The Kingless Land

Band of Four #1

by Ed Greenwood

Aglirta is known as the Kingless Land--once prosperous and peaceful, it has now fallen into lawlessness, studded with feuding baronies engaged in a constant state of war. The only hope for peace lies in the legend of the Sleeping King: destined to rise and restore peace when the Dwaerindim stones are recovered. Lady Embra Silvertree is the sorceress daughter of a bellicose baron with an eye towards world domination. She has been imprisoned by her father who hopes to use her as a magical battery to fortify his castle. When a pair of good natured rogues attempt to steal one of her jewel encrusted gowns, they are quickly enlisted as allies to help her escape and, with the aid of a shape-shifting cleric, to seek out the Dwaerindim.

Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Science Fiction Fantasy, High Fantasy, Forgotten Realms, Audiobook, Fiction

373 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Ed Greenwood is the creator of the Forgotten Realms fantasy world, which became the setting for his home D&D game in 1975. Play still continues in this long-running campaign, and Ed also keeps busy producing Realmslore for various TSR publications.

Ed has published over two hundred articles in Dragon magazine and Polyhedron newszine, is a lifetime charter member of the Role Playing Game Associaton (RPGA) network, has written over thirty books and modules for TSR, and been Gen Con Game Fair guest of honor several times.

In addition to all these activities, Ed works as a library clerk and has edited over a dozen small press magazines.

Invented the character Elminster from the popular Forgotten Realms RPG series. Currently resides in an old farmhouse in the countryside of Ontario, Canada.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got over halfway through this, but it took several tries. The narrator was good, but the story just couldn't hold my interest. Too many over used tropes & discordant notes. Very typical fantasy & it just didn't hold my interest, so I'm bailing.

[Rhyson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book for no other reason than to see the explanation of where those potions came from. First chapter, two main characters are breaking into a castle. It's so early into the story, we don't know why or even who they are. One guy gets hurt. Other guy pulls out a healing potion. >:(

I continued on, still hoping for that explanation. Author goes into a backstory about the guy who got hurt. He's a soldier. His general gets fatally wounded. Guy pulls out a healing potion. General doesn't die afterall. >:(

But the two guys breaking into the castle are there to kidnap a sorceress. Even she doesn't mention where the healing potions come from. >:(

But to use some kinds of magic, she needs these magical figurines. Which she pulls out of her pockets. >:(

Everytime. They have a healing potion in their pocket. They never run out. And the bottles never get smashed. >:(

[Ben Arispe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to say I really liked this one. I've read a lot of other reviews that other people have written stating it wasn't a good book. Repeatedly they said it wasn't among Ed Grenwood's best work. I have to say I disagree. Granted, I've only read the first book. And I've read a fair amount of Greenwood's other work both Forogtten Realms and others. The Band of Four gives us some great characters. Lady Embra is like no other character I've ever read from Greenwood. Though it does almost read like a D&D module, I don't think it takes away from the story at all. My only real complaint about the story is that we don't see very much in the way of an explanation of magic. Other than that, it's a great read, even if it does start a little slowly.

[Love of Hopeless Causes · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hard to follow. I'm not sure if it's the pompous narrative voice or the audiobook reader, but everything mashes together-- making a mess on the canvas of my mind. I shouldn't need to rewind in the first ten pages, when I'm attentive, let alone the first ten sentences.

[Ryan Toxopeus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall I enjoyed this story. The pacing was good, with memorable characters and lots of action. There were plenty of unique uses of magic, and you get the sense that this is a huge world with thousands of stories yet to be told. 

This isn't surprising. After meeting Ed Greenwood and listening to him talk, he had an idea that I loved. With the Forgotten Realms, he had only one demand: For every story you tie off, leave three threads dangling for future stories. They might never be stories that the author would touch, but it left avenues open for new authors to choose. When you're building a gigantic world with multiple authors working in it, that just makes sense. 

We start with a warrior and a rogue breaking into a castle, where they meet an imprisoned sorceress. After freeing her, they flee her father, a power-hungry duke who's bent on dominating everything. 

And it wasn't long before I started to nitpick the magic system and notice problems, which is why this story wasn't 5 stars. The magic was erratic. For instance, there's a spell where the sorceress can teleport herself and anyone touching her to anywhere she's ever been before. Why didn't she just use that straight off the top? Seems like a good way to get away, rather than running and risking capture by a band of warriors and wizards. 

Even the same spells feel different throughout, sometimes. The wizards can summon these huge, winged creatures with two heads that sound nearly impossible to slay in their first encounters, requiring powerful magic to drop. But later a sword is sufficient. 

Characters are introduced that have no importance in the story whatsoever. Some are literally introduced, and die before they can accomplish anything of note, despite scenes being written about them. It left me with the feeling that the book could have been shorter, and wouldn't have suffered for it at all. 

And there were points where the POV changed so fast in a scene that I felt dizzy, especially earlier in the book. But this settled down more toward the end, or I just didn't notice it as much, I'm not sure. 

I may or may not pick up the next book in this series. While I liked the characters and pacing, I'm still on the fence about whether I care enough about where the story appears to be going next. 

[Desirae · Rating 1 out of 5]

2017 Reading Challenge: 52 Weeks, 52 Books! #52wks52bks

Prompt #3; adult SFF book

As a rule of thumb, I try my best to not read reviews here before I finish the book. Mostly because I don't want to be unduly influenced. But this is one of those books where I wish I had.

If you have not read this book yet, my advise to you is this:



But hey, if you want to read a book full of fantasy tropes and limp writing then all the power to you, but this wasted hours of my life that I will never get back.

[Choko · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was reluctant to start this book since it had quite a few bad reviews, but I took a chance. I am not disappointed. It is an example of the quest fantasy that was like mother's milk to me growing up. I have a weakness for the genre and for sentimental reasons tend to always give it high marks. Saying that, I enjoyed the book and go on to the follow up.

[RealmsQueen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Once upon a time, I thought myself a fan of Ed Greenwood and his writings.

And don’t get me wrong, I still love the bearded old man because he gave me my beloved Forgotten Realms franchise.

But I don’t think I’m a fan of his writing anymore.

Before The Kingless Land, the first in his Band of Four novel, I had only ever read his Forgotten Realms works and the first half of the first book in his Falconfar trilogy, Dark Lord.

Now his Forgotten Realms works I loved, despite the obvious reasons. I liked the story, it was well paced, and I loved the characters he created. I didn’t like Dark Lord, but I figured it was because I saw too much of Ed Greenwood’s own disappointment in the direction Wizards was taking the Realms and D&D in general with this story about a writer who sells his story to a game company only to have them change pretty much everything, and he has to go into the world he created in order to save it.

Sounds familiar?

So I figured I’d like the Kingless Land. But I was wrong. I think.

The problem is, it took me a good month to read this book. I didn’t dislike it enough to put it down and be done with it, but neither can I say I liked it.

I think I’m just too confused by the events in the book and the way it was written to form an opinion like that.

The story revolves around a sorceress who also happens to be the daughter of a very evil, very powerful noble who also happens to be using her to fuel his own magics, in a way. Enter two thieves, looking to break into her bower to steal some jewels to live, only to steal her away from her evil father. They flee to some old ruins where they meet a healer who tells them they must undertake a quest with him to find some ancient stones to awaken a legendary Sleeping King who is basically this world’s version of King Arthur.

So the Band of Four as they are now calling themselves, are running around trying to find the first of the three stones, while being hunted by mages, blundering into armed patrols looking for the same thing, there’s a snake cult rising in power in the background, and at the very end another fabled secret society rears its faceless head and makes a play that is seen by the Four through a magical portal.

Confusing, ain’t it?

I think the biggest problem is that there is so much going on. You’re thrown all these names of all these people, given snippets of their lives away from the Band of Four, only to have pretty much everyone ever mention except for sed Band to be dead by the end.

The narration is choppy, jumping from one person’s viewpoint to the next, from one time to another. There are numerous references to a dead Baron named Blackgult, who started a war with our sorceress’ father Silvertree, (and for whom our two thieves worked for) and we’re told from day one that he’s dead. And as we’re reading along, we think this entire story is happening as we read it, but in the end it turns out it was all a narration from one bard to another that we met on page one and haven’t seen since. And not only that, but the Blackgult is still alive and is the biological father of the sorceress! What. The. FRACK!

So yeah. For me, not so good. But it is one of Greenwood’s earlier works so I will continue on with book two (eventually) and hope for the best.

Now if you folks can make heads or tales of what I just told you, by all means be my guest and give it a shot.

Good luck.

[Chip Hunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it looks like this one has been slammed sufficiently by other reviewers already, so I'll take it easy on the negative aspects here. Actually, if you know what you're getting into (and you should if you have any idea who Ed Greenwood is), you'll probably enjoy this book enough. Mostly a mindless hack-and-slash, blast-and-burn, fast-paced fantasy where the band of heroes stumbles through an impossible journey, survives through luck (and a mysterious protector), and ends up completing their quest when the artifact they seek almost literally falls into their hands. Absurdly one-dimensional, stereotypical characters (both heroes and villains) free up Greenwood to fill up all the space he has with action, action, and more action. No need for character-building here, as you pretty much know everything you need to know about each of these guys from their initial descriptions. But, isn't that kind of read fun sometimes? It'll make you appreciate the more well-developed fantasies you read.

The new world Greenwood has created really fails to impress. Dark and dangerous enough, with seemingly every person being either a wizard, thief, warrior, or baron. The system of magic used here is very generic, with what seems like anything being possible at the speed of thought (especially with the use of the World Stones). The world also seems to be overpopulated with dangerous monsters like the Living Dead and Nightworms (whatever those are). Greenwood has also laughingly turned his most interesting character (Embra) into a slutty whore, making it a point to constantly loose her clothing, ect throughout the book. (The scene towards the end of the book with the four heroes sitting naked in a hot-tub is hilarious.. "I'm hard as a rock!" -Saraspar.) Finally, the level of violence, pain, and suffering Greenwood puts his heroes through is somewhat absurd. These people sure have good attitudes for being perpetually crushed, cut, poisoned, and burned, only to be healed just before the brink.

Basically, this is just what you should expect from the creator of Forgotten Realms and a D&D junkie. Mostly silly, wholly unbelievable, but thankfully short, this one can serve as an entertaining distraction, if that's what you're after.

[Jim Pike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm really torn on this book. While it was an excellent story, with some very likable characters, I felt most of this book was mashed together too much. You're reading along, following one story line, then the next paragraph, it's jumped to someone else. But you're not aware of this change (though it makes no sense to what you were just reading), until it mentions a name, or descriptive of someone else.
I was very hesitant about reading this series. I know Ed Greenwood does a lot of the "Realms" stuff for AD&D, and I really was hoping it wouldn't read like a campaign module. I was partially pleased. While some really did read like a module, other parts filled in, to make it at least more enjoyable.

[Ty · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sucked. Terrible. I wanted some adventure, but anytime I pick up a fantasy book, it's all about vignettes that barely connect, and violent/sexual encounters that exist only to exist, and not to forward the plot.

[Shamsia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un ladrón y un caballero deciden ir a apoderarse de las joyas de una dama, que vive en un castillo fortificado. Por supuesto que las cosas no salen como esperaban. Si has jugado rol de mesa alguna vez, reconocerás muchos elementos, como las trampas, las batallas, los golpes de suerte (buena o mala) dictados por los dados, y las situaciones imprevistas que debes de enfrentar con tu personaje. Y cuando esta pareja de ladrones se encuentran con la Dama de las Joyas a la que pretendían robarle algunas de sus piedras preciosas, se encuentran conque ella no tiene interés en hacer lo que su padre quiere que sea.

Y ahí empieza la huida, primero, y la misión, después, acompañados por un anciano sanador. Así, la party de cuatro (pícaro, guerrero, hechicera y sanador) comienzan sus aventuras. Y si bien hay elementos que denotan que esta novela se escribió hace casi veinte años, la historia en general es buena y se disfruta, más si alguna vez has jugado Calabozos y Dragones u otro juego de rol.

[Evil Secret Ninja · Rating 3 out of 5]

Check out my youtube channel where I review books
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this was just a run of the mill fantasy. It was a decent read but I don't have anything much to say about it good or bad. I thought the part with the sleeping king seemed a little rushed and it all seemed too smooth. I was impressed by the girl who is a living house and how he managed to get the things she was working for. It was a little grim a times which didn't fit the overall feel of the book and seemed those parts were there just to prove he was a villain.

[Chris Sinski · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I were a middle or high schooler I’d probably love this book, but as it stands I’m nearing middle age and need a bit more story to go with the action and quite a bit less of the sexualization of the protagonist. The plot is just too loosely written in this story and the reasoning for the characters to band together, take up the quest, and see it through is not nearly convincing enough. Ed Greenwood did a good job of making convincing villains and the action is vividly detailed, but that’s about where the praise ends with this story. I’m not even sure I want to read the sequel.

[Ryan Dennehy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of all the books, this certainly is one of them. I feel like there's incredible promise here. The tone of this book is fascinating. It reads like fantasy of the 80s with half-baked characters, but with some of the more serious and even grim-dark elements of the late 90s through the 2000s laced throughout. The world Greenwood creates here is fascinating and brutal, but often falls a bit flat. I'll be interested to see where this goes from here and I'd still say it's worth checking out.

Recommend.

[Jaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent epic fantasy. It started out reading like a Dungeons and Dragons manual. I later discovered that the author wrote D & D manuals, so that explains the similarity. The usual epic fantasy elements were there so it was fun to read. The story ended suddenly then went to an epilogue, which is why I didn't rate it higher. I am guessing this was to carry into the next book. I'll gladly read on to find out.

[Olessa Crowley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sexist garbage full of terrible tropes. Rouge is rouge. Fighter is Fighter. Old man is healer. Hot Magic Girl who is not special enough to have a character description, but is the writer's fainting meat bag that is "GROOMED" while unconscious by almost the whole party, and this is somehow romantic. It's not, you pig. Gross.

[Jessica M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read because it was like going on an adventure. The only reason I didn't rate it higher is because the writing of the story can be hard to follow at times and hard to understand what's going on. There was also a part in the very beginning that was so cryptic, that I still haven't figured out how it relates to the rest of the story.

[Bill Hohl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could have easily been half again as long and twice as complete!
The story jumped around way too much and left way too many questions unanswered. It's a compelling story with enough potential that I finished and will read the next one.

[Jofo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good sword and sorcery story - a little harder to follow on audio as the story jumps back and forth in time with little or no notice. After getting used to the style - it was good, great story. Looking forward to reading #2.

[Sarah Ehinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a classic adventure story. I like the strong and sarcastic female sorceress and the sassy thief. Aspects of the story line seemed underdeveloped while others seemed overly detailed. Overall a fun read, but at times it plodded a bit

[Harrison Delahunty · Rating 1 out of 5]

The only conclusion I’ve truly come to in life is that Ed Greenwood can’t write. I listened to this book since it was free on Audible, but I would never recommend anyone spend money on it. It’s schlocky, sexist, and boring.

[Sarah]

I dnf'd this because I tried listening to it several times and never got into it. I may come back to read it but for now I'm not planning on it. I also read there was assault and I didn't want to read that. Idk. I just couldn't get through this

[Aidan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these books. The whole series panders to men a lot - Embra's clothes are often wet and clinging, or torn, or burned off - but that's pretty typical for this sort of scifi. I absolutely adore Craer in particular.

[Ted Manahan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Our heroes spend most of the book barely escaping from near certain death, leaving little room for character development or even a coherent plot.

[Kanea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a bad start, a bit rocky in some parts, like most first books in a series can be, but entertaining enough & engaging enough to make me want to pick up the second!

[Liam · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun, magical heroic fantasy story in the tradition of the D&D novel. Not my favorite by Greenwood but it has his normal flare for wit and sudden immolations.

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave up when the mages went to their battle stations and started keeping an eye on the action with their magically crafted satellite imagery.

[Mckinley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't read the next one, barely made it through this one. Lots of characters confused me, didn't like the world crafted.

[Lindsay Cote · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always a good adventure