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Magic: The Gathering: Time Spiral Cycle #3
Future Sight
A Fantasy Book. Time Spiral Cycle Book 3
320 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 14, 2017
An amazing ending to a fun and fascinating saga
December 12, 2019
Best Magic related book I have read by now, characters are recognizable, conflicts are relevant and sometimes brutal and the Time Spiral nonsense comes to a better end than I expected.
April 3, 2021
The conclusion of the story of Time Spiral and The Mending. Another enjoyable book in the series although perhaps somewhat unsatisfying if you know more about Magic's history, both before this book and after this book. Having read this more than a decade after the set originally came out it was somewhat unsatisfying reading it because I knew some loose ends wouldn't be tied up here.
I'm going to avoid spoilers but if you've followed the Gatewatch story like many people who've actively played Magic in the past few undoubtedly have, you know some of the conclusions to events in this book. You can probably also surmise several potential interesting threads will be ignored in favor of being picked up later on. That's unsurprising but also unsatisfying.
One thing I will say is that the book did a good job of convincing me to read other Magic books. Taking place on Dominaria with the rifts being the cause of things many years prior you're inevitably given some backstory about earlier events in Magic's history. While the book certainly does try to fill you in on those events it's hard to summarize entire storylines casually into a few pages throughout the book. You get enough that you might want to go find out what truly happened, which to me is quite interesting to think about. I found myself wanting to google some names and events and then having to hold back to avoid spoiling the story (even if I knew what the ultimate conclusion was).
I do think this book might have been a little more enjoyable had I read all of Magic's history up to this point. I know I haven't read anything in the Onslaught cycle, Odyssey, or Invasion cycle, and while I have some knowledge of them I'm not familiar with a good amount of the story. Basically any set that took place on Dominaria had some influence on the story here. I consider that a good thing and I liked that all of that story played a part here. Like I said, it renewed desires I've had to read some of those stories although I know some of them can be quite mediocre. And again, I think it would have been better to have read them prior but I ultimately don't think it's necessary.
If you read this having only looked at Magic's story from the Gatewatch forward then you might not enjoy enough of this book to give it this high of rating. I played briefly during some older sets when I was younger so I have a small amount of nostalgia coming through here. And of course, I've read the entire Artifacts cycle so I know a decent chunk of the story behind this one.
If I had to guess where this book (and really this cycle because all three are the same narrative by the same author), I would say it's below The Brothers' War and The Thran but above the others I've read (Mirrodin and Ravnica cycles and remaining entries in the Artifacts cycle).
I'm going to avoid spoilers but if you've followed the Gatewatch story like many people who've actively played Magic in the past few undoubtedly have, you know some of the conclusions to events in this book. You can probably also surmise several potential interesting threads will be ignored in favor of being picked up later on. That's unsurprising but also unsatisfying.
One thing I will say is that the book did a good job of convincing me to read other Magic books. Taking place on Dominaria with the rifts being the cause of things many years prior you're inevitably given some backstory about earlier events in Magic's history. While the book certainly does try to fill you in on those events it's hard to summarize entire storylines casually into a few pages throughout the book. You get enough that you might want to go find out what truly happened, which to me is quite interesting to think about. I found myself wanting to google some names and events and then having to hold back to avoid spoiling the story (even if I knew what the ultimate conclusion was).
I do think this book might have been a little more enjoyable had I read all of Magic's history up to this point. I know I haven't read anything in the Onslaught cycle, Odyssey, or Invasion cycle, and while I have some knowledge of them I'm not familiar with a good amount of the story. Basically any set that took place on Dominaria had some influence on the story here. I consider that a good thing and I liked that all of that story played a part here. Like I said, it renewed desires I've had to read some of those stories although I know some of them can be quite mediocre. And again, I think it would have been better to have read them prior but I ultimately don't think it's necessary.
If you read this having only looked at Magic's story from the Gatewatch forward then you might not enjoy enough of this book to give it this high of rating. I played briefly during some older sets when I was younger so I have a small amount of nostalgia coming through here. And of course, I've read the entire Artifacts cycle so I know a decent chunk of the story behind this one.
If I had to guess where this book (and really this cycle because all three are the same narrative by the same author), I would say it's below The Brothers' War and The Thran but above the others I've read (Mirrodin and Ravnica cycles and remaining entries in the Artifacts cycle).
July 21, 2019
I'm a bit disappointed with the ending of this. Others had hyped the "mending" as the thing that finally dethrones planeswalkers from god status and brings them down to what I'm more familiar with in the modern era of the game. But this....just sort of healed the time rifts and then Bolas just states that something changed?
I was just expecting more.
We did get our first real planeswalker duel (Teferi vs Bolas didn't count it lasted like 3 pages and the dude cast like one spell), and otherwise this was more of the same from the last two.
Unlike some other novels I could mention, characters did risk and lose things to accomplish their goals, some grew and others were destroyed for not changing. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when a pulp tie-in novel series can school some of the best selling Fantasy series on the market from the last decade or two (I'm not being cute and not naming names, I'm talking about you, Twilight and Sword of Truth).
The one downside here is next up is Lorwyn, so I have to deal with a Twilight-esque Mary Sue in the form of Jace from now on >.<
Side note: apparently the upcoming Netflix series based on this game will be centered around Jace and Chandra, because of course it is.
I was just expecting more.
We did get our first real planeswalker duel (Teferi vs Bolas didn't count it lasted like 3 pages and the dude cast like one spell), and otherwise this was more of the same from the last two.
Unlike some other novels I could mention, characters did risk and lose things to accomplish their goals, some grew and others were destroyed for not changing. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when a pulp tie-in novel series can school some of the best selling Fantasy series on the market from the last decade or two (I'm not being cute and not naming names, I'm talking about you, Twilight and Sword of Truth).
The one downside here is next up is Lorwyn, so I have to deal with a Twilight-esque Mary Sue in the form of Jace from now on >.<
Side note: apparently the upcoming Netflix series based on this game will be centered around Jace and Chandra, because of course it is.
August 14, 2022
Shallow characters manage to become even more one-note, the book struggles to meet its 300-page quota by shoving in pages and pages of filler, and Radha is legitimately the most exhausting character I've had to read about this year.
This novel is just uninspired and dull. I don't know why it really hit me with this instalment of the trilogy in particular, but it did. It's most likely because this was the only one of the three that there were chapters I wholesale skipped (namely anything from the point of view of the villainous planeswalker whose name I can't even remember, or Radha).
This novel is just uninspired and dull. I don't know why it really hit me with this instalment of the trilogy in particular, but it did. It's most likely because this was the only one of the three that there were chapters I wholesale skipped (namely anything from the point of view of the villainous planeswalker whose name I can't even remember, or Radha).
July 31, 2024
Okay. This is by far the best book of this cycle and is a great way to end the saga that started with Wearherlight and Thw Thran to conclude the Dominaria Saga. I won’t leave any spoilers really. But let’s just say a lot of past characters are back. Good job by the authors for giving it a great, touching finish.
September 4, 2008
I was excited by the presence of so many unresolved threads from previous stories/Magic series, and the author did a fine job resolving them.
The writing could be little weak in terms of giving his characters distinct personalities, considering how different and distinctive they should be. I mean, the central characters are all mortals imbued with the power of gods, and they're all form different dimensions, and one of them has multiple personality disorder that personifies itself in magic usage that changes her type and caused her to try and conquer the world from which she is. Plus, the bad guys are a 25,000 year old dragon-wizard and an undead sorceror of almost 10,000 years, but everyone has the same sense of humor.
What differences there were came across as forced and lacked personality. It probably could have stood some revision. It wasn't bad, just expressively weak and lackluster.
The writing could be little weak in terms of giving his characters distinct personalities, considering how different and distinctive they should be. I mean, the central characters are all mortals imbued with the power of gods, and they're all form different dimensions, and one of them has multiple personality disorder that personifies itself in magic usage that changes her type and caused her to try and conquer the world from which she is. Plus, the bad guys are a 25,000 year old dragon-wizard and an undead sorceror of almost 10,000 years, but everyone has the same sense of humor.
What differences there were came across as forced and lacked personality. It probably could have stood some revision. It wasn't bad, just expressively weak and lackluster.
May 23, 2014
An enjoyable nostalgic series
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews