manwithanagenda's review
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
0.25
This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
I was a longtime fan and avid reader of the Magic: The Gathering novels and comic books, so I of course bought this as soon as it came out - McGough had already peaked my interest with his novel for 'Torment', so I thought he'd write a worthy successor to Clayton Emery's Legends Cycle.
He didn't. In fact, what McGough did (though standards had already begun slipping with some of the short stories) was nullify the "revisionist" storyline of Magic: The Gathering established with The Brothers War by Jeff Grubb and The Colors of Magic anthology edited by Jess Lebow. He did this by reusing characters Clayton Emery had already used, this error was made because he didn't bother to read Emery's books before writing his own, as he admitted on mtgnews.com, a fan forum and database for the card game.
OK, so maybe this isn't such a big deal to most people, but it was completely infuriating and was representative of a long decline in quality control for the books being released by Wizards of the Coast (after being purchased by Hasbro...hmmm). So instead of being decent ('Prophecy' by Vance Moore) to great ('The Ice Age Trilogy' by Jeff Grubb) fantasy novels, they became just more schlock promotional items.
I was a longtime fan and avid reader of the Magic: The Gathering novels and comic books, so I of course bought this as soon as it came out - McGough had already peaked my interest with his novel for 'Torment', so I thought he'd write a worthy successor to Clayton Emery's Legends Cycle.
He didn't. In fact, what McGough did (though standards had already begun slipping with some of the short stories) was nullify the "revisionist" storyline of Magic: The Gathering established with The Brothers War by Jeff Grubb and The Colors of Magic anthology edited by Jess Lebow. He did this by reusing characters Clayton Emery had already used, this error was made because he didn't bother to read Emery's books before writing his own, as he admitted on mtgnews.com, a fan forum and database for the card game.
OK, so maybe this isn't such a big deal to most people, but it was completely infuriating and was representative of a long decline in quality control for the books being released by Wizards of the Coast (after being purchased by Hasbro...hmmm). So instead of being decent ('Prophecy' by Vance Moore) to great ('The Ice Age Trilogy' by Jeff Grubb) fantasy novels, they became just more schlock promotional items.
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