War of the Spark: Forsaken

Magic: The Gathering: War of the Spark #2

by Greg Weisman

Segunda entrega de la bilogía en la que aparecen los personajes favoritos del juego junto a nuevos personajes. Después de la Guerra de la Chispa, da comienzo la búsqueda de Liliana Vess.  Los planeswalkers han derrotado a Nicol Bolas y salvado el multiverso, pero a un alto precio. Hay una pérdida que resulta  casi Gideon Jura, campeón de la justicia y escudo de los Guardianes, ya no está. Sus camaradas, Jace y Chandra, intentan sobreponerse a la tragedia, y su futuro, así como el de los Guardianes, es incierto.
Kaya, la miembro de los Guardianes más reciente, desea ayudar a escribir ese futuro. Los maestros de gremio de Rávnica le han encomendado una importante misión, acorde con sus habilidades como cazadora y asesina, que debe mantener en secreto ante los Guardianes. Debe rastrear a la traidora Liliana Vess y hacerla pagar. Pero Liliana no tiene ningún deseo de ser hallada. Abandonada por sus amigos, huyó de Rávnica tras la derrota de Nicol Bolas. Fue rehén de la maligna voluntad de este y obligada a cometer atrocidades para salvar la vida...
Hasta que Gideon, el único que aún creía en su bondad, murió en su lugar. Atormentada por el regalo final de este, y perseguida por sus antiguos aliados, Liliana regresa ahora a un lugar que nunca creyó que volvería a ver. El único lugar que le su hogar. 

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Magic

416 pages, Hardcover

First published November 5, 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

[A.E. Marling · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you do not know these Planeswalker characters or follow Magic: the Gathering lore, I suggest avoiding this book.
If you do, also avoid this book.

[Danielle · Rating 1 out of 5]

- Inexplicable focus on the exploits of the author's OC
- Ignores YEARS of diverse character development by previous custodians
- Includes unnecessary retcon, removing the series' canon LGBT representation

Unremarkable fantasy fare.
Do Not Recommend.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

By looking at the reviews you’d think that the author threw away all canon, filled the book with anti GLBT hate, and also had a terrible plot.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

First, canon. Perhaps the Nissa/Chandra chapter was disappointing to them in the way that others hated that Rose and The Doctor didn’t get married and have babies. But there was love expressed in the chapter. One sentence, ONE, where Chandra was never into girls before, but Nissa was different. There was obvious love and attraction here. But for one phrase, blown out of proportion, the author is all about bi-invisibility and worse. For fucks sake. Most, of not every bi person I know, has struggled mightily with this and didn’t just pop out of the womb with a bi identity.

No. They didn’t. Bi-invisibility cuts both ways. Don’t lessen thr struggles, doubts, missteps, questioning that many have had on their paths. I loved the chapter and found it beautifully told.

And if still unsure that the author isn’t indeed a bigot, read chapter 8. Just a simple moment between two people deeply I love who happen to both be men.

The story itself was great, better than book 1, and easy to read. I was intrigued to know what was next. Still am. I hope there is a book 3.

Don’t listen to the 1 star reviews. I’d wager that while some people genuinely didn’t like the book (fine, and who cares, personal taste) much of the negativity I’ve seen is a misguided political agenda that isn’t founded on much more than ample and trumped up indignation.

[Damien · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is biphobic, queerbaiting trash and not only is a terribly written book but actively derails the development of at least 6 main characters. It should be withdrawn from sale and completely rewritten.

[Declan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Biphobic, queer-baiting trash.

[Ryan Crouch · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't believe even a casual fanfic writer on a blog would be satisfied releasing something like this, let alone a serialized novel by a multi-million dollar company. It reeks of queerbaiting, bad prose, flat and inconsistent writing, and is very clearly written by a cis dude grossly unaware of people's existences and experiences outside his own. It's really sad to see fantasy novels like this perpetuate the 'big muscly dude gets all the babes attention because of his muscles' sort of toxic and boring writing.

I legitimately wouldn't recommend this for any reason. Rainbow capitalism at its finest. If Wizards of the Coast had even a modicum of true care for queer people looking to this novel after years of investment in their characters, they would have done even some base-level proofreading.

[Fabri · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not going to beat around the bush: this book was trash. From the clumsy prose, to the meandering plot, to the derailment of characters. And of course, we can't forget the biphobia and queerbaiting.

This book isn't worth neither the time, nor the money.

[Yani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good parts, some rather disappointing parts, but entertaining overall I guess.

[Shawn Clauther · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ambitious undertaking, passable execution

This book clearly has an ambitious scope. Even though the blurb focuses on Liliana Vess, the book weaves together multiple storylines as it fleshes out the aftermath of the ending of War of the Spark.

Though it does suffer from some minor technical hiccups (e.g., some of the exclamation points actually detract from the mood), it weaves its tales passably and leaves me wanting to see how WotC will further develop the storylines.

[Josh Drost · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently finished Forsaken, and overall enjoyed it. This book has had a lot of negative reviews, so I thought I would give a medium review.

Following the events of the War of the Spark, three guildleaders (Kaya, Vraska, Ral) are charged with killing three of Bolas's minions (Liliana, Dovin, Tezzeret). This story follows their stories, along with the aftermath of WAR on the gatewatch.

My first note is that the magic story is less a series of stand-alone movies, and more a long term TV show. In TV shows, you sometimes need a couple episodes to move between arcs, and set up the next season. In the same way, Forsaken is less it's own story, and more of a bridge between the Bolas arc and the next arc (New Phyrexia). So, Forsaken feels less like it's own book and more like an extended epilogue.

My second note is that this story was not nice to the previous arcs' protagonists. Everybody misses Gideon, and in kinda bad places. This makes sense after the crazy thing that just happened.

There were some winners to this story. Tezzeret has been set up as a future big bad: he has the planar beacon and is in hiding, building power. Lazav was awesome the whole book, and I look forward to seeing where the story takes him. And the wanderer seems really cool, and we got to know more about her. Rat and Teyo are still fun, and have a great adventure. Rat especially was set up to be important eventually.

My third note is that this story crushes most of the 'ships from the past arc. Most of the news of this story is about the breakup of Chandra and Nissa. Overall, I thought if them breaking up was the goal, it was handled pretty well. Or at least could have been a lot worse. But I have personal bias: I never liked Nissa as a character, and was only medium to her and Chandra. The other ships are mostly left in states of confusion and distance, which kinda fits if you think of Magic's story as a TV show: almost no one in TV stays together for long.

My final note is that many people have said it is poorly written. It is fine. The prose is not going to move you, but does a good job telling the story it is telling. It is better than War of the Spark: Ravnica, and with better pacing. It seems on the same page as many of the magic stories, few of which would be considered really well written.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, and would recommend it with a couple qualifications: 1) You read and enjoyed the first war of the spark book; 2) You don't care too much about the relationships from the past arc, and are more interested in the next arc.

[Charlie Newman · Rating 1 out of 5]

First, [vague spoilers] this book drops a long-running canon (developing) relationship from the plot altogether, then brings it back up for a very poorly written chapter in which the characters inexplicably tell each other that it’s over, and makes it very clear that one of them is too autistic to date and the other was never really gay. There’s been a lot of finger pointing about who did this- all I know is 1) whoever did it, it’s garbage and 2) it was almost definitely a a Straight White Dude (or maybe a few).

Second, though, hey, the book isn’t good anyways. While the plotting was much stronger than the previous novel, thanks to not having to exactly match the plot of 250ish trading cards, the writing is somehow worse. With more non-action scenes (I’ll admit some of Weisman’s action sequences are pretty good), we get a lot of inner monologues and bad lines. “Aye, girl” is the funniest for sure, but man, did this get edited? My guess is not really, due to timeline constraints or something.

Just, don’t. I got this from the library because I was curious, but wish I hadn’t even done that somehow. I could have read basically anything else and been happier. I want there to be good MTG novels because I’m a huge nerd, but if the choice is these or nothing, I’ll take nothing.

[Kirakazumi · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book to AVOID AT ALL COSTS

As trite and abhorrent as the last book, WoTS Forsaken fails on both a literally level, by coming across like it's been written by an amateur who was forced to write a book on a subject he wasn't interested in within two days, and fails on a story level, as it completely ignores any of the previously set up rules, logic and characterization of any of the principle characters, and proceeds to just stomp on them with whatever the author wanted to write in. For example, in this universe there is an ability that most of the main characters can do (Planeswalk; essentially travelling to other dimensions) that comes with specific drawback (They can't bring any organic being with them), but in this book one character can break that rule just because, and it's not even treated as proper plot point! She can just do it and people just shrug it off.

On the prose side an example of one goes like this; (A) needs to do (X), (A) knows he can do (X), (A) does (X), (X) was done successfully by (A) because (A) knows he can do (X). Now (A) needs to do (Y).
I wish I was exaggerating.

Again I reiterate, AVOID THIS BOOK AT ALL COSTS.

[Blake · Rating 1 out of 5]

I never wanted to burn books until I purchased and read this.

[Skip · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a direct sequel to War of the Spark: Ravnica and should definitely not be read out of order. Like the first book, this one has a ton of characters and follows them in all sorts of directions at once. For followers of the Magic: The Gathering story who know all these people and want to read about their further adventures, this gives you that. For everyone else, it's likely to be confusing at best.

As one of those folks who does follow the MTG story, a few comments. I liked learning more about The Wanderer, who seems like a cool character that I'd like to see more of. I thought Ral Zarek continues to be one of the more interesting people in the story, full of flaws but doing his best to improve. I was disappointed more people didn't actually die after a ton of groundwork laid for their deaths, but that's par for the course in this sort of story. The fate of Liliana felt weak to me, but given the not-dying thing, it's the best we could expect. And if you think that's a spoiler, you're a sucker...there was no chance they'd actually kill her, not after losing Gideon already.

Also, there's been an Internet uproar over Chandra deciding she's not going to pursue a relationship with Nissa. Again, if you thought anything else was going to happen, you're not paying attention. Romantic relationships between main characters never work, or at least never last long, in this kind of super-people drama. Side characters, sure, but Chandra and Nissa are both too important to be an item. This wasn't any kind of swipe against LGBT characters - if it had been, Ral/Tomik wouldn't be in the same story. Chandra has had all sorts of mental issues to work through in this entire story, so if she's also conflicted over whether she's straight or bi or whatever, that sure feels like it fits the theme.

Anyway, bottom line - worth reading if you're an MTG story fan who is up to date. If not, don't start here. Go back to the first book, or better yet the Magic story articles from the last several years.

[Eric · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written. There's basically zero differentiation between the characters, and most (with the possible exceptions of Rat and Teyo, characters with no prior backstory) all speak and behave interchangeably. Many speak radically differently than they have in prior stories. Book is full of "tell" vs. "show" and even does that awkwardly.

Once you get past the interchangeable characters and poor writing, then there's the biphobia.

This book should never have been published in this form. It's actually worse than the predecessor, and I didn't think that was possible.

[La testa fra i libri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Secondo libro della dilogia basata sul famoso gioco di carte Magic, che riprende dalla conclusione del primo libro, e cioè la sconfitta dell’antico Drago, mantenendo uno stile narrativo avvincente quanto particolare.
La narrazione è un terza persona e ogni capitolo è riferito a uno dei tanti personaggi che si dividono la scena, a cui vengono aggiunti pensieri intimi che fanno conoscere maggiormente il protagonista del capitolo.
I personaggi sono tantissimi con caratterizzazioni precise e ben delineate e poteri, o generi soprannaturali, proposti in maniera non banale e che riescono a conquistare il lettore per la vivacità con cui vengono esposti. Se nel primo libro mi ero affezionata ai personaggi di Gideon Jura e Liliana Vess, in questo Ral mi ha colpita maggiormente sopratutto per il suo senso di solitudine dovuta alla sua situazione di invisibilità e la sensibilità che cerca di domare per non affezionarsi troppo agli altri suoi compagni di avventura.
Le scene alternano momenti d’azione a quelli di interazione colloquiale fra i personaggi e colpiscono le dinamiche che si creano per alleanze, strategie e amicizie.
La struttura sociale è anch’essa complessa e consiglio di comprare il cartaceo perché ha un glossario che si può facilmente consultare durante la lettura e comprendere immediatamente di chi e cosa si sta leggendo in quel momento.
Ammetto che ho fatto molta fatica e entrare dentro la dinamica della storia, il primo libro per me è stato ostico, però, una volta entrati dentro alla vicende dei protagonisti e capite le dinamiche, ci si lascia piacevolmente guidare in un’avventura davvero incredibile e per nulla scontata.
Ora non vi resta altro che accendere la vostra scintilla e iniziare l’avventura!

[Ezzydesu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have received this book for free from Titan Books in exchange for an honest review.

After I loved reading the first book in this series, I was very excited to read this sequel. However, I was actually quite disappointed by it. This was not a bad book per se, it just lacked certain things which made me unable to give this book a higher rating. When I first picked up this book, I got to about 60%. I was in a bad reading slump and this book was not helping. I picked the book up again to finish only a few days ago and I felt like I was sliding right back into that same slump. I was really hesitant to give this book the rating that I did, but I want to be honest and I am using this review to explain myself.

One of the aspects I found lacking was the story telling. While there was some sort of plot, or atleast a red line, in the previous book, it feels a bit absent to me in War of the Spark: Forsaken. Yes, the characters got a job to do and they do it, but to call all those personal adventures an actual plot is not exactly it. The book felt like an overly long epilogue chapter or novella and could have been much shorter to get the same message across. Alternatively, this book could have been longer aswell to actually work out the plot more and actually have the subplots culminate into one solid ending.
Something that was strange as there was this weird twist towards the end of the book hinting at another sequel. And even though it was a big twist, it didn't really have as much impact on your view on the events in the book as I think was intended. I didn't see it coming, but if it hadn't been there, I don't feel like there would be a hole either.

In my previous review, I described the Infinity War-effect as the book had a giant cast. This book still had a giant cast, even when a lot of important characters left at the end of War of the Spark: Ravnica or the beginning of this book. In a big epic battle, a big cast makes sense, but here it was just a whole lot of back and forth between different groups of people and none were connected in impactful ways.
The big cast had another downside: As so many characters needed page time, none had barely to no character development in this book. It's a shame, as it did NOT do any of these characters justice. There were only two characters with proper page time to keep you invested and these were both new characters that were introduced in the War of the Spark story.
The cast their 'mini-adventures' also didn't do the major characters any justice. It was sloppy and rushed and all of them would have been a lot better if they weren't squeezed into on book. Maybe if they were told in separate novellas? I don't know, but I do know that it disappointed me.

Besides everything I just mentioned, I am positive that the story telling of this series (Yes, including War of the Spark: Ravnica, does not work in a prose novel. I am convinced this story would have been better enjoyed in a format with visual representation, like an animated short or a graphic novel. There were so many words describing what is physically happening, there is either no room for actual conversation or a poetic swing to the story telling, or it was completely drowned out. Like I said, this is not a bad book and if the subplots were separated and worked out more, it would be something all Magic: the Gathering lovers would enjoy.

Before I end this review, I have to be a bit angry about something. There was this completely pointless scene in the book basically giving a very definitive 'end' to the entire relationship between Chandra and Nissa. They have been the biggest f/f and LGBTQ+ ship in the MTG universe and with one scene, Wizards of the Coast just completely blew it. People called it queer-baiting and biphobic in other reviews, and even though I don't want to hang such heavy tags on this scene, I was pretty mad. This scene was literally the opposite of fan service: It was put at a pure random time and had no impact on anything else happening in the book. The entire scene could have been taken out and nothing would be missing, neither was the scene needed or called for in any way, shape or from. Yet it still impacted the canon story of two pretty big characters in a way that is gonna impact the entire story of them in the future.
I was so disappointed in this as their entire story would have made the best friends-to-lovers *queer edition* I have ever read and it has been so slowburn, that it wasn't needing a culmination yet at all. The put such a definitive scene in this book just shows that Wizards of the Coasts is not interested in proper queer representation. Yes, I know there is a m/m couple in this book that is operating fine, but to blow off such a big ship in such a lousy way is giving me enough signs. I am very disappointed and it actually makes me hesitant to dive into the post War of the Spark-stories.

I am disappointed with this book as I had high hopes. Sadly, there was just too much that lacked or wasn't done well. I do think this type of story telling would work a lot better in animated shorts or graphic novels, so I do not want to label the story 'bad' per se. It just really did not work this way at all.
I also want to say this book does not impact my view of the author, as obviously he had to write this book with source material, a pre-set direction and with a lot of impact from Wizards of the Coasts. I actually have several other books he wrote on my TBR and I am still gonna read them sometime, regardless of what I thought of this book as the writing style was pretty good considering the story itself.

Read more reviews on my blog:
https://servillasspeaks.wordpress.com

[Christopher Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as bad as people say it is.. I honestly liked it quite a bit. I'm wondering if there will be a sequel because it definitely sets one up.

[Jonathan Lee B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

War of the Spark: Forsaken is frosting topped with frosting.

[Amanu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Engaging. Lots of surprising twists. Hints of humor that make the character's interesting. A great read. I am hoping for a third book in the series.

[literaryaura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was less action packed than the first one. The first book followed the story laid out in the MTG card set, so it has somewhat of a better structure. This book is more of an 'inbetween' kind of story. It's about the aftermath of the first book, and the fight against Nicol Bolas. A part of the story has to do with the guilds.

It's quite slow, not much action, per se. We do get to know more about the characters. There's more of Rat, Taio, Kaia, and Lilliana, my favourite characters from the first book. The story leaves an open ending. I hope that means that there is a third book in the works, despite the unpopularity of the first two books.

Audiobook - I'm not a fan of female narrators, but I loved Lisa Flanagan. I hope to come across her again in the future.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

"War of the Spark: Forsaken," by Greg Weisman, is the direct sequel to "War of the Spark: Ravnica." Both books are set in the world of Magic: the Gathering (that collectible card game you may have heard of). If you're not familiar with the Magic: the Gathering universe of characters, you may be at a loss when reading this novel--especially if you didn't read "War of the Spark: Ravnica" either.

Immediately after the end of the War of the Spark, three different war criminals who collaborated with the evil dragon Nicol Bolas were sentenced to death. Since all of the criminals were Planeswalkers--powerful magical beings with the ability to move between different dimensions--only other Planeswalkers could hunt them down and execute them.

The three Planeswalkers sent to carry out the executions were also pawns of the dragon Nicol Bolas, but they stopped obeying his orders before the true bloodshed began. So their path to redemption with the Guilds of Ravnica involves assassination. All three of the chosen assassins--Ral Zarek (Izzet), Vraska (Golgari), and Kaya (Orzhov) are guildmasters, with their positions as leaders at stake.

The three war criminals are Tezzeret the Artificer, Dovin Baan the Manipulator, and Liliana Vess the Necromancer. Liliana--a former member of the Gatewatch (a "Superfriends/Avengers" group of Planeswalkers) controlled the army that killed many citizens of Ravnica as part of the dragon's evil scheme to (re)attain godhood. While Tezzeret and Dovin Baan were always villains, Liliana was--at least temporarily--allied with the forces of good. Yet it was Liliana's ultimate betrayal of Nicol Bolas that turned the tide against him.

Liliana's situation presents some serious ambiguity for some of our main characters. Yet the ten Guilds of Ravnica all want her dead. Liliana's former friends--though they were the heroes of the War of the Spark--are left out of the decision to assassinate her. That causes some friction as well.

The core of the book revolves around friendships and romances. While there is a fair amount of battle and mystery as well, the author does well in making these strange, magical characters relate-able by showing them in situations the reader can more easily understand. The "heart" of the story is the trio of Kaya, Rat, and Teyo--a ghost assassin and two teenagers. Though the romantic relationships with Ral and Tomik, as well as Jace and Vraska (and maybe Nissa and Chandra) also add some emotional depth to the tale.

If you enjoy Magic: the Gathering or read and liked the first "War of the Spark" novel, then "War of the Spark: Forsaken" is likely a good pick for you.

[Erik Levin · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading the first book I said to myself, might as well read the second one, it can't be any worse! And... actually, it couldn't. This book is better than the first one. But that doesn't mean it's good...

The predecessor was nigh unreadable due to the neverending avalanche of dull exposition and repetitiveness, problems which are fixed this time around as this follows immediately upon the first and thankfully assumes that the reader knows all relevant backstory by this point.

Unfortunately, this is the only thing that is fixed. The writing is still very bad. This time, we visit several different worlds and meet some new characters (thankfully not as many as in the first book), but the barren prose comes with almost no descriptions. If you hadn't seen these worlds and people on playing cards, would you get a feel for how Kaladesh looks different from Ravnica? Or Esper? Or how any of the characters look?

The book has eighty (!) chapters. It follows three main arcs plus a couple of side-plots, through super-short snippets of chapters, each one jumping to (ostensibly) another character's perspective. It's an obviously moviefied way of writing, that perhaps some authors can make work, but here it's needlessly hard to follow. "Wait, what is it this character was doing again?" Also, again, if you want the reader to feel like a movie is playing in their head while reading, you have to describe how stuff looks!

This novel focuses on slightly fewer characters from the last so you might think we could get some better characterization and development. But baffling plot twists, out-of-character, or plain dumb actions, and author-imposed spokes in their wheels make the characters suffer, and me with them. Shaggy dog stories where bad things happen to people can be valid, even great, but I don't get why this book about heroes in a teenagers' card game has to be such a downer and screw over most characters? Even to the point of regressing some characters back through years of previous character development.

And, as the last book in a (short) series, does it at least provide closure? Some plot threads are tied together, largely unsatisfactorily, some simply... dissolve, as if the author forgot them, and several new threads are created, many of which will probably never have their continuation see the light of day. Sigh.

So, it's not excruciating. Things happen in the book. It has, by certain definitions, characters and plot in it. It is possible to sit through this book. You shouldn't. But it is possible.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The second book in the War of the Spark duology, War of the Spark: Forsaken picks up in the immediate aftermath of War of the Spark: Ravnica (including repeats of some scenes, just from different perspectives). In it, the author continues the same problems that plagued the first book.

There’s far too much reliance on the author’s own original characters to tell the story and it’s done at the expense of established MTG characters, established MTG characters suffer from bouts of out-of-characterness that would seem more at home in badly written fanfiction than official Magic canon, and – most irritatingly – the author continues to ignore the boundaries of the world in which he writes, though here he at least recognizes that those boundaries exist even as he stomps all over them. At the end of Ravnica, a spark-less Bolas is taken on a planeswalk by Ugin to the Prison Realm, which should not be possible as it is well established in every other piece of Magic lore that organic matter cannot survive in the hostile environment of the space between worlds without a spark. That was just plopped into the story without so much as a handwave, implying that the outsider author brought in by Wizards of the Coast to write the book didn’t understand that such a thing is not possible by the rules of their world. In Forsaken, he understands that it’s not possible by the rules of their world just enough to offer a half-assed handwave because he wants to do it anyway. Rather than just having Teyo stay on Ravnica or planeswalk back to Ravnica after visiting home, the author insists on having Kaya bring Rat on an interplanar journey just because. (And why are they bringing a sixteen year old on a mission to assassinate one of Bolas’ surviving minions anyway? I don’t understand why Teyo tagged along, and he’s at least able to planeswalk away in the event the situation goes really south.) And Weisman just handwaves this as one of Kaya’s ghost powers in a way that makes no sense and flies in the face of literally decades of worldbuilding. I just…can’t. This upsets me more than anything else about the War of the Spark duology. At least follow the damn rules of the world in which you are writing; you’ve managed before, so it can’t possibly be that hard!

Then we get to the issue of how all the ship teasing between Nissa and Chandra was handled: that is to say, shoved to the side. On one hand, having actually read it, it’s not actually as bad as some of the reviews make it out to be. Both women come across as really upset and traumatized in general in the immediate aftermath of the War, and Chandra in particular has been shown this whole book to be dealing with that particularly badly. Given everything that happened – including the death of one close friend and the apparent betrayal and subsequent assassination of another – this makes sense and is – from Nissa’s mental state during the Zendikar Rising stories – carried forward in a realistic and believable manner. I got the impression that Chandra’s lack of feelings was more due to grief and oncoming depression than a sincere lack of emotion toward Nissa, and Nissa came across as hopeful of a better outcome (such as using present, rather than past, tense to describe her feelings for Chandra). That being said, it’s still pretty bad. That this happened at all is upsetting to a lot of a fans who, understandably, are invested in seeing the relationship come to fruition after all the hints and see backing out here and in this way (by specifying that Chandra is usually attracted to ‘manly men’) as queerbaiting and an erasure of bisexuality. Also, at the time that War of the Spark launched, there was a lot of talk about Chandra getting a Netflix show and Wizards of the Coast trying to get further into the Asian markets, both of which would have complicated by her being in a relationship with another woman, so many fans assumed that this was done to cater to homophobic censors. It was not a good look and – despite tossing in Ral and Tomik, both secondary characters, as token gay representation – was not taken well by what seems to be a majority of the fanbase, or at least a majority of the fanbase that reads the lore rather than just the cards.

Speaking of relationships, I was personally unhappy about the way Vraska and Jace’s relationship was handled, nor was I particularly pleased with continued focus on Liliana as a potential love interest. I thought it was clearly established during Rivals of Ixalan that Liliana is, at best, not good for Jace and is, at worst, abusive, manipulative, and toxically proud of it. One of the things I absolutely adored about Jace and Vraska’s budding relationship is that Alison Luhrs went out of her way to craft a relationship healthy and balanced for the both of them. About midway through Forsaken, that begins to break down and toward the end it looks like any hope for them is gone for good. I really want to see them work out and I hope that this is dealt with in future stories.

One thing I am quite pleased about regarding the entire War of the Spark duology – really, it’s the only thing I actually like about the War of the Spark duology – is the return of Lazav and Tezzeret as serious threats.

"It’s all for the maze. Infiltrating the Selesnya. Setting up the Rakdos. Warmongering to spark a guild war. It’s all cover for your plan to take what’s behind the Implicit Maze.” Lazav’s grin flashed a remnant of yellowish teeth, a sight that Jace wished he hadn’t seen. “The maze is merely a means to my ends. It’s a delightful diversion for the guilds, while I grind away at the foundations of society under them. When I hold all the pieces, nothing will remain—no Guildpact, no peace, no law. No guilds! And therefore no competition for my ultimate command of all life and thought. It is simple, you see? I am a being of quite simple tastes. I only desire the annihilation of everything that is not under my power." [From Gatecrash: The Secretist, Part 2 by Doug Beyer]

Tezzeret in Agents of Artifice was terrifying and the Lazav who manipulated every guild during the Implicit Maze just makes a great villain. Realistically, he’s everything that the Weisman’s Nicol Bolas should have been during War of the Spark, but wasn’t. Weisman’s Lazav also leaves some of Beyer’s Lazav to be desired, but it’s at least close to that characterization and gets the ultimate arc of the story moving in that direction. I’m happy to see them return as credible threats not overshadowed by Bolas (for now, at least).

Overall, I still really didn’t like War of the Spark: Forsaken and, like War of the Spark: Ravnica, will not reread it or recommend it to anyone. The most essential parts of the War of the Spark storyline can be gleaned from the flavor text and images on the War of the Spark cards and there are plenty of other pieces of MTG lore that are better written, more enjoyable, and will ultimately give the reader a better sense of the planes and characters of Magic: The Gathering. Many of those stories are posted to the Magic Story Archive and are available to read for free and others – such as The Secretist trilogy – are easily found in ebook form via Amazon and other sites.

[Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much better characterization than the previous book. The characters seemed to act and speak like themselves. Rat is a touching and unique character. The problem I have with this book is that the War of the Spark seemed not to have any actual after effects. Ravnica is functioning just like it always has. Very little of consequence actually occurs in this novel. The book spent more time setting up future storylines than actually dealing with the fallout of War of the Spark. Jace's romance with the gorgon Vraska with tentacles for hair, continues to be creepy and forced. Overall, I felt like after finishing the book that very little actually changed and nothing was really solved. A lot of random future plotlines were seeded in at the end and felt forced, failing to create a cohesive narrative and taking too much away from wrapping up the largest story undertaking mtg has attempted yet. Very anticlimactic.

[Collier Jennings · Rating 3 out of 5]

This...was a tough one. Had to wrestle with my feelings about MTG, my love of Weisman’s previous work, and the narrative itself.

First off, the good: this picks up after Ravinica and deals with the fallout of Gideon Jura’s death, as well as the fate of Liliana Vess. Lilana’s Journey is both gripping and heartbreaking as she’s forced to reckon with her life choices. Weisman has a talent for digging deep into his characters, whether heroic or villainous, and showcase their flaws.

However, the multiple characters in this book trip it up. The story is split into three parts, and it’s with new characters Teyo and Rat, as well as Kaya that Weisman spends a large focus on. Not that they aren’t interesting but I feel like the other parts of the book needed fleshing out.

Overall I don’t think that this book is a blight on canon, but I do feel it needed a bit more tuning up.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the direct sequel of "War of the Spark: Ravnica" and if you have read the first one you can expect more of the same but a little better. It's still not the LeGuin\Tolkien level of writing, but it's a decent fantasy novel that I did enjoy, and as far as MTG-novels go this one is very good (if you can tolerate that not all characters in the book are gay - I see many reviewers have a major problem with that).
Note: I have listened to audio version that was narrated perfectly by Lisa Flanagan. I might liked the book less if I were reading it from page (there's no way to tell), but as an audiobook it gets 4+ from me.

[Jules · Rating 1 out of 5]

The writing wasn't great, the story dragged on in parts and felt rushed in others and the characters seemed fairly flat to me (not to mention the complete 180 pulled on some characters' relationships which was not only done clumsily but in a fairly in insensitive manner).

I'm only giving this two stars because there is a part of me that likes any addition to Magic the Gathering lore on a very basic level. But overwhelmingly I feel disappointed and sad about this second part to the War of the Spark saga.

[Lisa Huntley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t believe the hate.

Ignore all the screeching, this IS a good book that does justice to the existing characters. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and am looking forward to the Magic Story continuing.

[This Book · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poor quality, poor prose, poor story, poor characters, poor creativity, no respect for MTG. I wish there was a 0 star. This one doesn’t even deserve a participation trophy.