Cecil & Soren Wollenberg

Engaging but somewhat rushed

Revisado: 09-12-19

"Forsaken House" offers the reader with an engaging story of several people willing to take risks and make controversial choices for the sake of the common good in the face of overwhelming evil.
The book honestly has it all and doesn't shy away from allowing its characters to be as mighty as the Realms have the potential to let characters be. Characters speaking the literal word of gods and others learning spells ancient beyond belief. It is a thrilling ride.
Indeed, the only real problem with the book is that it goes by so fast. Many of its characters, though likable, don't truly get to step into their own before being removed from the story one-way-or-another. As a result only the protagonist Araevin and the character Seiveril Miritar truly get to leave a meaningful impact on the reader/listener and undergo significant character-development. When this is stated, however, it is important to acknowledge the character of Fflar Starbrow Melruth as he hold obvious potential for ongoing development throughout the series, and any lesser impact he had in this book will without a doubt be expanded upon as the overarching story progresses.

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So, you have come this far....

Revisado: 09-12-19

If you have read my two former reviews of this series, one might ask what you are even doing here?
However, I shan't dismiss your efforts dear reader since I could have asked myself the same question.
No matter your quest, be it as my own to have experienced every Realms-book to expand my knowledge of the history and peoples of the Forgotten Realms, or due to an enjoyment of the personas of the Princes of Shade, or something else entirely, I shall enlighten you of what to expect here, at the end of the road.

Know that the final stretch of the journey through this series indeed does grow brighter. Though it is far too much to ask for a second miracle regarding the book's quality, like that having occurred within The Avatar-series when jumping from "Tantras" to "Waterdeep" and beyond. However, this book is still a legitimately decent-ish story, finally managing to have many of its pointless and detrimental plotpoints from earlier books pay off and move ahead; most notably the culmination of "The Shadow" plotpoint, resulting in a far better story once that culmination has been reached near the middle of the book.
Much of the plot-forced idiocy of characters has also finally been left behind, though there is still plenty to be found here-and-there; and the book still can't help itself from adding a new and completely pointless subplot revolving around the Protagonist's former love-interest, and almost immediately dropping all drama the subplot resulted in the moment the author decided to end the book.

However, regardless of its flaws, "The Sorcerer" is a book worth going through simply for the sake of finishing off the trilogy, and manages to reward the reader/listener with some half-way-decent storytelling as a reward for sticking through it to the end as well.

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A complete waste of time

Revisado: 09-12-19

Where the first book, "The Summoning," was filled with several problems, but offered a great world-building-experience, "The Siege" offers the reader/listener basically nothing at all. Every flaw of the first book is back with a vengeance, often expanding (if one can call it that?) on the terrible narrative devices of the first book.

I cannot stress enough how much this book is not worth anyone's time. It leaves behind much of what made the first book bearable, focusing almost exclusively on its dull story and horrid character-relations.

The only redeeming quality of "The Siege" is the Princes of Shade, who each pretty much steal the show every time they "enter the stage." However, this judgment should be taken with a grain-of-salt as the Princes of Shade are my personal favourite D&D-villains of all time and are presented truly gloriously in other Realms-Novels elsewhere, being given real stories to be a part of. Indeed, the Princes and their flamboyant personalities and flair for the dramatic was the only thing managing to drag me through this dungpile of a book, and even they couldn't stop me from taking a 3-month-long break from listening to it. I was that bored.

If the reader of this review does not love the Princes of Shade as much as I do; or alternatively find the prospect of listening to 12+ characters engaging in near-cartoonish acts of flamboyance (and thereby feel prepared to come to love the Princes as I do), then there truly is nothing else here for anyone to enjoy. Save yourself hours of your lives and skip it.

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Interesting topic & world-building, but weak story

Revisado: 04-21-19

TLDR: Only really worth your time if you play Dungeons & Dragons.


"The Summoning" as a book, is a piece with quite a few good ideas, but sadly just as many problems.
The book focuses on one of the most interesting events within the Forgotten Realms canon; the return of the last remains of the ancient Netherese empire, the city Thultanthar, or just "Shade." The author is aware of the great significance of the material being worked on and as a result, spends a lot of time playing around with magical metaphysical theory-crafting of the Forgotten Realms as a fantasy world.

However, the thing about shaping small pieces of interesting lore and trying to explain the different facets of the fantastical is that it steals away focus from traditional storytelling; something "The Summoning" very much suffers from.

"The Summoning" throws around a lot of fun and interesting ideas for how its cosmology works, but whenever it becomes time for the book to tell a story, it continuously finds itself drawn-out and bland, relying on completely uninteresting character-dynamics: It becomes especially bad once the concept of "The Shadow" of the Protagonist becomes a part of the narrative, as it very quickly becomes nothing but an excuse for the characters to be stupid and make obviously bad and paranoid choices again-and-again-and-again.
"The Shadow" is additionally used as an excuse for keeping the Protagonist and Readers/Listeners in the dark about different characters' motivations and goals arbitrarily; however rather than this making the story have a sense of mystery, it instead causes many of the story's plot-points to feel aimless and random, even when they aren't at all.


All around, as a book, there is really no reason for anyone to read or listen "The Summoning," its story is quite simply not worth the lengthy, unnecessary, clichéd slog that it is.
However, where one might want to consider experiencing the book is if a reader/listener is a Player of Dungeons & Dragons within the Forgotten Realms Campaign-Setting. In this case, the book has much to offer in gaining insight into the different facets of life and existence within the Realms, and the book is packed full of appearances by important (and often otherwise never depicted, only hinted at) characters. For a Player, or rather a Dungeon Master, of D&D, "The Summoning" is not a story, so much as it is a Sourcebook filled with ideas for roleplay of magical races and ideas for future stories told within the Forgotten Realms.

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Not for the Uninitiated

Revisado: 03-21-19

This book is an interesting experience, but there are many hurdles in reading/listening to it.

The story is part of a story-world with a very big publishing-history, but though it is a part of the "The Cities"-series, the book doesn't really do anything to introduce the city of Waterdeep to the listener, simply throwing street-names around as though the listener was meant to already know them intimately, something only meaningful if one is already a fan.

The book also doesn't truly have a "story" but rather simply has events occur in a somewhat disjointed, natural-though-random way. It is also difficult to identify who the book's actual protagonists are, as characters jump in-and-out of relevance at a fast pace and at very sudden points throughout the story; some important characters don't show up before hours of the book have passed; while the early introductions of characters all are presented as unsympathetic characters.
This results in a very disorienting listening-experience.

With all of this said, the book does manage to introduce plenty of sympathetic characters over time and transform several of the characters into people the listener ends up wanting to spend time with, but at the cost of several grinding hours first.
As a result, if people are already invested in the Forgotten Realms, there is still plenty of enjoyment to be had in "The City of Splendors" if one is willing to work through its dragging nature.

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Paint-it-by-the-Numbers Fantasy

Revisado: 02-17-19

This book is sadly a very frustrating listen, which is especially disappointing as both its very first and very last chapters (prior to the epilogue) are quite good and manage to draw in the reader/listener rather well with their epic scope.
However, between these two points of the story, the book just kinda... tread water for hours-on-end.

The Paint-it-by-the-Numbers sort of storytelling "Circle of Skulls" employs is easily outlined as being an inherently bad thing, but it doesn't truly have to be, such storytelling is good for allowing a writer to put the focus of the story on other aspects, such as on character-studies or occasionally on things such as comedy. However, "Circle of Skulls" sadly doesn't do this either, indeed, for as otherworldly as the majority of the characters of the books are: including two angelic beings, a "goodly" undead, a hag, and more. The book doesn't actually seem to know of anything interesting to present the reader/listener with about these characters, and we are instead stuck with a protagonist who is trying to be a dark anti-hero, but doesn't do anything toward being such other than being disinterested in being heroic, and a female lead who does little else but complain about the protagonist's lack-of-heroics throughout the majority of the book, while simultaneously pretending the reason why she does so is mysterious and interesting (which they absolutely aren't; in fact, they might be some of THE most basic topes in fantasy, and thereby serving to make her even less interesting).

"Circle of Skulls" has many good ideas, but fails to deliver on a lot of them, resulting in many aspects of the book feeling little more than pointless, aspects that are presented as though they are meant to have great thematic importance. A particularly noteworthy aspect-of-failed-important being the elven female lead's status as a Warlock of Stars, something she specifically emphasizes and will correct other characters on getting wrong. However, in spite of this, this ends up having no impact on the story or her character what-so-ever, indeed it is closer to detracting from her character, as her dealing with powers of dark and madness goes against her motivation relating to moral good, love, and heroics.

A good part of the book is the character of the ultimate villain (not the circle of skulls itself, as they are shockingly enough also incredibly boring characters, and there being more of them doesn't help). The dark angel steals the show every time he appears within the story, but this is sadly a little too rarely, and even when he does appear Cronin sadly didn't do a particularly good job of narrating him.

I could keep going in detail about what does or doesn't work within "Circle of Skulls," but since I don't want this review to go on for too long, here are a few rapid-fire notes:

- The book contains a "Women in Refrigerators" trope, and the character in question never even appeared, she died off-screen after having been corrupted to evil in some way (I don't think we are ever told much of what she even truly did, other than choose evil?)
- Cronin has never been a great narrator, but this book definitively has him "phoning-in" his performance; basically every character has a terribly accent-choice, but the worst of all is without question a villainous wizard with a cowboy-accent.
- Much emphasis is put on the protagonist's sword. This build-up is delivered on at the end, but the ways in which it is spoken off almost never gives the reader/listener any indication that it truly is special; it is mentioned often, but almost never in an interesting, unique way. The book just repeats that it was stolen, most of the time.
- As alluded to earlier, the book has WAY too many villains; not because it is difficult to keep track of them all, but because it becomes hard to care about any of them, as they barely get a chance to truly come into their own as characters; this includes the dark angel as well, he only survives this issue due to how over-the-top his personality is structured.


Overall, "Circle of Skulls" is mostly just a massive waste of time that doesn't seem to know what to do with itself after its beginning. However, for anyone who does decide to go through the long, boring hours of this book, know that there is a fun, epic light at the end of the book's way-too-long tunnel (However, don't take that as it being worth it, it is not).

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Cosy view into a commoner's life in a weird place.

Revisado: 01-25-19

"City of the Dead" is a cute, small story of the type where despite the threat of the narrative being hypothetically catastrophic, at the end of the story, no one but the protagonists barely even noticed anything having happened at all. Everything is resolved, and almost everything goes back to normal.

These sorts of stories can feel somewhat pointless, but they allow their main focus being on other things than the narrative itself. In the case of "City of the Dead" the focus is instead on an in-depth exploration of a particular section of the city of Waterdeep and on an exploration of what it is like to live in a city as fantastical as Waterdeep is for the commoners.
Unlike so many other Realms-books, the protagonist of this book is a true commoner. Other books give the reader protagonists who are somewhat normal, but typically still practice magic or similarly more character-defining pursuits.
In "City of the Dead" however, the protagonist is just a normal girl from a somewhat-respected worker family. She has no special skills, and her most fantastical dreams are initially nothing more than becoming a seamstress.

This setup of the story allows for the book to simply focus on how the protagonist views her world, and how, to her, the fantastical nature of her home-city is nothing but natural and obvious.

For a casual listener/reader, this might not mean much, and indeed, the result is a narrative that feels like it drags on a little longer than it really needs to. But for someone already intimately familiar with the setting of Waterdeep, this book offers a truly intriguing character-study into the minds of the citizens of the city.




TL;DR - This book is truly simple and charming, and doesn't really offer anything else unless a listener is very familiar with the setting. That however, could be plenty for some.

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Can Erin do no wrong?

Revisado: 01-02-19

Erin M. Evans again-and-again proves her incredible gift and skill at writing with "The God Catcher."
Erin truly understands how to build drama between characters without falling into the typical melodramatic (and often sexist) pit traps other writes find themselves in time-and-time again.

With "The God Catcher" we once again find ourselves with a young female protagonist who has to deal with the fact that life hasn't quite turned out the way she wanted it to. And indeed, like with Farideh, she soon encounters and bonds with a strange, "alien" character who needs things of her.

The overall narrative of "The God Catcher" is comparable to many of the best of Erin's "Brimstone Angels" books; focusing on characters engaging in a criminal investigation while themselves living at the edge of the law, all while the very reasons for why the characters are involved in the matter at all is constantly being questioned, and therefore discouraged.

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Harem Anime in Dungeons & Dragons-Form

Revisado: 12-12-18

This story sits in a rather awkward historic space, written at a time when anime as a media-form was truly making a standardized impact in the west. This influence is deeply felt in "Downshadow."

The story is quite crowded with characters, or at least it would have been if the story didn't truly only have one character, the male protagonist himself. Beyond the protagonist, pretty much every other character is a barely developed female shell with their only true purpose being to represent one of the protagonist's metaphorical values. Thus allowing the protagonist to literally flirt with different values he might stand for:

- One female character represents his tendency to lurk in the shadows and fight without honor. Thus she allows him to flirt with the prospect of embracing a life without morals.
- Another female character represents innocence and higher ideals. The life of a hero and a true paladin. Thus the protagonist gets to express his inner insecurity of not feeling worthy of her, and thus of such ideals.
- Yet another female character represents the ideas of duty and the familiar. This is further heightened by the protagonist, at the start of the tale, already having had a relationship with this particular character, essentially emphasizing his movement away from the familiar and into a new understanding of the world and himself.

Supporting characters representing such values is in-and-of-itself a good thing and shows a great insight into the development of the protagonist. However, when there is little-to-nothing to these characters beyond these roles and the continuous flirting they engage in with the protagonist, then it quickly becomes clear that they are not only 1-Dimensional, but outright unbelievable. This especially holds true when one considers the protagonists status as having been in a prior relationship with one of the female characters, but literally finds himself stumbling over the overwhelming and over-the-top expressions of affections from two women he only comes to meet at the start of the story, and immediately faces romantic advances from (in one case, the female character literally appears out of no-where, passes out immediately in his arms, wakes up in his bed the next morning, and is immediately distraught at the prospect that he might have a romantic partner, despite her barely even knowing his name yet).

All of these factors come together to create a tale that is quite interesting from the perspective of witnessing a single character's struggle with his own personal ideals and morals. But is a complete disaster when it comes to its narrative flow and emotional center. The book could essentially have just one character, or one character and the villain. All the female supporting characters could in truth be nothing more than figments of the protagonist's imagination, and the thematic evolution of the story would barely have suffered.
These very same issues can be found in countless examples of "Harem Anime," though this book at least rises above the majority of those by not having the protagonist be a blank slate for readers to use as self-insert-material.


With all of this having been said, "Downshadow" is in truth a quite enjoyable book. One does, however, need a specific mindset for how to truly tap into what the book has to offer, and be willing to accept and look past its many major flaws.
"Downshadow" is not a good book, but it can be a fun one.

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A Quaint List of Ideas

Revisado: 11-20-18

People always look about for "Must Reads!"
This tale isn't that. It offers nothing essential to anybody, but is simply a charming snapshot of a part of the beloved Forgotten Realms. Indeed, though the book takes place in the famous city of Waterdeep, only little of importance relating to the city in question is given beyond; "Mistshore is a sh*tty place."

No. This book isn't a Must Read. It isn't a Realms-shaking tale of epic heroes and warring gods. But what it is, is a small story, about simple people simly trying to live with their traumas in a world filled with chaos and malevolent intent.
Mistshore, both the book and the place, is about good people whom society has given up on and simply want to be rid of.
The book is a story about people, and as a result, the narrator goes the extra mile to try and keep everyone distinct. As a result, the book offers the novel experience of having a female protagonist given an Irish accent, while another speaks like a Cowboy. The dynamic of the narrators voicework does much to bring this small and often-times-confusing story to life, keeping the listener invested in the fates of its scarred heroes.

Due to the book being a small story, it gets to play around with several small but interesting ideas for the fans of the Forgotten Realms to experience; such as how the memorization of Wizardly spells function, and what influence a deity has over the world even after its death.

Mistshore isn't a Must Read. But it is a wonderful and emotional tale of what life can be like in the Forgotten Realms, showing of what a diverse a fantasy world it truly is and can be.

The book is not required, but highly and warmly recommended.

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