| Title | : | Black Wizards (Forgotten Realms: The Moonshae Trilogy, #2) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0786935634 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780786935635 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Mass Market Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 352 |
| Publication | : | First published April 1, 1988 |
Black Wizards (Forgotten Realms: The Moonshae Trilogy, #2) Reviews
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A perfectly cromulent second volume in the Moonshaes trilogy -- most of the characters return from the first book, the canvas is broadened from Gwynnedd to the Moonshaes as a whole, the stakes are raised significantly, and while things do reach a conclusion, ground is definitely laid for the third & final volume.
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I like this book a little more than the first one in the series (
Darkwalker on Moonshae ), but it still has some glaring problems that you see in a lot of 80s/90s pulpy fantasy. All the women are either beautiful in an x way (in a youthful way, a gaunt way, a matronly way), or they're sadly hideous. There's also a lot more sexual assault hints or attempts than there were in the first book. Gross.
The pacing is better, in the first book it felt like it took the heroes over half the book to realize what the main plot was about. In this one action happens quickly, but it also gets resolved quickly. There's a lot of jumping around to other character perspectives, but it's usually just for a convenient thing that the hero discovers or thwarts.
It ends more cliffhanger-y than the first one, but I have a couple plot holes that really bugged me:
If you're dedicated to pushing through this series, it's a D&D adventure of a read... but man these plotholes and gross misogyny make it a bumpy ride. -
Page 193-The nuts felt warm against her skin.
Acorns! Exploding acorns, come on!
The realms starts to expand as we are exposed to a new island with a large kingdom and sprawling city. A Robin Hood-esque forest town and plots of a takeover originating from far away Thay, home of the Red Wizards and the dreaded Lich King. Glimpses of the sword coast and assassins from the desert kingdom of Calimshan are also in play.
We are exposed to all sorts of monsters and terrain for use in your DnD adventure. Castles beneath the sea that rise when the um, plot point is right. The Underdark. Duergar, gnomes, wood sprites, ogres, zombies, animated skeletons and my favorite baddie of them all, the fishy sahaugins. There's evil clerics, wizardly duels, magical staffs, wands, rods, mirrors and items for your thief. Gods, both good and evil and the impact and influence they have on the world.
-This was a solid read. This felt like a Realms novel. Being familiar with the areas of Faerun and the powers in play it added a layer of depth that strengthened what many reviwers considered weaknesses.
-One thing Douglas Niles is very good at is evil characters. There is some brutality on display that is stomach fluttering and it worked well.
-Tristan is competent, finally. He's growing into his role as the 'prophecy foretold'.
- Tristan loves Robyn 4eva, unless there's a few hundred years old dead Queen ripe for the taking. Allisynn literally had to be like 'slow your roll, you idiot' for a minute there.
-Since when did Pawldo dislike Daryth so much? He mentally talks a lot of smack for a minute, but why? Did I miss something?
-Anytime you have a half orc character you..umm...have to know it's usually a result of a joining, never willfully, of an orc and some helpless female. In this we have Razfallow, whose MOTHER was an orc? Whaaaat? Dad's into some kink right there. Wow.
-Shiny things distract ogres? Was this in the 2nd edition Monster Manual?
-How many times are you going to lose your dann sword? Really.
-There's a band in Canada called Black Wizards and a band in the UK called The Black Wizards. I wonder if anyone gifted them this book?
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I really enjoyed this book. Read book one, Darkwalker on Moonshae, a couple of months ago for nostolgia's sake and loved it. I remember buying it in highschool when it first came out and not finishing it for whatever reason. So, I read it and loved it.
I am an avid D&D player (2nd edition only please) to this day, but I don't think that influenced me in any way. It's nothing as complicated as A Game of Thrones - it's not as complicated as Stormbringer for that matter - but its heart is in the right place. It is like playing D&D. I caught myself trying to id spells and monsters, but I also got caught up in the stories of the main charachters. The writing was tight and brisk and the stories flowed well.
I took a break before beginning this second book. The story pretty much picks up where the other left off. Again, it is what it is and I recommend it to any fan of the high fantasy genre. This is definitely good vs evil, so if you're all into that whiney, tortured anti-hero stuff that dominates the fantasy market today, avoid it.
This volume ended, but it has more of a lead in to another story than the first book. I very much look forward to reading the final book in this series. -
A year has passed since the young prince Tristan inspired the Ffolk of the Moonshae Isles to victory over the forces of the evil entity Kazgoroth. Angered by the defeat of its powerful minion, the god of murder, Bhaal, plots a new scheme to bring death and destruction to the land of the Ffolk. An alliance is formed between Bhaal's sinister high priest, Hobarth, and a council of manipulative wizards controlling the High King of the Moonshaes. Meanwhile, Tristan struggles to comes to terms with the responsibilities that accompany being a prince while Robyn seeks to master her druid powers under the tutelage of Genna Moonsinger.
The sequel to Darkwalker on Moonshae (and third in the vast line of Forgotten Realms novels that continued unbroken until 2017) is a less focused book than its predecessor. Having gone their separate ways at the end of the first book, Tristan and Robyn must each deal with threats that serve Bhaal's plans for the kingdom in a subtler manner than the rampaging Kazgoroth. Having gone from low-level nobody to high-level fighter in the blink of an eye (though stumbling across a +4 long sword in the form of the Sword of Cymrych Hugh does help...), Tristan seems to have foregone whatever character development occurred previously and is back to his old, drinking ways. Robyn is saddled with the irritating faerie dragon Newt for the book's opening half - his unamusing Jar Jar-esque japes somewhat undermined my enjoyment of her sections.
The story takes a while to come together and truth be told some of the developments seem forced. A crazed and quite clearly dangerous old vagrant is head-scratchingly adopted by Robyn, placing her grove in obvious peril, for little reason. An entire sequence involving a submerged castle reappearing in just the right spot of sea to offer succor to our stranded heroes isn't hugely believable. Somehow Canthus, a huge dog weighing the same as a fully grown adult male, is able to survive all manner of tricky situations requiring stealth and cunning. Huge praise must surely be given to Daryth, Tristan's Calishite friend and houndmaster - not only does he fight like Drizzt and pick locks and disable traps like a master thief, he can apparently train dogs like a master druid.
As with Darkwalker on Moonshae, Douglas Niles really shines when describing the eldritch beauty of the Moonshae Isles - but particularly when writing large-scale battle scenes. There are several worth mentioning, including the desperate defense of a druid grove against an army of undead, and a huge set-piece showdown between various forces of human, dwarves, ogres and sahuagin - loathsome fish-men that no doubt helped inspire World of Warcraft's murlocs, as well as countless other imitators. It's a shame both are resolved by literal deus ex machina.
One area where this novel does succeed is in expanding the Forgotten Realms setting. The introduction of Bhaal and Chauntea, as well as characters from various mainland nations, serves to stitch together the vast tapestry of the Realms in a satisfying manner. There's more of an obvious D&D influence this time around. Though being able to identify the spells and abilities used by the characters isn't exactly a hallmark of great fantasy literature, it's certainly fun for those familiar with the game. The wizard spell charm is used to great effect, demonstrating that it is perhaps the most overpowered spell in D&D. Particularly in a backwater, low-magic setting like the Moonshae Isles, a level one wizard packing a single charm spell can bend an entire kingdom to their will. Who needs wish?
Black Wizards is a fair sequel to Darkwalker on Moonshae, sacrificing real character development and strong direction for exciting action scenes and expanded worldbuilding. It's a notable step down in quality from the first two Realms novels, but is still worth reading. -
Three stars for most of the book, an extra half star for the last 50 pages. Book two in a trilogy where the first book was written as a stand-alone novel, this book spends a lot of time setting up a need for a full trilogy. Many of the events are very predictable, but it does wrap up in a nice climactic battle and leaves me wanting to read the third book to see the fate of our heroes.
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The Forgotten Realms series of books opened up with these Douglas Niles entries that are so poor, terribly plotted, badly paced, zero characterisation novels hopping around perspective every couple of pages for no reason that, if it weren't for Salvatore (the difference in quality to the one Drizzt novel I've read so far is gargantuan), I'm surprised it ever got off of the ground as more than a joke. I'm even more surprised that Niles was given plentiful amounts of books to write in both the Realms and Dragonlance - he must have been good to work with and delivered books reliably and on schedule, since his writing has few other qualities.
That said, I've awarded this two stars, despite the brutal torture it was to slog through, because Niles *can* sortof write a battle scene. He clearly loves them and in those fleeting, albeit regular, moments we can feel a sense of passion for his world and the diverse array of monsters available to him to play with. There's no electricity though, none of Salavatore's ability to really feel the hero in the moment or the sweat of the fight you'd see in Robert E Howard. There's no weirdness either, just descriptions of monsters lining up and visualisations of what's going in on a way that makes me feel that Niles was out of his time and should have been directing, not writing, fantasy epics.
I also continue to really like the idea of this fiction a whole lot better than its realisation here. We have princes finding magic swords and undersea castles, druids being attacked by clerics with large zombie armies, a cabal of black wizards who try to assassinate our heroes and end up squabbling between one another and, of course, kingly assassination attempts and vast hordes of ogres. It's all here, in theory, but the journey somehow manages to be a horrendous experience - the problem might be an obsession with cramming it all into one book rather than settling down and taking time with the material, and letting it come to the reader as a thing to discover and savour.
Ah well! On to the next one. I will, from this point, be crossing any of Niles' books from my list. The completionist in me hates this, but it took too long (6 months, in fact) to slog through this dryasdust fantasy dregs. -
As usual, for me at least, with a lot of these D&D novels, I really enjoy the first half of the novels much more than the second. This is probably because I get bored with the inevitable long battle scenes towards the end of the books, and because to do those well you have to be a really good writer, which Niles isn't... he´s ok, but no great.
So I enjoy mostly the plotty and character based stuff, and this, being a middle book in a trilogy has slightly less of that than the first one, there's no need to set up the world or the main characters, as that was done in the first part, to you jump straight into the action after giving up an update on what is going on with our characters.
It starts pretty well, with a kind of murder mystery and mysterious assassins and a quest to find those responsible, but soon it devolves into battle after battle, set in different locations and with constantly shifting casts. I enjoyed the book when it was taking a breather, but soon got bored with the extended fight scenes. Oh well. Still, it's ok. -
I'm liking this series more and more as it develops. This feels much more accomplished than its predecessor. This series is really ahead of its time in terms of strong female characters in often unexpected places, breaking traditional tropes, which is really good to see in a fantasy novel.
The setting here is great, the celtic base merged with the traditional fantasy elements works really well.
My biggest criticism here is not of this novel alone but on inconsistencies between this and the first novel. In the first novel the gods were fairly amorphous entities, embodying the nature of the land. In this book the Forgotten Realms pantheon has been overlayed over what has been written before and it feels a little jarring - comparing the goddess from the first book with her description here as a facet, if you like, of Chauntea feels a bit off at best. In a similar vein Bhaal's connection to Khazgaroth (not sure that's spelled right) feels a bit forced. -
Black Wizards is a slight improvement over the first book in the trilogy. This one has some politics and a more interesting cast of villains with more realistic motivations for their villainy. In this volume we have conflict between Tristan and the other notable candidate with a claim to the throne of Corwell. These two, along with a a friend of Tristan's set off on a dangerous quest to seek guidance from the high king of the land. This is rather unrealistic, although it is a common trope in fantasy. These two would never go on such a quest together, and certainly not without a large entourage. I also found that the point of view jumped around way too frequently, usually about every 1-2 pages. I felt like I had whiplash by the end of the book. Despite these things, I did get some enjoyment from reading Black Wizards, but it is still a book that I would only recommend to the most avid Forgotten Realms readers.
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God, I read this book in 1988, 33 years ago. I just re-read it, and I'd forgotten most of it. Very fun high fantasy book, one of the first set in the
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting way back in the day. Good D&D fun with a bit of a Celtic twist. -
Oh good heavens. I am at a loss for words at how awesome this book was! I was on the edge of my seat for the last few chapters wondering how Tristan Kendrick would defeat the Wizards! Douglas Niles is quickly becoming a favorite author in the way he tells these amazing fantasy stories!
The "cliffhanger" at the end makes me so eager to start the next book! This is so exciting! -
I enjoyed this re-read. So exciting how it builds up to the big finale.
He has this way of writing that you do not see the way out of the situation. Even though you know the good guys are going to win (unlike most modern fantasy) Its great to see how they get out of their dire circumstances.
Leading up to the last book in the series. -
Fun fantasy read
A fun read. A lot of characters, so sometimes it got a little confusing, but the storylines kept moving forward, keeping the story interesting. And it featured several different traditional monsters, so that was fun, too. -
Slightly less enjoyable than the first book but still a decent read.
I was surprised at the abundance of grammar mistakes. This is the most I’ve seen in anything I’ve read, at points confusing when an entire paragraph jumps from ‘she’ to ‘he’, for example. -
Yet again, I had no idea what to expect, when I started to read this novel, and I must admit that I was completely blown away by it. So thrilling was it. I highly recommend anyone to read the first two books in this series. I can't explain how eager I am to start with the third novel.
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I enjoyed this more than the first book, better writing and enjoyable story kept things interesting most of the way through. So far this trilogy is much better than the Maztica trilogy.
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as iki siol prisimenu sita knyga...
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Good DnD fiction
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A New High King, Another Battle But War Is Not Won. We learn of the High King and find out a greater power is contributing to the problems in the Moonshae. I highly recommend this book.
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Really well written, for the genre. Quite liked it. Towards the end, the pages flew by, wanting to know what was next. :)
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The Empire Strikes Black
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Another pointless book in a carbon copy trilogy
13 June 2012
Well, here we have another Dungeons and Dragons book that was written pretty much as a sequel even though no sequel was really required though this product of the (then) TSR book factory was probably always on the cards. I guess that is the nature of such book factories: to keep churning out books that are written by somebody who knows how to write, but really has little meaning and depth, and is really only an excuse to give lovers of fantasy novels another book to read. In a way these books are pretty much like any other franchise that simply churns out books to fuel people's addictions.
I did read a lot of fantasy when I was a kid however the problem was that I ended up limiting myself to the narrow genres that I liked. I did not read much science-fiction beyond the Doctor Who books and I certainly did not read much fantasy beyond the narrow provinces of the Dungeons and Dragons books. In a way they were settings that I was familiar with and, at the time, they were set in worlds that I knew, were familiar with, and also enjoyed. It was a way of being able to satisfy my Dungeons and Dragons' addiction between the weekly (or even twice weekly) games that I was involved in.
This book continues on from Darkwalker on Moonshae. Once again the peaceful Celtic-like people known as the Ffolk are under threat from an evil and powerful force, and it comes up to the two heroes from the first book to confront this evil. It does in a way follow on from the book, in that where in the first book it seemed like that they had defeated the bad guy and saved the Moonshaes, only to discover in the second book that they were little more than the henchmen of this more powerful and evil force. It is a little like Chuck (the TV series) in that when he defeated one organisation, we quickly discover that this organisation was only the appendage of a larger organisation, and when that one is defeated, we stumble onto an even more powerful organisation that was manipulating this one. While at first it keeps you interested, you end up becoming jaded with the fact that there just seems to be no end, and that there is one ultimate badguy that, when defeated, brings the world into paradise.
I guess the style that attracts me more these days is to throw out the concept of the one big bad guy that must be defeated, and simply have an ongoing history that tosses between major events and minor events, and while there may be some overarching villain, his defeat does not necessarily bring in a brave new world, but rather creates a power vacuum that must be filled. Consider World War II, where we were all fighting this vicious evil that was the German Nazi party, and as we fought we always had our eyes on that new world of peace and prosperity that Keanes had envisioned before the war. However that world never arose because within a few years the Nazi's had been replaced with the Russians, and while the hot war was over a new the cold war had begun. Even with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the brave new world of the 90s never eventuated, especially for me, and twelve years after the fall of the Berlin Wall (ignoring the Serbian bloodbath in between) we find that world shattered once again when two planes slammed into the World Trade Centre. -
Decepciona un poco más que la primera entrega. El esquema se repite, no aparecen más detalles sobre la ambientación, y la trama es floja. Los personajes se desarrollan un poco más.
Copio la reseña que hice para el primer libro,
El Pozo de las Tinieblas, ya que en realidad sirve para toda la trilogía:
La serie nos sitúa en unas islas con claro trasfondo céltico (nombres, aspecto, cultura), donde los aspectos mágicos y clericales típicos de D&D parecen no haberse desarrollado, siendo en cierta forma amalgamados en una religión druídica de veneración a la Madre Tierra. Todo eso está destinado a cambiar a lo largo de la serie de novelas, aunque la trama central se aleja de ello para mostrarnos los avances de un noble de una de las islas y de una aprendiz de druida, junto con un bardo y algunos secundarios. Y precisamente son los personajes, a mi parecer, lo más flojo de las novelas: son excesivamente planos, y los conflictos entre ellos están manidos y son tratados de forma muy superficial.
Sin embargo, creo que la ambientación está muy bien tratada, la oscuridad que se va extendiendo por la isla aparece reflejada de una forma muy coherente, y la trama avanza con gran agilidad, mediante una sucesión de puntos de vista que luego ha llegado a ser la norma en la narración. La trilogía de las Moonshaes no cuenta nada del otro mundo, pero tiene puntos de originalidad y rasgos que la convierten en una serie de la parte de arriba del montón.
Y no sabía por qué motivo, eso me extrañaba: para ser novela de franquicia, era bastante buena (a pesar de sus defectos, muy normales si sumamos la inexperiencia de Niles con su velocidad de escritura). Entonces, al finalizar la tercera novela, pude leer esto en la parte de agradecimientos: "(...) debo dar las gracias a un equipo de diseñadores británicos de juegos (...). Aunque el trabajo en que colaboramos nunca llegó a hacerse realidad, algunos de sus ingredientes sirvieron para concebir el Pozo de las Tinieblas. Doy las gracias también a Jeff Grubb y Ed Greenwood, que encontraron un lugar para mis islas en los Reinos Olvidados (...)". Resumiendo, que la trama y la ambientación ya estaban en buena parte en la cabeza de Niles, y no son enteramente un trabajo de franquicia. Eso ya me cuadra más.
