hereticburger's review against another edition
2.0
Fast paced fantasy, first part of ubiquitous trilogy. Featuring a independent woman, falling in love with a square jawed beige warrior cursed with misogyny.
magpie_666's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
tkat's review against another edition
3.0
The Avatar Trilogy is one of the earlier trilogies of the Realms world not only in publication history but also timeline history. The entire story arc covers a time in the Realms when the gods were kicked out of the heavens by their lord and forced to walk the earth in -you guessed it- avatars.
So the premise is that two gods: Bane god of strife and Myrkul god of death, conspired to steal some heavy duty magic items called the Tablets of Fate from their own creator Lord Ao. Lord Ao of course got his knickers in a twist and banished all the gods from their homes in the heavens and hells to take human form and learn a little humility. Apparently before this the gods had been acting like spoiled children and pappa Ao had to ground them
So from book 1-3 (I'm assuming at least since I haven't read 2 or 3 yet...) it's all about finding the Tablets and returning them and the gods to the heavens. We meet up with a sorceress named Midnight who is a servant of the goddess of magic Mystra and is given a portion of the goddess magic to hold in trust; a soft hearted thief named Cyric; a priest named Adon who is a servant of Sune, goddess of love and beauty; and a cursed warrior named Kelemvor.
These four get caught in a power struggle between three gods and have to travel to Shadowdale and enlist the help of Elminster the Sage to prevent Bane from returning to the heavens and taking over as king. Hence the name of the title.
I'm a little disappointed in this. It had been so long since I read any Realms I was hoping going back basically to the beginning would be good for me but Shadowdale was actually pretty blah for me. I like the characters, much of their development in intriguing, but for some reason everything else around them fell rather flat. It was almost like the characters were what the author cared about, not the story if that makes any sense.
This won't stop me from continuing the series or from reading more Realms books, I was just hoping for a lot more from it.
So the premise is that two gods: Bane god of strife and Myrkul god of death, conspired to steal some heavy duty magic items called the Tablets of Fate from their own creator Lord Ao. Lord Ao of course got his knickers in a twist and banished all the gods from their homes in the heavens and hells to take human form and learn a little humility. Apparently before this the gods had been acting like spoiled children and pappa Ao had to ground them
So from book 1-3 (I'm assuming at least since I haven't read 2 or 3 yet...) it's all about finding the Tablets and returning them and the gods to the heavens. We meet up with a sorceress named Midnight who is a servant of the goddess of magic Mystra and is given a portion of the goddess magic to hold in trust; a soft hearted thief named Cyric; a priest named Adon who is a servant of Sune, goddess of love and beauty; and a cursed warrior named Kelemvor.
These four get caught in a power struggle between three gods and have to travel to Shadowdale and enlist the help of Elminster the Sage to prevent Bane from returning to the heavens and taking over as king. Hence the name of the title.
I'm a little disappointed in this. It had been so long since I read any Realms I was hoping going back basically to the beginning would be good for me but Shadowdale was actually pretty blah for me. I like the characters, much of their development in intriguing, but for some reason everything else around them fell rather flat. It was almost like the characters were what the author cared about, not the story if that makes any sense.
This won't stop me from continuing the series or from reading more Realms books, I was just hoping for a lot more from it.
iggymcmuffin's review against another edition
1.0
Does NOT hold up. Might have been decent in junior high but this is dreck.
manwithanagenda's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
raechel's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
Not good. There is some potential in the ideas in this story, but they are horribly executed and the writing style made my eyes glaze over and threatened to put me asleep.
<i>Shadowdale</i> (we don't even get to Shadowdale until the last quarter of the book) is about the gods suddenly flung onto the material plane and forced to take on physical bodies. Why? Because someone stole the Tablets of Fate and Ao is mad about it.
What do the tables do? <i>shrug</i>
Why are they important? </shrug/i>
Why can't Ao just use his god-powers to find them again? <i>shrug</i>
We follow a group of "heroes" (as the novel repeatedly refers to them when not calling them by their class or hair color) who kind of... stumble into the story. They're given a quest by a plucky youngster which, then happens with every other "nice" character in the book that suddenly crops up.
The main characters are, for the most part, insufferable. Kelemvor is a sexist baby with a secret. Midnight is boring with a secret. Cyric is angsty with a secret. Adon is vain and kind of funny and is the only one who has real character development.
And of course, the Mary Sue of the Realms, Elminster. Who literally shows up at one point to deus ex machina a problem and then leave. Because he's so cool and smart and powerful. Then the heroes find him again and he's still so cool and smart and powerful. I honestly hate this character and he makes these novels worse every time he shows up.
The map in this book is not good (why is there a Castle Krag, Castle Crag, and a Crag pool? why is Shadowdale <i>NOT MARKED ON THE MAP</i>). The editing in this book is nonexistent. The cover art is confusing (who is the blonde woman? we're repeatedly told Midnight has long black hair. Is Adon the blonde guy with a sword? he uses a hammer. does that make Cyric the thief the scrawny dude in a robe in the back?)
This entire novel is poorly put together and I dread reading the next one in the series.
<i>Shadowdale</i> (we don't even get to Shadowdale until the last quarter of the book) is about the gods suddenly flung onto the material plane and forced to take on physical bodies. Why? Because someone stole the Tablets of Fate and Ao is mad about it.
What do the tables do? <i>shrug</i>
Why are they important? </shrug/i>
Why can't Ao just use his god-powers to find them again? <i>shrug</i>
We follow a group of "heroes" (as the novel repeatedly refers to them when not calling them by their class or hair color) who kind of... stumble into the story. They're given a quest by a plucky youngster
Spoiler
who is quickly killed off and we're supposed to be sad about itThe main characters are, for the most part, insufferable. Kelemvor is a sexist baby with a secret. Midnight is boring with a secret. Cyric is angsty with a secret. Adon is vain and kind of funny and is the only one who has real character development.
And of course, the Mary Sue of the Realms, Elminster. Who literally shows up at one point to deus ex machina a problem and then leave. Because he's so cool and smart and powerful. Then the heroes find him again and he's still so cool and smart and powerful. I honestly hate this character and he makes these novels worse every time he shows up.
The map in this book is not good (why is there a Castle Krag, Castle Crag, and a Crag pool? why is Shadowdale <i>NOT MARKED ON THE MAP</i>). The editing in this book is nonexistent. The cover art is confusing (who is the blonde woman? we're repeatedly told Midnight has long black hair. Is Adon the blonde guy with a sword? he uses a hammer. does that make Cyric the thief the scrawny dude in a robe in the back?)
This entire novel is poorly put together and I dread reading the next one in the series.
dark_reader's review against another edition
1.0
Just... not... good. A plot-driven novel more than anything else, and the plot is not even entirely the author's own, given that this book and the whole series it starts off are just one part of a multimedia enterprise around a change in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting path of history. "Richard Awlinson" is in this case the pseudonym of Scott Ciencin. The second book in this series ("Tantras") lists both Scott Ciencin and editor Jim Lowder as represented by the same single pseudonym... suggesting perhaps that "Shadowdale" had no editor? If so, that would explain a lot.
Characters are not so much introduced as just sprung into the story, and somehow you are supposed to give a damn about them without any characterization, backstory, or redeeming or interesting traits, The one exception is an incorrigibly vain cleric of the goddess of beauty, whose antics were at least amusing. Otherwise, I suppose that the characters were meant to harbor an aura of mystery, until some of their histories were later revealed, but even by then I found little to interest me in these 'heroes'. The villains too are equally dull. The primary villain, an evil god, is in fact quite pitiful in his machinations and laughable as a threat. Cruel buffoonery is as bad as he gets.
The events presented were equally banal. Although meant to be world-changing, ground-shaking calamities in scope, catastrophic happenings require all of the emotional investment in their impact to come from the reader. I got none of this from the written word. The characters seem to agree, as they barely react to, say, a decaying meat forest erupting around them, or an enormous eye opening in the sky whose tears fall as torrential rain. The response is merely, "Oh well," if even that. The gods walk the earth, the landscape is changing chaotically, magic fails all, and the whole fabric of the world is threatened? The heroes just carry on with a series of banal tasks without notable reaction.
Despite the title, there is no mention of Shadowdale, nor do the main characters have any interest in this location, until half way through the novel, and only in the final fifth do they actually spend any time there. It might as well have been titled "In and near Arabel" for all of the significance of the location. At least the time spent in Shadowdale is the most interesting of the entire story, sustaining a moderate amount of interrst. But still, even in the final showdown, there is never any sense of real threat, merely a bit of action so that the story can wind up.
Of course this is but one part of a trilogy (later expanded by an additional 2 novels later on), so there is the requisite cliffhanger, although even that lacks any punch, and depends on well-known Realms characters who ought to display more wisdom, leaping to unrealistic conclusions.
I trudged through it. The writing was slightly better than Ed Greenwood's earliest (not a great feat) but the tone throughout still smacked more of 'Dungeon Master recounting' than 'fantasy novelist'. I would like to think that given more freedom of story and character, Scott Ciencin could produce a more compelling work, but for me that remains to be seen. Looking at his bibliography, I see many licensed works and at least one more pseudonym, so perhaps this is as good as it gets.
Characters are not so much introduced as just sprung into the story, and somehow you are supposed to give a damn about them without any characterization, backstory, or redeeming or interesting traits, The one exception is an incorrigibly vain cleric of the goddess of beauty, whose antics were at least amusing. Otherwise, I suppose that the characters were meant to harbor an aura of mystery, until some of their histories were later revealed, but even by then I found little to interest me in these 'heroes'. The villains too are equally dull. The primary villain, an evil god, is in fact quite pitiful in his machinations and laughable as a threat. Cruel buffoonery is as bad as he gets.
The events presented were equally banal. Although meant to be world-changing, ground-shaking calamities in scope, catastrophic happenings require all of the emotional investment in their impact to come from the reader. I got none of this from the written word. The characters seem to agree, as they barely react to, say, a decaying meat forest erupting around them, or an enormous eye opening in the sky whose tears fall as torrential rain. The response is merely, "Oh well," if even that. The gods walk the earth, the landscape is changing chaotically, magic fails all, and the whole fabric of the world is threatened? The heroes just carry on with a series of banal tasks without notable reaction.
Despite the title, there is no mention of Shadowdale, nor do the main characters have any interest in this location, until half way through the novel, and only in the final fifth do they actually spend any time there. It might as well have been titled "In and near Arabel" for all of the significance of the location. At least the time spent in Shadowdale is the most interesting of the entire story, sustaining a moderate amount of interrst. But still, even in the final showdown, there is never any sense of real threat, merely a bit of action so that the story can wind up.
Of course this is but one part of a trilogy (later expanded by an additional 2 novels later on), so there is the requisite cliffhanger, although even that lacks any punch, and depends on well-known Realms characters who ought to display more wisdom, leaping to unrealistic conclusions.
I trudged through it. The writing was slightly better than Ed Greenwood's earliest (not a great feat) but the tone throughout still smacked more of 'Dungeon Master recounting' than 'fantasy novelist'. I would like to think that given more freedom of story and character, Scott Ciencin could produce a more compelling work, but for me that remains to be seen. Looking at his bibliography, I see many licensed works and at least one more pseudonym, so perhaps this is as good as it gets.
eddiel95's review against another edition
3.0
The writing is not exactly stellar, with very utilitarian prose (without the refined nature of Sanderson's) and minimal description and decorative writing. But if you're interested in DnD/Forgotten Realms lore it's pretty decent. Will carry on the series.
maylin's review against another edition
3.0
2.75
The writing was difficult to get through at times. A lot of plot points seemed glossed over or just alluded to instead of the author actually taking the time to show us what's happening. Lots of telling, not as much showing. Until the action starts. All action scenes were substantially better written. And I loved all of the lore covered in this book. The lore is mainly what kept me going, but I definitely became more invested as the book progressed.
The writing was difficult to get through at times. A lot of plot points seemed glossed over or just alluded to instead of the author actually taking the time to show us what's happening. Lots of telling, not as much showing. Until the action starts. All action scenes were substantially better written. And I loved all of the lore covered in this book. The lore is mainly what kept me going, but I definitely became more invested as the book progressed.