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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Complex & Gritty. Awesome Book,, June 5, 2006
This review is from: Bladesinger: The Fighters (Mass Market Paperback)
I found this book riveting and full of complex characters. The main characters are not your cliche heroes. They are gritty and rough around the edges. Taen, the main character, has a background that unfolds throughout the story that really makes the book hard to put down. His companions are not portrayed as deeply, because they are side characters, but they are also not your run of the mill happy go lucky heroes.
In addition to the quick moving plot and complex main character, the action in the book is purposeful. Not only that, but Taen's character behaves differently from major battle to major battle as he handles his own inner conflicts. Another thing I liked was that the heroes actually got hurt during battles - I don't think they came out of any fight completely unscathed.
In all, I hope all FR and fantasy readers give this book a chance. It features a main character who is very interesting, and I sincerely hope Wizards writes more about him.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Very Disappointing Realms novel, May 20, 2006
This review is from: Bladesinger: The Fighters (Mass Market Paperback)
Bladesinger is the fourth book in Fighters series of stand alone novels. The other three are Master of Chains by Jess Lebow, Ghostwalker by Erik Scott de Bie, and Son of Thunder byMurray J.D. Leeder. The Fighters series, and the other stand alone series, are an attempt to get new authors into the Forgotten Realms. With the Fighters series it has been done to mixed results. One book clearly stood out above the others, that being Ghostwalker. Master of Chains was a decent book and I think worth reading. Then comes Bladesinger, followed by Son of Thunder which I did not like at all.
There are some redeeming points to Bladesinger. The plot moves along at a decent pace and the author style lends itself to easy reading. Not in terms of his actual words, but the flow of this book seemed easy for me. However, there were at least two areas that dragged this book down considerably.
The plot was very superficial and cliché driven. I often felt like this book had been read countless times before. There was really nothing new or exciting, it was all a repeat. Also, the author attempted to add bits of history to one of the main characters Taen, but that only served to disjoint the present story. In fact, the almost seemed to be more about this characters history than the actual quest they were on. If you take out the history pieces this story could have easily been a short story in an anthology somewhere down the line. It just didn't work for what the author was trying to do. Taen's history was simply too much and too forced to work right. The plot is the classic get a quest by some big power that is dying, go on the quest, almost die on the way, come to the end of the quest, have a sad ending for one member. There seemed to be a lot of room where the author could have added his own personal touches, but I just didn't come away feeling that for this book. A very sub-par plot line here.
The characters all have potential to be good characters, yet quite honestly I didn't care about them. The only character I cared about was Roberc the Halfling and his dog Cavan. Other than that it felt like the characters were there for the story, not the characters driving the story by their choices and actions. It honesly felt like the plot was a car and the characters were being dragged behind the car with no influence on where they were going.. Also, at the start of the book it seems the characters are not all powerful, but throughout the book they suddenly have all these powers that help them along the way. There was little fleshing out of the characters, besides Taen (which was too much). The whole half-elf exile/disgraced thing has been done to death, someone needs to find something new. The characters are just bland in this novel.
Overall as I said above, this is a sub-par Forgotten Realms book, and quite honestly I am surprised it was published with the lack of substance that it has. Ghostwalker is by far and away the best of this bunch. I doubt I would recommend this book to anyone, other than someone trying to read every Forgotten Realms book ever made. There are just so many other books out there, find something better.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not Good, January 17, 2007
This review is from: Bladesinger: The Fighters (Mass Market Paperback)
Bladesinger features a Half-Elven outcast getting pointlessly involved in an internal struggle in the land of Rashemen. The book has two distinct parts, the Rashemen part (75% of the book ) taking place in year 1372 DR, and five flashback chapters dealing with main character's past, taking place earlier.
The protagonists in this book are fairly interesting, especially the main character Taen the Bladesinger. Actually, those five flashback chapters are the only thing I enjoyed in this book. It is an interesting but tragic story of his past. The author does a decent job of describing the land of Rashemen, and that is about it on the good side.
The plot is totally pointless, and the mentioned bladesinger acts as a sidekick for the most of the book. The plot has all elements of pulp fantasy: lots of pointless fighting, a silly romance, weak attempts of comic relief, villains that are evil just for the sake of it, and of course, a cliché ending. What this book does not contain, on the other hand, is a single plot twist, believe it or not. Actually, for the most of the book, I had a feeling of reading a transcript of someone's poorly written D&D dungeon-crawling session. And even the traditionally good WotC editing has disappeared from this book, leaving a number of plot inconsistencies and logical errors.
I still can't believe that this book is written by a single person. The difference between terrible Rashemen chapters and interesting history chapters is enormous. Unfortunately, the good chapters take only about a quarter of this novel.
If not for the main character and his history, this would have been a clear one star book. As it is, it barely gets two stars. Enjoy!
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