Swords of Eveningstar

AUTHOR : Ed Greenwood

SETTING : FORGOTTEN REALMS

YEAR : 2006

This is a book written by the legendary Ed Greenwood. I actually never read a novel written by Greenwood before which is unfortunate, because he is the creator of the Forgotten Realms fantasy setting which I had a lot of fun times with. So I was very interested in finally reading one of his books that I have picked up. Knowing most of the Forgotten Realms books aren't that deep though (I imagine because their purpose is mostly to define/sauce up the fantasy world, rather than writing good stories), my expectations weren't high. Well I wasn't surprised reading this book, and I can only say I was entertained enough to keep reading it.

The problem with this book isn't the lack of a deep story, which is expected. It isn't the lack of deep, well written characters which is also expected. The problem is, it doesn't do what you expect it to do which is probably why you'd read this book, a good old simple adventure had by run-of-the-mill adventures. The writer takes a sufficient time setting up these adventurers featured in the book , then takes a few wrong decisions, and tosses it all down the drain. At least for the most part. 

The book's first half does a good job introducing its characters. Florin Falconhand, a typical silent and strong type ranger, though with occasional bouts of atypical immaturity. Jhessail Silvertree who is supposed to be the future wizard in the party, Islif Lurelake who is your strong amazon fighter type, and two clerics Semoor Wolftooth, and Douce Sulwood. All of these characters are young and inexperienced, and they are all friends that look to each other in hopes of finally getting an adventuring charter so they finally can experience the world. You read about their restlessness, and longing, and cheer for them to have their wish. This is because the writer takes sufficient time to flesh them out, so makes you invested in them which is great.

As you read these characters you can't help but at least get hyped about the first adventures these guys will finally have. You imagine how they will finally find their chance, how their stories will unfold, how they will make mistakes, learn from them, and slowly but surely get stronger (level up, if you will). You expect Florin will be the group's leader, and have some wise decisions when they are in the midst of trouble, guiding the group foward, showing his mettle and potential. Unfortunately, none of these things happen.

The book gets totally derailed after they finally get their adventuring charter when Florin, without knowing saves the king of Cormyr from an assassination attempt. But instead of reading their exciting adventures, in the rest of the book you spend time with uninteresting conspiracies plotted by various parties, some of which are introduced and forgotten about, or wrapped up with no ties to the main story, and reading names, names, and names, while the supposed main characters in the book barely have an adventure, where none of them does even anything interesting or worthwhile in the group. Florin doesn't lead, Jhessail doesn't learn spells, others barely add anything in. Instead, the main hero of this book turns out to be a thief woman named Pennae who they hire later, doing the leading, babysitting, and adventuring.

Florin gets his mind taken over by a mind worm, and he isn't even himself in most of the second half of the book. A woman called Narantha is also one of the main characters, who is fleshed out for the significant portion of the first half, but she too is taken over by a mindworm, and spends the rest of her time infecting others. This is such a wrong decision taken by Greenwood, you just shouldn't set up main characters, then have them not be themselves just as you expect to finally get to know them in their first adventure.

As I said this all could be forgiven if we could actually read their adventures more often. The conspiracies in the book take an unnecessarily long part, and keep cutting among paragrahps of adventures. And they are not interesting Game of Thrones-like of machinations either. Basically there are a few factions, and characters that bicker with each other for power. Cormyr is ruled by a royal family, but the realm's spellcasters called the War Wizards seem to wield the real power, which neither the nobles nor the regal family particularly like. Some of these nobles attempt some conspiracy of their own, and then are caught, and you have no idea why the writer featured them in the book. The main villain seems to be a powerful Zhentarim wizard who keeps causing trouble everywhere, and who is the one responsible for the mindworms. His parts are also not that interesting, although the book needs its villain I guess.

Another problem with the book is its names. The writer just introduces too many of them. If a cook of a random tavern appears in the book, he will have his name, and also his surname. And they will not be easily remembered names either, characters in this book have names like Delyn Laquilalvarr, Erlevaun Dathynar, and many more which are just weird names. The writer just tosses these at you with every character, and you have no idea which of these people will be mentioned later. As a result you tend to not care about the names, but then at some point some characters reappear and you are like "who the heck was this dude now?", and the writer doesn't offer any help with making you remember who they were.

Greenwood's writing style is interesting. The dialogue of the characters in the book is unusual and weird, but I kind of liked it as this is not Earth, so it makes sense people would use unique words, and have a different talking style. It took some time getting used to, but I enjoyed it after that. However I have to mention there is some unnecessary focus on sexual dialogue in the book that makes it read like fanfiction time to time. Most of the characters in the book are horny, while this makes more sense than ignoring their sexuality (which many books tend to do), the book takes it too far. 

Like in the final pages of the book, one of the prominent members of the feared, grim Harpers appear. Now based on what I know about Harpers in the Forgotten Realms setting, I kind of expect this woman to be a serious, and guarded character. What does she do? She gives orders to some military guy, and when he says he has no idea who she is, she suddenly (among an audience) bends over, shows her butt, and asks if he remembers now because this is the backside he catcalled in the tavern when he was drunk that day. I kid you not. I found this completely over the top, and comical. A fitting final moment to such an excessively horny book. I know the writer doesn't expect you to take it seriously, but the dose is still more than is required for a comedy relief, and makes the writing look amateurish.

So overall, this book is as expected a mediocre book at best. It's still a fun enough read if you are into the setting, but it still fails to do what you expect it to do, which is to feature typical adventurers having some fun adventures. I am hoping these characters will finally have their moments to shine in the next book in the series, and the conspiracies that we spent a lot of time with will affect our characters, so we will feel it was an investment that paid off.

SCORE : C-