A review by evanbernstein
Forging the Darksword by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman
3.0
I remember loving this series as a teenager, but it did not hold up as an adult. I enjoyed reading/skimming my way through the books (and I'm going to read the 4th book that was written about a decade after the originals that I never read) but I wouldn't recommend this to other adults. I'm not sure if I'll recommend these to my kids when they get older. Maybe. I think I remember being entertained by things that now I didn't like as much. But maybe these would seem quaint to them based on other books/movies that they'll now have access to.
This book is the best of the 3. The characters have their most agency and choices and conflicts in this book. In the rest they are just pawns of the plot. In this book, they have room to be characters. A bit.
This book is called Forging of the Darksword and that doesn't happen until the end of the book. It would be a spoiler (if the Darksword actually really meant anything to the series other than a Mcguffin that is basically never used). Saryon, Anju, Joram, and other characters get to have a bit of depth in this story (that they greatly lack in other stories). Vanya's choices make a bit of sense. Simkin still seems like they might make sense in this story.
Even on this re-read, I wasn't sure who Vanya's spy was. Maybe it was the "evil" rebel leader. Maybe it was Simkin. I didn't remember entirely and I could conjure up different ideas.
The story sort of works
The story of finding the darkstone, and the forginging of the darksword, and the final confrontation using the darksword is actually kind of exciting and makes sense. And gives a sense of wondering where this story is going and how the darksword is going to be used going forward (spoilers: nope)
One of the biggest things that makes absolutely no sense is the magic system. There is all this time spent explaining that Saryon is amazing at math because he is a catalyst and that that is how he understands the math in the darksword instructions but this makes no sense. Catalysts simply transfer Life to the magicians. They don't use it. Saryon (or any catalyst) can do all the calculations they want about how to efficiently use the Life well so that it is used sparingly and it won't matter unless the magician actually uses it that way. Based on how the magic system is explained, it is the magician that would need to do these calculations, not the Catalyst. Plus, his math skills are never mentioned again or used in any of the subsequent stories. This just didn't work for me and is leveraged less and less throughout the rest of the series, so it seems it was really only included to make Saryon understand math so he can read the numbers to craft the sword...
This book is the best of the 3. The characters have their most agency and choices and conflicts in this book. In the rest they are just pawns of the plot. In this book, they have room to be characters. A bit.
Spoiler
This book is called Forging of the Darksword and that doesn't happen until the end of the book. It would be a spoiler (if the Darksword actually really meant anything to the series other than a Mcguffin that is basically never used). Saryon, Anju, Joram, and other characters get to have a bit of depth in this story (that they greatly lack in other stories). Vanya's choices make a bit of sense. Simkin still seems like they might make sense in this story.
Even on this re-read, I wasn't sure who Vanya's spy was. Maybe it was the "evil" rebel leader. Maybe it was Simkin. I didn't remember entirely and I could conjure up different ideas.
The story sort of works
The story of finding the darkstone, and the forginging of the darksword, and the final confrontation using the darksword is actually kind of exciting and makes sense. And gives a sense of wondering where this story is going and how the darksword is going to be used going forward (spoilers: nope)
One of the biggest things that makes absolutely no sense is the magic system. There is all this time spent explaining that Saryon is amazing at math because he is a catalyst and that that is how he understands the math in the darksword instructions but this makes no sense. Catalysts simply transfer Life to the magicians. They don't use it. Saryon (or any catalyst) can do all the calculations they want about how to efficiently use the Life well so that it is used sparingly and it won't matter unless the magician actually uses it that way. Based on how the magic system is explained, it is the magician that would need to do these calculations, not the Catalyst. Plus, his math skills are never mentioned again or used in any of the subsequent stories. This just didn't work for me and is leveraged less and less throughout the rest of the series, so it seems it was really only included to make Saryon understand math so he can read the numbers to craft the sword...