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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Anthology, August 6, 2007
This review is from: The Best Of The Realms III: The Stories of Elaine Cunningham (Forgotten Realms Novel: Best of the Realms) (Mass Market Paperback)
This is a collection of 15 short stories Ms. Cunningham has produced over the years. Three of them are published here for the first time and the others have been published in various "Realms of" anthologies and Dragon magazine. I found this to be a very enjoyable collection and highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the Forgotten Realms series. One caveat, while these are all wonderful tales if does help if the reader is familiar with the Forgotten Realms, especially Ms. Cunningham's works. Here is a listing of each of the stories in the anthology and a little bit about what I thought of each.
#1 - The Knights of Samalar - This story helps to give some closure to the events of the final Harpers novel "Thornhold". This was an excellent story with an intriguing cast of characters. While "Thornhold" is one of the few books by Ms. Cunningham that I have not read, it stood well on its own.
#2 - The Bargain - This story takes place following the events in "Elfshadow". Danilo Thann and Arilyn Moonblade are great characters because they both have such intriguing histories. I enjoy Danilo's and Arilyn's banter, it makes for a very enjoyable read.
#3 - Elminster's Jest - While this is not a short story, but a ballad, it is still very entertaining. It kept me giggling for quite some time.
#4 - The More Things Change - This story gives a little history on my favorite of Ms. Cunningham's characters, the moon elf, Elaith Craulnober. It goes back and gives the reader and little insight into how Elaith came to be who he is today. Think, "Batman Begins" in a very condensed form.
#5 - The Direct Approach - This story centers around Lirel, the drow from the "Starlight and Shadows" series. I am not as familiar with this series as I am the rest of Ms. Cunningham's work but it was entertaining none the less. I really enjoyed the ending. Word to the wise, never under estimate a scantily clad barbarian with a really big sword.
#6 - Secrets of the Blood, Spirits of the Sea - This was probably my favorite story of the series. I have always enjoyed "origin" type stories where we find out how a particular race came to be. I found myself really caught up in the story and thought the ending, while sad, was fantastic. After reading this one, I immediately went back and read it again.
#7 - The Great Hunt - This is another story featuring Elaith and Arilyn. This time Danilo is absent and you get to witness the interaction between Arilyn and Elaith. On the surface they seem polar opposites but they have more in common than they care to admit.
#8 - Speaking with the Dead - This is another entertaining story involving Danilo, Arilyn, and Elaith. This time Danilo comes to Elaith's rescue. I enjoyed the scene where you get to see a little of Elaith's persona behind the cool facade.
#9 - Stolen Dreams - This the same story as "Speaking with the Dead", but from another characters point of view. You get some interesting back story on some the nobles of Tethyr.
#10 - Fire is Fire - This was the darkest story in the anthology. I love first person narration and from what I have heard it can be difficult to pull off, but Ms. Cunningham does a stellar job. The story is told from the point of view of two combatants in the siege of WaterDeep (for those of who have not read City of Splendors, I highly recommend it) that are battling each other. The ending left me speechless for a few moments. Tales of war are not as glorious as they might seem.
#11 - Possessions - Ms. Cunningham penned this as her first and only ghost story to date. It is certainly dark and rather depressing. I enjoy stories where the ghost doesn't realize he or she is a ghost until later. This is also a story of actions and their consequences with a nice spell battle to boot!
#12 - A Little Knowledge -What would you do if you knew the potential outcomes to every situation? These characters are from the counselors and Kings series. Again, I am not as familiar with these characters as I am with others but that did not detract from the story whatsoever.
#13 - Games of Chance - This story features Elaith again. Aside from "The More Things Change", this is my second favorite Elaith tale. You get a little taste of the rage that Elaith keeps chained away inside him. He releases a little in this story with deadly effect.
#14 - Tribute - This story takes place long before WaterDeep was established. It was a great story with the "maiden dragon sacrifice" theme but with a twist. Scenes from the movie "DragonSlayer" came to mind while I was reading this story.
#15 - Answered Prayers - This is another story featuring Lirel and her companions. I enjoy stories where characters grow. I am definitely going to finish the Starlight and Shadows trilogy get more back story on these characters.
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10 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
It's... adequate?, June 1, 2007
This review is from: The Best Of The Realms III: The Stories of Elaine Cunningham (Forgotten Realms Novel: Best of the Realms) (Mass Market Paperback)
Most of the stories are reprints; I'm going to just review the ones new to me (Dragon reprints, brand-new never-published-before stories).
I think I belong to the minority when I say that I never made a major fuss about the loose threads in THORNHOLD (largely because I found the novel rather indifferent). As a result, the short story "Knights of Samular" is probably wasted on me. Despite or because of this, it seems a little flat to me. The magical compulsion-to-dispel-doubts reads like a plot device designed to save space; the info-dumps about how Sir Gareth might've avoided detection all these years sound almost word-for-word like the author's answers on message boards. I feel I'm not reading a story so much as an author's Q&A via the characters' mouths.
The author notes that "Possessions" is "such a dark tale that some people have difficulty equating it with the mild-mannered soccer mom I appear to be." Errr. I mean, yeah, it involves death and horrible magic and necromancy, but I can't say I find any of the descriptions or the story as a whole particularly disturbing. Most of it's pretty standard fare, actually. I must be missing some hidden core of darkness and the fault, I'm sure, is entirely mine. I'll go play some Silent Hill 3 now and muse over it while watching an explicit cutscene of the protagonist regurgitating a god fetus.
"Stolen Dreams" purports to give a "different point of view" and, while I suppose it does do that, I can't say I've learned any new insight to the story that adds to what I learned from "Speaking with the Dead." All that "Stolen Dreams" shows is what I already know from the other short story and DREAM SPHERES: Sophie/Isabeau is a selfish and nasty brat with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The author's introduction cites the "six blind men with an elephant" parable, but I'm not sure this retelling -- while interesting -- adds anything to the picture. It's the same blind man, at best, and he still think the elephant's head is a pot.
I found it mildly amusing that a scene in "The Great Hunt" where Elaith describes and dresses Arilyn's shoulder-to-elbow wound is almost word-for-word identical to a scene in Elaine Cunningham's other title, SHADOWS IN THE DARKNESS where an older elf, Ian Forest, does the same for the protagonist Gwen (yes, it's also "not as bad as it looks"; yes, it's also a shoulder-to-elbow gash; no, there're no severed arteries or damage to the muscles, either). Wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't just recently reread it, but there it goes.
"Game of Chance" is, for me, the most satisfying one of the bunch and one of the few that can stand alone and feel complete. It deals with the concept of manipulating magic with non-magical mechanism, and I always enjoy magic versus pseudo-science conflict in fantasy. The dynamics between Elaith and his hitherto undeveloped daughter Azariah are curious, and beg for a further story, which unfortunately probably won't happen.
"Answered Prayers" is my second favorite in the anthology. It's entertaining and it adds, I think, a new insight to the character of Liriel, though I can't help but feel that the theme of boorish thug accosting/sexually harrassing a female character in a tavern and then challenging her to a duel is getting a little stale (see "The Bargain" and ELFSHADOW).
The editorial work on this anthology is, incidentally, on the abysmal side. The table of contents lists all the wrong page numbers and typos abound everywhere.
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5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Average and disappointing at the same time, July 8, 2007
This review is from: The Best Of The Realms III: The Stories of Elaine Cunningham (Forgotten Realms Novel: Best of the Realms) (Mass Market Paperback)
The Best of the Realms III is a collection of short stories by Elaine Cunningham set in the Forgotten Realms. There are a total of 15 shorts in this anthology, three of which are brand new. The others have all appeared in either other Wizards of the Coast anthologies or Dragon magazine. As with past anthologies I will say a little bit about each story, but won't go into too much detail - mainly due to the time it would take to fully review each story.
The stories that appear in this anthology are:
#1 - The Knights of Samalar - This story is billed as the story that is supposed to tie up loose ends from the novel Thornhold (Harpers Series #16). This is an OK story. It feels as though it jumps around too much. The Characters are largely as I remember them. This story may suffer, due o the fact that it's a continuation of a story first published in 1998, so lo of events in it were foggy to me. 3 out of 5
#2 - The Bargain - This is a fun story to read. This is how Danilo should act. The pace of this story is spot on. As with most Danilo stories there is some humor mixed in as well. Not much in terms of character development, but the overall story does have a mission and accomplishes that mission very well. 4 out of 5
#3 - Elminster's Jest - This is one of the `stories' billed as new for this anthology. Sadly, it's not a story at all. It's a one page song. I honestly have no idea why this was included, maybe just to say another piece of the anthology was `new'. 1 out of 5
#4 - The More Things Change - A very interesting story involving Elaith. This story gives the reader quite a bit of background information on him in a short time. This story focuses more on character development than plot. While the plot is ok, it feels as though it plays second fiddle to Elaith's development. I would have loved to see a full length novel based on these events. 4 out of 5
#5 - The Direct Approach - This is a story that focuses on Liriel. I had a hard time really grasping the plot of this story. I just wasn't that interested in the events, or the second character that was introduced. The more I read it the more apathetic I became. 2 out of 5
#6 - Secrets of the Blood, Spirits of the Sea - This may very well be my favorite story of the anthology. It accomplishes many things, and explains a great deal about the Realms. Of course, this may or may not be true, being that the story is told as a story. The main character in this story is very good, and there aren't many wemic characters in books or stories. This story was a very good journey. 5 out of 5
#7 - The Great Hunt - Not a bad story, but the ending was very clichéd. The characters are the same fare from most of Ms. Cunningham stories. There was a moment in this story that could have advanced one of the characters, but sadly it wasn't taken and the story became flat. 3 out of 5.
#8 - Speaking with the Dead - Decent story with a good twist at the end. The characters largely held true to their past actions in previous stories. A solid plot and sub-plot. There is nothing really earth shattering with this story, it's just a solid story and mildly entertaining. 4 out of 5
#9 - Stolen Dreams - This story is essentially the same story as above, but from a different point of view. My biggest complaint with this one is if it's written to be the same but from a different point of view - it should cover the same time frame. Sadly, it comes up short. It almost feels as though there are a few pages missing. A solid story and characters, but I just feel like something was missing. 2 out of 5
#10 - Fire is Fire - Ms. Cunningham states this is her favorite story of this anthology. While mildly interesting, having a story told from dueling points of view, it by no means captured me that much. While interesting in spots I feel it could have been much better. Certainly, an interesting idea, but the end product is merely average. 3 out of 5
#11 - Possessions - In the blurb before this story, Ms. Cunningham states this is a dark tale and a ghost story as well. I think that does this story an injustice as it forces the reader to go into it with a preconceived notion. While this story is an average story, there seems, at times, to be a really good story hiding beneath it's surface. It felt incomplete and the ending seemed rushed and disjointed to me. Nothing special about this story. 2 out of 5
#12 - A Little Knowledge - This is probably my second favorite story of this anthology. It's a solid story, with a definite plot. The characters are well written and I didn't have a hard time becoming interested in them. I really enjoyed how the plot didn't seem forced, it just happened. Overall, a fun story to read. 5 out of 5.
#13 - Games of Chance - To me, this was just an average story. Some of the events in this story made next to no sense to me. It was like they came out of the blue for shock effect. Even then though, they weren't that shocking, they were more confusing. Elaith's character in particular did some things that didn't make much sense. 3 out of 5
#14 - Tribute - This is another of the stories that is billed as brand new. However, at three and a half pages, it's barely worth reading. This story came across to me as some one saying "Hey, we need another two story, pound something out quick." There really is no purpose to this story and I am not really sure why it is included here. There's not much chance for a reader to connect at all to anything here. 2 out of 5
#15 - Answered Prayers - This is billed as the long awaited story of what happened to Liriel after the Starlight and Shadows trilogy. While the writing is good and the characters are solid. I had a hard time connecting with the events of the story. Especially the end of the story when Liriel casts a spell... those entire events seemed wrong and forced. Also, Liriel didn't seem like the character I remember her being during the previous trilogy. Not a bad story, but it is certainly not the best that this anthology has to offer either. 3 out of 5
As a whole this anthology is average. There are certainly a few very good stories, Secrets of Blood, Spirits of Sea and A Little Knowledge, but there are also (in my opinion) some clunkers as well, Elminster's Jest comes to mind. The variety of stories is decent, yet it seems it could have been so much better. I feel slightly cheated on a couple of the stories. But, such is life.
As far as anthologies go, this one is about average. The vast majority of the stories can be found in different anthologies and the two `real' stories (I don't count Elminster's Jest as a story) do not necessitate purchasing this book. If you're a fan of the Forgotten Realms and have yet to read all these stories it may be worth it to pick it up, but if you already have the other anthologies you may want to check with a friend or the library.
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