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Realms of Shadow | Rating | |
| B | |||
| Lizz Baldwin | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| N/A | N/A | ||
Long ago on the magical world of Faerun, there was a band of very powerful wizards who did not use the Weave to cast their spells, but rather drew the energy from the space between the Weave. They called it Shadow Magic, and it was very powerful indeed. Now their floating city, Shade, is returning from the Shadow Realm. This generally bodes ill for the rest of Faerun.
This is an anthology, which makes it a much easier read than most. The stories are arranged chronologically, starting when Shadow Mages were still learning their art and runing all the way to when they return from the other plane of existence. I find it a nice touch. And the stories are well-written and, by-and-large, well thought out. None really stands out above the rest, however, and none were truly exceptional. They were good tales, nothing more or less.
The main problem I had, though, was that almost all of them made needed some knowledge of events that I just did not have. This is exactly why I have avoided the whole Forgotten Realms book series until now. The setting is so large, so well-used, that authors almost cannot help it; in order to make it part of Forgotten Realms and not just another fantasy world, they have to tie their plot into things I've never heard of. This is fine, but some exposition here and there explaining what those things are would have been nice. Given that several stories involve Shadow Mages and Shade before it banishes itself to another plane, and I thought the society depicted was harsh but hardly inherently evil, I was left wondering why their return is supposed to be such an awful thing. For obvious reasons, stories near the end suffer more from this, though those near the beginning also are affected.
This anthology is clearly part of a larger series, and indeed the list at the front of the book places this book in the middle of a trilogy, "The Return of the Archwizards," as the fourth book. Perhaps the events and motivations I seek are located there.
As I said, the stories were very competently done. I enjoyed the plots, the characters made sense within each story. But none really went that extra mile. And I would have like to get a more exact sense of the larger picture that this is obviously a part of, without the requirement of needing to buy another book or three.
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