the Magic universe, and had to read many, many books just to catch up with the plot and characters.

So it is not a surprise that this novel feels all over the place, with inconsistent characters and poor pacing. Additionally, for some reason, the prelude to the events of this novel which is written by a separate author and is to be released in more short fiction sometime this year, is currently unavailable to readers, so the novel constantly references events and characters who have not actually yet appeared in the story. When we jump into the action of the novel, major events have already taken place and characters mourn the deaths of other characters who the reader has not actually been introduced to.

This novel is marketed as a "starting point" for people to get into the Magic storyline, but it is in no way a good place to begin in Magic lore. Had I not followed the Magic story for the last 5~ years, this novel would not be comprehensible in any way to me. So much of this book is exposition, attempting to fill the reader in on events from the last few years of Magic story across 10 different POV characters to the point where it is completely indecipherable to people unfamiliar with the massive cast and list of planes in the multiverse.

With all of that context in mind, this novel absolutely fails. Characters in this book feel legitimately like fan-fiction versions of their prior appearances. The focus on romance sub-plots while the apocalypse is going on in the background is a real doozy. The dialogue is reminiscent of a bad YA novel, and the original characters Weisman creates are unfortunately very boring. Due to the nature of having a massive battle with a massive cast as your main set piece, this book does not do anything particularly interesting when side characters briefly appear. In one instance, two characters who have been MIA since their appearances in 2016 appear for literally two sentences before disappearing. When characters do appear, they have to be accompanied by long asides explaining who they are and what actions they have recently taken.

The battle-sequences are long and boring, with the stakes feeling very arbitrary. The use of description is pretty underwhelming and the presentation of events is unclear. The actual "master plan" of the villain is non-sensical, and the solution in defeating Nicol Bolas is hilariously pulled out of nowhere. Characters are not subtle in dialogue or action, and their arcs (if they have one at all) are very predictable.

I have never read a Magic novel before this, and I have heard mixed reviews about their quality. I picked this novel up after reading a few excerpts that seemed particularly bad, and was not disappointed in how much this novel made me audibly groan. It is a great hate-read, especially if you are Magic fan. Otherwise, I would avoid this.

I listened to the Audiobook, which I thought was pretty good for what it was. The large cast was obviously a challenge and some of the voices were a bit funny, but overall I think Robert Petkoff did a good job.

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

The short animation trailer WOTC put out was 1000 times better than this book. In fact it feels like the two don't even show the same story. They're not congruous. I don't know if this author did whatever he wanted to, or if WOTC told him to do what he did, but I was actively angered multiple times by the choices made. I do not recommend this book at all. It's more like the set up for future stories rather than the culmination of five years of work to get to this point. It's basically a commercial that never ends; "Read more about these planeswalkers later! Because we couldn't decide what to do really, so we just kinda didn't, and we'll write more later. Yay!"

******Spoilers from here on out********

There was a massive build up for this book, and it had to be a book instead of the online installments because reasons, and ultimately it could easily have been ~6 installments. Around half the book is on new characters, but not the new ones introduced over the last year, new as in new this book. Of the planeswalkers that die, "hundreds upon hundreds," only THREE are named/known characters. It feels absolutely ridiculous as you read it.

What upset me the most was Vraska getting her memories back on her own, before the book even starts. How would she have even known she had memories to get back?! The replacements Jace put in were good enough for Nicol Bolas to not see through, so, what the hell?! It makes NO sense, and it is plain dumb. What was the point then? For over a year I was VERY much looking forward to the moment when she would get them back, and be the Vraska of the Ixalan story-block again, in time to do something massive and cool. But no. We can't have nice things.

I wanted to like Teyo, but the character type of "oh I'll never be good, I'm just a learner, I suck, even the amazing things I'm doing right now suck, like, you have no idea," has been done to death. It's highly annoying, and lazy writing.

To kill Gideon off at the end of such a disappointing story was insulting. It's not even just that the characters themselves could have made better choices, as I read I felt like he died so that the author's work would be vindicated. ("See! Someone did die!") It was something Gideon would do, absolutely, but the fan theories about what would happen after the trailer came out were better than how it "actually" shook out.

Teferi played no real major role, despite the massive things with time he's done in the past. Sorin and Nahiri got inserted as a one liner, so I'm sure we'll read all about that some other time. Innistrad is somehow OK? That, and how Sorin freed himself, weren't explained. Chandra and Nissa just exchange lots of emotional looks, another example of decisions no one is making from a writing standpoint. Rat was cool, but had pretty terrible dialogue, and her ability wasn't explained either.

Also, Nicol Bolas not dying and not winning, but again leaving a story line open for him to come back again sometime. At what point do we get sick of the cycle, and the repetition? Ugh!

Ultimately, a major disappointment. The first and last MTG book I will buy. I don't even know that I want them to turn it into a movie anymore, it was that bad.

[Shase Lindell · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is definitely the worst book I've ever finished reading in my entire life. I wish I could give it less than one star. No characters had character development other than Dack Fayden, who I'm pretty confident is the only character the author actually read up on, the narrative suffers from the authors insufferably childish yet strangely unimaginative mind and other than death very few character specific plots get mentioned or resolved and there's no interesting points in this impressively drab story with each villain having dialogue I'd expect out of some 90's D&D movie. I say the story is impressively drab because you'd think that being given a story as compelling as that which everything has been leading up to and shown in the trailer and cards it would be impossible for any author to make the story boring but this particular author has the writing ability of a 14 year old fan fiction writer. Never before have I felt like magic is a story for children but this story is so incredibly dumbed down and uninspired that for the first time in years I don't look forwards to reading the next book. The narrative is poorly constructed with a lot of time spent on catching the reader up or on some completely mundane aspect of the world like the protagonists obsession with farts and plumbing. Points are brought up, briefly mentioned and never really dwelled on again. The author also clearly just followed whatever the writing board wanted him to write as there are many questions one would have getting into the story and none are addressed. There is no rising tension, either. I felt as though there was a book missing because the whole book feels sorta rushed at times because they literally skip a few weeks of build up that are only referenced. I hated the incredibly simple and immature dialogue everyone has, and the uninspired way everything is explained. A lot of the prior story is summarized to the reader when a new character is introduced, which is an absolute drag because that meant I had to labor through more of this author's pathetic attempt at writing instead of getting to the interesting background story, which was consistently disappointing. It's also clear those short summaries are the only things the author knows about any of the stablished characters. Everything in the present tense is boring and underdeveloped and no character has deep motivation. Thoughts of characters are never presented. Any motivation presented is done in an extremely simple manner. No descriptions are adequate. There are broad descriptions of absolutely everything. I'm just happy my favorite character Tezzeret has a short exchange with a few characters and then leaves so that this trash author doesn't ruin my impression of Tezz. Also, you'd think with all these incredibly interesting characters some of them would do more than just one thing, but alas, no. Most characters can only do one thing. Also, most of the characters know each other for no reason. I only considered two points in the story creative/ enjoyable. The Wanderer? She gets like, two sentences in the whole book. This happens all the time. Oh! You like something interesting about the story? Sucks. Have fun being tortured by an idiot author who is just following the framework guide Wizards of the Coast gave him. The whole book felt like a cash grab and I despise it when fiction authors use descriptions or reference shit from the real world. War of the Spark mentions traffic jams at one point, which wasn't surprising as the book starts with, Ugin, the 30,000 year old genius having the exact quote "Pot; meet kettle" which is just inexcusably offensively stupid and out of character for the speaker. The pushing of LGBT agenda is fine, and I typically ignore it if it's too much however the amount of time spent reminding the reader that one of the characters (who wasn't previously gay) is gay was pretty astounding. I can't imagine the gay community appreciates it either. When your character is mostly defined by his sexuality you're a pathetic author. Maybe try incorporating his sexuality more subtly and have a personality instead of being gay be the trait the author keeps pushing. In summary, do NOT read this book and if you will because you'd like to finish the overarching story, I pity you.

[Anthony · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was disappointed to find that the novel read like a checklist of plot points and didn't bother to elaborate or enhance what was displayed on the cards. In fact, I found the author's limited scope of descriptive language, lack of appropriate focus and questionable (often juvenile) vocabulary rather unsettling. The excessive effort on trivial action scenes or descent into various territories was laborious and eventually cumbersome. The writing was elementary at best.

I often felt like I was being lectured on or told what was transpiring, rather than shown and allowed to imagine it. "Jace could see Bolas grow in power." How? None of us have experience observing an Elder Dragon wizard acquire magical godhood from an ancient spell. How does a being growing in power visibly appear? Do they radiate with an aura of blinding and palpable magnificence that roils the surrounding air? Did Bolas appear younger with every harvested spark, did his spells increase in potency when cast? Or do we just believe Bolas grows in power because the author told us he did? The book is riddled with these moments of pondering what exactly I am meant to imagine with such a bare and flat text.

[This Book · Rating 1 out of 5]

Spoiler Free Review:

It sucks.

It’s really bad. It’s a book written for anyone to be able to pick it up and read it however it’s just so boring that nobody would want to do that. It’s spoonfeeds you, is incredibly cliché. And the writing is cringe worthy at best. If you’ve already looked at the cards for this set you can actually pick out where those cards happen in the story because those are the only interesting parts. The fights are dull, the dialogue is cringe, and the characters are flat.

For the love of all that is holy DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.

[Tanja · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich hatte mich wirklich gefreut, dieses Buch anzufangen, da ich echt Lust auf High Fantasy hatte und schon ein Buch aus diesem „Universum“ gelesen habe, das mir sogar sehr gefallen hat. Ich wusste, dass diese Reihe auf einem Kartenspiel basiert, dementsprechend fehlte mir etwas Hintergrundwissen, aber trotzdem habe ich es gewagt, da mich dieses Universum sehr interessiert!

Angefangen hat es tatsächlich auch mitten im Geschehen und ohne viel drum herum mit einem „Kampf“. Erst kam es mir vor, als könnte dies die Vorgeschichte zur Hauptgeschichte sein, so als wäre dieser Krieg wichtig für Nachher. Tatsächlich hat sich dieser Krieg über das gesamte Buch gezogen und circa 200 Seiten lang handelte von einem Tag. Es war demnach ein wenig schwierig zu lesen, da ich das Gefühl hatte es würde einfach nicht weiter gehen.

Die Charaktere jedoch fand ich unheimlich interessant, sehr individuell und authentisch. Allerdings war es beim Lesen so, dass die Vergangenheit der einzelnen Personen nicht erklärt wurde und viele Handlungsstränge erzählt wurden, als wäre es eine kurze Zusammenfassung vorheriger Bände, dabei war es das erste Buch.

Zum Ende des Buches hatte ich Schwierigkeiten in der Geschichte zu bleiben, weil mir sehr viel Vorwissen fehlte, was die Charaktere anging, da auch Beziehungen genannt wurden und Aspekte, die ich nicht kannte und demnach nicht nachempfinden konnte.

Leider werde ich die Reihe nicht weiter verfolgen, da ich befürchte, dass ich das Kartenspiel bzw. die Comics dazu lesen müsste.

Es erhält demnach 3/5 Sterne von mir.

[Yani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining enough, a bit deus ex machina, but ah well. It's fun to read the parallel story lone on the mtg website, but the reuse of paragraphs is a bit annoying there.

[kat.loves.books_ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Das Cover gefällt mir wirklich sehr gut, denn es passt zur Geschichte und natürlich auch zum Genre. Mich hat es auf jeden Fall gleich neugierig gemacht.
.
Beim Schreibstil muss ich jedoch zugeben, dass ich eine ganze Weile gebraucht habe, um so richtig mit damit warm zu werden . DIe Stellen, die humorvoll gemeint waren, haben bei mir - besonders am Anfang - leider hin und wieder ihre Wirkung verloren. Man gewöhnt sich jedoch daran und ich kann mir sehr gut vorstellen, dass anderen Lesern der Schreibstil sehr gut gefallen wird. Ich würde trotzdem mal einen Blick in die Leseprobe empfehlen. da die Kapitel aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven geschrieben ist, kann man sich in die verschiedenen Charaktere ziemlich gut hineinversetzen und meistens ihre Gefühle und Handlungen gut nachvollziehen.
.
Die Charaktere fand ich wieder ziemlich interessant und da ich das Spiel (zu dem die Bücher ja geschrieben wurden) nur ein einziges Mal vor Ewigkeiten gespielt habe, war natürlich alles ganz neu für mich, aber auf keinen Fall unverständlich. Es interessant zu sehen, was sie so alles erlebt haben und wie sie bestimmt Entscheidungen getroffen haben.
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Insgesamt ein durchaus unterhaltsames Buch, bei dem ich persönlich ein bisschen gebraucht habe, bis ich mich an den Schreibstil gewöhnt hatte, das ich aber trotzdem empfehlen kann - und nicht nur Fans des Spiels, sondern auch anderen Lesern, die den Klappentext interessant finden. Ich werde auf jeden Fall mehr von den Büchern lesen, wenn sie erschienen sind.
.
3,75 /5 Sterne

[Kossie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book that tells the amazing story of that spans across mutliple planes/worlds.
While it's a book that tells a story from the "Magic the Gathering" universe (a very story rich card game), you can still very much enjoy the book and follow the story without know or caring about the game.

So a must read for fans of Magic... and a great recommendation for fans of fantasy and good books

[Sherwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a Vorthos at heart, I appreciate that we’re finally getting full novels to go alongside new sets. While the mtgstory team has tried to make up for this lack in the past, there’s something about a fully fleshed out novel that pulls you in ways that a short snippet could never do.

With that said, Weisman’s novel covers the same narrative beats that have been shown by the trailer for the set and the cards themselves. While the cards have more or less spoilered the entire general plot, there are character beats and relationships that get explored in the novel. The Gatewatch is there doing their Avengers thing across the Multiverse and we’re assaulted with a ton of Planeswalkers, many we’ve met before and many we have not.

If anything, this novel is not recommended for anyone who hasn’t played the card game before. While Weisman does his best in giving the reader a fresh POV with Teyo, Rat, and (to some extent Kaya). Any new reader would instantly be thrown off by the sheer amount of names. At the same time, this kind of experience could be reflecting the current state of a Ravnica at war? As a fan, I was left wanting a little more from the brief mentions of a few Planeswalkers. Did Sorin and Nahiri settle things? Are Arlinn and Angrath my new OTP? Are there more dogs like Mowu?

I give the novel a middling rating because of this inaccessibility of plot and the sometimes disparate voices that Weisman seems to be juggling running into one another. Additionally, I feel like having the trailer and card story spotlights undermine what Wizards and Weisman wanted this novel to achieve. Especially with a “prequel” novel delayed until June? The initial plot beats of the state of Ravnica were lost and the first few chapters were a bit of a mess in that regard.

In the end, I enjoyed the novel and the interactions of many fan favourite characters. But, this seems like a odd release and a reflection of this “event” focus on the set instead of the old “plane story” model.

[Johan Thilander]

(Har dessvärre snöat in på kortspelet Magic the Gathering sistone).

Att detta är en dålig bok är inte min främsta kritik mot den. Min främsta kritik är i stället att den är ett praktexemplar över hur fel det kan bli när man försöker berätta en historia med ett medium den aldrig var tänkt för.

Magic the Gatherings historia berättas vanligtvis genom ett slags mosaik av flera tusentals kort - att försöka följa den som ett kronologiskt narrativ är väldigt svårt, om det ens är meningen att man ska göra det. Små delar av den övergripande handlingen portioneras ut genom enskilda korts illustrationer, små bifogade "flavour texts" och ofta genom spelmekaniken själv.

Jag är den första att säga att spelets historia, särskilt i de senare utgåvorna, inte är något storartat - men sättet det berättas på är ändå ett intressant grepp ur ren litterär synpunkt. Så när man tar bort det greppet och låter handlingen anta romanform - på rätt usel prosa därtill - så betonas dess kvalitet på ett ganska osmickrande sätt.

Anyway, om någon vill spela EDH med mig över internet, hit me up!

[Andrew Alkema · Rating 4 out of 5]

This won't be taught in English class, but it was a fun read. I wouldn't recommend this unless you are really into the Magic story, otherwise it's terrible. But I enjoyed it.

[Riley D. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was an interesting read for me, but also a little disappointing.
Before I continue, I have to give credit to the author Greg Weisman for making a book based on a card game. War of the Spark: Ravnica is based on one of the most recent events in the Magic: The Gathering mythos- the invasion of the world-city Ravnica. It was a massive plot point in the Magic lore, so I was expecting some good things from this book. I was a bit disappointed, as mentioned before, and I will say why.
1. Not the best writing. Yes, I know, the book had to be written in a certain time frame before the interest in the invasion died down, but I would have liked a little more detail into what is going on. I am not completely versed in the happenings in the invasion, and I as hoping this would shed some light on the details of the happenings in Ravnica during the invasion. Another reason for me not liking the amount of detail was I had just finished a few books by some authors with some good world building abilities.
2. So. Much. Gay. I don't have a problem with gays in general, but I do when an author tries to force a relationship between two character who were probably not gay in the card series. In other words, it seemed like the author was trying to push an agenda, and putting more effort into that than in the story itself.
3. Not much background in what is going on. You would really need to have been caught up with the plot and everything that has happened since right around the last Tarkir block, which was in 2014. That is five years of card game lore that you would have to go fairly deep into to understand all the happenings of War of the Spark, but most of all, there were no other books before this one to explain why all the MCs were beat up right at the beginning of the book.
The book did, however, have some good points in it.
1. Good intro. I was pleased with the starting scene with the Gatewatch (the group of main characters) in Chandra's living room, having snacks and basically having a shwarma scene. I also liked the background to a new planeswalker named Teyo.
2. While the book didn't do it as much as I would have liked, it showed me the alignments of the different guilds and also how Bolas (the evil dragon invader) was eventually defeated.

After all that reasoning, I wouldn't read the book again. I enjoyed the book enough to red it the full way through, but I didn't enjoy all of it. I just had too much hype and was so invested in the game that the book was a bit of a disappointment. I am hoping that my eyes were just clouded and the book was actually good, but I don't have high hopes. After finishing the book, my only consolation is that one of my favorite characters, Vraska, is not evil, at least not anymore.
Decent book, could have been better, thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do the names Nicol Bolas, Jace Beleren, Liliana Vess, Chandra Nalaar, Gideon Jura, Ajani Goldmane, Davriel Cane, Kaya, Samut, Teyo Verada, The Wanderer, Tibalt, Sarkhan Vol, Nissa Revane, Kiora, Jaya Ballard, Domri Rade, Angrath, Arlinn Kord, Wesley Crusher, Dovin Baan, Jiang Yanggu and Mowu (stop, take a breath, we’re about half way there), Ob Nixilis, Sorin Markov, Ugin, Vivien Reid, Tamiyo, Ral Zarek, Nahiri, Karn, Ashiok, Huatli, Kasmina, Narset, Saheeli Rai, Teferi, and Vraska, (only to name a few), mean anything to you? Well, they won’t after reading Greg Weisman’s ‘War of The Spark: Ravnica’ novel either.

If they do mean something to you, then you’re either lying, or there’s a 100% chance you’re a Magic: The Gathering nerd and should wisely decide not to read this utter, complete and absolute dumpster fire of a book. Because once you read it, you can’t unread it, and your wonderful dreams and fantasies about the Multiverse will be forever dashed.

I’m not sure how to fully express the tangled goo of thoughts this book left me with. This story is utterly chaotic. I would describe it as a cataclysm of countless paper-thin characters, endless meaningless plot lines that lead to more places than the Holtzman Effect, random explosions, blood splashing from unknown sources, convoluted relationships that last a single paragraph and leave the reader wondering what purpose they served, hot necromantic babes and a couple of dragons. But, that is giving the book too much credit.

I’d normally attempt to give a synopsis of the plot, but there isn’t one. It’s just a nonstop serving of mashed potatoes being crammed into your mouth by a giant with an enormous wooden spoon shouting “take that, short human!” without giving any appetizer, main course or dessert. But I'll give it a try.

An ancient dragon, Nicol Bolas, is super smart and super mean and wants to take over the world of Ravnica. Several millions of hero wizards, who for some reason he trapped there on purpose, decide to stop him, and a lot of meaningless unnamed civilians die by hordes of heavy-metal zombies. It all builds, and builds, and builds, and builds with a fevered pitch to an astonishingly boring and predictable ending that was advertised and spoiled by the creators of the story themselves. There is no beginning, there is no middle, it’s all just one long ending to a story that never started.

Fellow geeks, nerds and MTG players, do yourselves a favor and don’t read this.

It’s not very good.

[Sussy Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has been a while since a Magic the Gathering novel has been printed so this one is average at best. The book falls a short of its predecessors, but it is probably because there is so many characters to get introduced to all at once. Basically, Magic the Gathering's Avengers team trying to take down a overconfident, power hungry Elder Dragon who is a threat to the multiverse; classic good versus evil adventure without much depth. While I feel it leaves a lot of events hanging due to the fact that it tries to consolidate 10+ years of lore in one short book. It is a nice new start for Magic novels and ill be a little forgiving since it has been some time since lore was given to MTG fans like this, so overall, a step in the right direction I hope.

[thebedisburning · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cumple. Un poco rollo, en opinión personal, que prácticamente todo sea batalla, pero está bien que aparezcan tantos personajes conocidos de MtG.

[Zally (ZenithMeridian) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really, REALLY wanted this book to be good but instead, I read a piece of uninspired mediocrity.

Before I get started I want to point out that the author of this book was probably given the storyline from Wizards and had to make his writing style fit their preconstructed mold, which would be difficult for any author. I also assume that the majority of decisions when it came to the story and how it was presented was not based on the author's idea or concept of story progression but rather what WOTC thought a good narrative structure would be.

Now....with that stated...

This book is around 350 pages with ten POVs which leads to some very apparent problems. Because there are so many narratives running we as readers never get fully invested in the characters who we are supposed to care about. Instead, we are left feeling like we are just reading backstory after backstory and are not really moving forward with the story. I think that if this book was limited to a max of three POVs I think I could have at least given this book a fighting chance.

On top of that, this book cannot decide if it wants to be marketed towards people who are new to the lore and game of Magic the Gathering or for new people who might have just picked up the book on a whim. What we end up with is a strange mix where we have an 'everyman' characters who have nothing really invested in the story (but rather, is told everything and is used as a sounding board to explain concepts like planeswalker) and not enough detail about the surroundings or characters to really get a sense of individual identity. I mean, there are very limited physical descriptions of any of the Gatewatch (except Gideon being all muscle bound) which leaves me really flabbergasted.

There also is no real set up to this story. It is only the major battle (and then a lot of background summary) and with the lack of descriptions or static POV it comes across as bland at best. I had the feeling while trying to get through this book that the writer had the Avengers movies on in the background and was trying to emulate the pace and feeling forgetting that books need narrative structure to help the story stay in the context that visual media has the ability to disregard rather quickly.

On top of that, when we do get internal dialogue or thoughts it is surprisingly boring and stereotypical; 'She controls the fire so she is hotheaded!' or 'He is a good guy so he is heroic'. I don't know if the author had the ability to read all of the online material this company put out before this book but I think that would have helped him to see how much farther this characters had evolved passed their trope backgrounds into much more rounded individuals. The other thing that seemed forced into this story (and takes up WAY to much of a narrative designed around a major battle) has to do with sex. Honestly, not all of the characters in a story need to be pining away at someone else. It really came across as amateur fanfiction that I might have written when I was 12 versus a published story. Also because we saw so little of the characters interacting (Nissa blushing and looking awkward at Chandra for instance) there was very little on the emotional investment front for these apparent relationships.

Overall, this book gets a 2/5 from me. The story is missing crucial elements of design and set up and instead leans in towards the idea that just writing a climax as a story instead of creating actual tension through the narrative build up. I will say that this book also seems to have been written for younger readers who, in retrospect, might really like how this story is laid out. However, as an adult reader and avid lover of MTG, this whole piece just fails to deliver.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

War of the Spark: Ravnica, delivers a somewhat satisfying conclusion to the arc of Nicol Bolas but not much else. Wizards of the Coast recently made a decision to bring back Magic: The Gathering novels to expand upon its multiverse, characters, and lore. However, the first of its kind in a long while clearly felt like a rushed package to ensure that it met the deadline that would align with the primary product for the trading card game. Many of the chapters are concise, as though Weisman himself is merely giving a summary of the events that are happening rather than actually writing what is happening as it goes.

As a fan of MTG and its lore, the book provided satisfactory bits of character and world building that I'm sure many were craving. Weisman did an excellent job in putting numerous characters on a sympathetic emotional spectrum, creating some very good dialogue and thought processes. The cast of characters were relatable, witty, and generally just fun to read about.

The story and plot of War of the Spark fell short, likely due to the length of the book itself. I am not sure if I can fault Weisman on this end, as he was probably given certain restrictions and guidelines to craft this book. The pacing was well done and jumped from character to character through each chapter, but this did not veil the weakness of the overall story. The first part of the book essentially gave an outline as to what would happen, and the rest just followed through. Some plot devices felt too forced and did not pan out well.

Though a good read for fans, the book definitely felt rushed and could have benefited from an expanded and more thorough narrative on almost everything. Although I was excited to read a Magic: The Gathering novel, it fell short and felt more like the online Magic stories printed and bound into a book to be sold at stores.

[Alexander · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF, got about 1/4 through and gave up.

This book feels like a mid-series slump in a lot of ways... except that most series have, say, a list of previous books you can go to for context. This one has no series list, no internet links, no references - it just drops you into the events and pretends that you have some idea already of the life stories of literally 20+ characters.

We're shown the aftermath of events that might have been short stories or even entire books, and are apparently expected to care about the people involved.

Setting details are tossed our way with no regard to show-don't-tell, and character names are tossed around as if they mean something.

And the thing is, I'm pretty sure I'm the book's target audience. I'm a twentysomething fantasy reader who plays the card game. But there's far too much reliance on name recognition - look, it's Teferi! And Ral! And there's Kaya! You know those names, so rate 5 stars! - and not enough actual development. Character abilities, or convoluted setting details, are dropped in your lap and you're expected to completely comprehend it all without elaboration. Apparently Kaya assassinates ghosts? I want to know why that works, or how that works, or what the implications are, but the book just mentions it offhand and makes a joke about how "ghost assassin" is semantically vague.

Apparently this book was a NYT Bestseller. There must be a lot of disappointed or confused people out there.

[Brecht Denijs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm finding it hard to judge this one. For the most part I liked it, save for losing a bit of steam towards the end and following just a bit too many characters for its own good. So this could have easily been a four star for me. But the objections I've read in other reviews seem to hold water. There are a lot of complaints about how underdeveloped these characters appear that have been around for years and years and have rich backstories. I've only recently become an MTG fan and haven't been able to read all the backstory yet, so I find it hard to judge. However knowing the little I know, the points made in other reviews DID make sense and WOTC's decision to use profesional authors who know little of the franchise doesn't. So I'm going to do a rare thing for me and take into account what other reviewers said and deduct a star for that. I do disagree with a lot of them saying that the new characters, Rat & Teyo, were bad. I heartily enjoyed those and would love to see more of them both in story and cards.

[G6 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alright, I went into this book expecting the worst based on all of the poor reviews for it. Honestly though, it's not that bad. Dack Fayden is the standout character here, who gets a believable character arc from self-perserving thief to selfless hero. It's a shame he didn't get a new card for this set. The story is also pretty engaging when the focus is on Jace, Lilliana, Gideon, and/or Ral.

That said, the dialogue can be cringy at times, and often ruins what could've been an amazing story. Standouts include, but not limited to: "Aye girl", BOLAS CONSTANTLY SPEAKING IN ALL CAPS, and Rat's annoying rambling. I would recommend reading this is if you're a Magic the Gathering fan in need of a nice laugh followed by crippling sadness over what could've been.

[Kes · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know if this is bad because I'm not familiar with the background, or just the writing. The good: I don't know anything about the characters, but the book did a good job at providing a brief background into the various key relationships. The bad: there's a multitude of characters, and a lot of it is just empty action. We're being told why they act in a certain way; not shown.

1/5 stars, though I rounded up because I'm not familiar with the world.

[Andrew Bird · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent fantasy novel set in the magic the gathering universe. Although generic in places, it is fun to see various magic the gathering cards and characters brought to life in the novel. I enjoyed this read and look forward to reading more in the series.

[Sebastian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The deaths did nothing to me but this battle was like the Battle of Hogwarts in one book. Very action packed and had me gripping the spine.

Vraska is my favorite character who I always looked forward to reading.

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

No me encantó la forma en que está escrito, el lenguaje no es especialmente bello y los diálogos también son bastante flojos. Aún así me gustó aprender sobre el lore de Magic, de una expansión en la que jugué tanto.

[Helio Paiva Neto · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poor storytelling, too much tell and not enough show, a lost opportunity.

[Jonathan Lee B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

War of the Spark: Ravnica is the perfect finishing touch on a dessert.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's got everything, and yet it lacks something general to wrap it up.