Customer Reviews

Blackstaff (Forgotten Realms: The Wizards)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I was really looking forward to reading this book. I enjoyed Khelben in Elaine's books, as his gruff, mysterious nature was a stark contrast to Danilo. However, the author of Blackstaff fails miserably to add or really delve into who the man behind the gruffness and mystery is. All we get is flat dialog and visions into his background.

After a good prologue, The book starts off introducing a whole slew of apprentice mages, which is an unfortunate waste of space since most of these characters basically disappear. Then an event happens, out of nowhere and written without much flow, that thrusts Khelben and one of his apprentices together and they must save Waterdeep.

Through the rest of the book, Khelben runs around Waterdeep talking to other mages, the other main character has visions (which are the best parts of the book, providing the only good action), meanwhile the supposed danger to Waterdeep never really feels that "dangerous". Khelben often says "we have very little time" yet why they have no time is never explained or shown.

Also, the interaction between Khelben and his wife is irritating. Supposedly Waterdeep is in grave danger yet his wife is giggling and making sarcastic comments. The author portrays her as an idiotic teenage girl, yet she's supposedly one of the most powerful mages in Waterdeep.

Khelben's interactions with his students, and the other main character, is also annoying. While Waterdeep's safety supposedly hangs in the balance, he conducts an in-depth research session with his student. The scene was painful and reminiscent of the TV show "House", where the smug Doctor really knows the answer but instead forces his underlings to come up with it just to prove a point.

Overall the author tried to do too much with this book. There are flashbacks that show Khelben's past, descriptions of mundane activities (like the taste of ale) that add nothing to the plot, and a whole host of characters are introduced briefly (with great description) but then disappear. In such a short book, the author wastes valuable space describing things and people who have no role whatsoever in the plot instead of giving us more story, action, and plot elements.

I don't recommend this book unless you are a hardcore FR fan. Even then, there are much better FR books to read.

4 stars for the writing. 0 stars for the story's end result.

The book's certainly not an easy read. I found myself flipping back and forth quite a bit to understand earlier parts of the book and discerning their significance. It's a complex but enjoyable read.

Author doesn't fill in all the details, and there's a lot that left dangling, but you can only do so much in a single book.

My biggest complaint however is leveled towards the WofC and whoever's in charge of the Forgotten Realms series. I've read this series since Waterdeep and followed the franchise since I was a kid. Why the hell would you kill off one of the best (and my favorite) characters in the series? Wasn't Azoun enough a few years back?

Khelben's been there from the beginning, and has always stuck in my mind since making an appearance in the Eye of Beholder games. It would be shallow to kill him off and suddenly resurrect him in a later story, as well.

To the WotC and Greenwood, stop recycling Salvatore's crap, write some more stories, invent some new arcs, and stop killing off favorites. You've pushed your loyal audience to the very edge of quitting.

I think what I liked most about this book was the LACK of the bizaare, unique, characters that have been so prevelant of late in Forgotten realms books. No half golem humans, dragons that spend that the bulk of their time in human form, or exiled goliaths. Good old basic half elf wizard apprentice, her familiar, a human thief and of course a few Chosen of Mystra.

The story flows well at a steady pace. A couple minor editing errors, the worst of which was a paragraph that was printed twice.

It was nice to see another author's take on the Blackstaff. Mr. Schend did an excellent job, I think, of expanding this character without radically changing anything that previous authors have done with him.

This book was an incredible insight into the life of a major player in the realms.Every part of it was well handled and it explains quite a bit about why Khelben does act the way he does.iIt also connects whats up at the end of the 1374 time line where they left 3.5 hanging.And a little of the past for big collectors like my self who have a lot of material.One of the best novels I have seen in the realms collection.

This book was exciting and fun throughout the whole novel. Great book for Forgotten Realms/Fantasy books.

Perhaps, because I tend to judge it on its own merits than comparing it to other things I have read. The Moonshaes Trilogy was crap, boring and tedious, IMHO. This, the first of the Wizard series, was not.

I liked Khelben since the first time I read of him in the Avatar trilogy, lo those many years ago. He intrigued me. More than Elminster ever has. As one of Mystra's chosen, I wanted to understand him and see where he stood in the overall gist of the Forgotten Realms. To be honest, I still don't know, but I do understand HIM better.

First off, Khelben has always been listed as a human in the character guides. He's actually helf-elf. He's lived much longer than we knew, and most of his long life has been in preparation of this one story. The one thing that does fry my eggs is that I'm really not sure where the end of this story leaves Faerun. Is his apprentice the New Blackstaff? Will she become a Chosen? I want more information!

Another thing I noticed about this series is that they all take place in the same year in geographically diverse places in Faerun, but they all seem to appear to involve some ancient empire returning to the surface. It was the only thing I could see that tied them all together.

times to read it that is. I read this book when it first came out and was completely confused. I just re-read this book and realized how much this novel is a well of information, whether that information was in the book or something I needed to look up. I just loved re-reading it (along with my wife reading it for the first time). I've said it before and I'll say it again. Thank you Steven.

Ever notice the character's dialogue to be a bit bland? Not to mention every time a character speaks they say the person's name of whom they're talking to. So in a dialogue between Khelben and Tsarra, Khelben will say her name like 10 times on the same page.. or 'girl'. It's just excessive and ALL the characters do it. I haven't finished the book yet but it's my major complaint and it's distracting.

I thought this was a great read for old school Forgotten Realms fans who recall Steven Schend as the late 1990s Realms guru for TSR. There is a touch too much of the Cthluhu-Realms, as I call the Sharn/Phaerimm(sp?)/aboleths/maulaugrym, ect but that really is a question of tastes. Consider how WotC has long abandoned old school FR fans, this shout out with its references to the past (even Spelljammer!) was much appreciated.

Plus, Schend is a pretty solid writer who does a good job keeping a fast-paced, complicated plot coherent and understandable, and shows a real talent for creating believable, sympathetic characters.

The Pros:
First, I thought this would be one of the (I'm sorry El) typicall Greenwood-style high level novels where the main characters almightily smash whole legions of villains, even when they're just on their way to the outhouse. Well, realmsshakin' the events are, but they are described in a rather jovial kind of way I liked very much.
Second, some others have written, that they basically could not recognize Khelben any more. Can't agree with that. "Knew" him for the past 14 years, could not recognize major differences to how he was described by other authors.

The Cons:
As some others already have posted, the story was a little too fast paced. Sometimes it was difficult to follow: "Why-did-he-want-to-meet-that-guy-again?" kinda stuff.
Next, there were too many references to "historical" events of the FR. Anyone, who isn't a complete FR-geek, has his/her problems to follow, when you just learn that this and that happened in the "year of the utmost confusion of the reader". Thanks to candlekeep.com I could make out the years referred to, just to get to know if something had "happened" 50, 100 or a thousand years ago.
Same is with all the high level characters introduced in the novel. Regularly, they are just mentioned with their aliases: Anyone, who has never read the 2 or 3 of a hundred of FR-novels, will have major problems as to understand who eg the regularly mentioned Mad Mage is. When Hallaster is mentioned by name, there is just a short mentioning of him being the mad mage from Undermountain.

Finally, I'd like to state, that I enjoyed reading the book, but, please WotC, give the guy a little more space next time, let's say, a trilogy!
P.S.: The editing, the Binder ;-) be praised, has improved mightily again. Some of the last books, especially of the Eberron campaign, were stuffed with spelling mistakes, and so on. When I, as a non-native speaker, over and over again find them, then I don't wanna know what the native speaking readership thinks abiout that.