Customer Reviews

The Council of Blades (Forgotten Realms, The Nobles Series , No. 5)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

It wasn't quite what I expected from a forgotten realms novel. Thing happend in a tiny place of no outside importance. A place with strange, pompous, and sometimes rididculous rules of warfare.

This book is hilarious. The vast majority of the book wil make you laugh. But along the way characters are developed. Make no mistake, there is a story here. There is drama, characterization, and plot, but humor underlies them all.

Although not quite as polished as his Greyhawk trilogy, I still found this book to be quite enjoyable. It's not your typical FR novel, but considering how formulaic the line has become, this is a good thing. Kidd's stories include unusual characters, and the dialogue sparkles with wit. If you're looking for a standard fantasy novel look elsewhere. If you're looking for something engaging and different, read this.

This is another example of what fantasy ought to be, but rarely is. There is just the right mix of humor, action, romance, and magic to make the book charming, but no one element overwhelms the others. It may not be Paul Kidd's best ever, but it's head and shoulders over most published fantasy.

One of my big contentions is that when I read a Forgotten Realms novel, I want to know I am reading a FR novel. While not a bad book, this could have been placed into practically any fantasy setting and it would have altered very little. The Princess and her suitor are entertaining, but the rest of the book is flat. The one item of interest is the suiotr's abilty to just create incredible items that work without the need of magic. It is interesting to see modern warfare in a fantasy book, but at the same time a little disconcerting. Give it a read if you want something really out of the ordinary.

Maybe Forgotten Realms series readers aren't seeing what they expect. I admit to being a Paul Kidd fan, from books and periodicals. This time he surprised me, with some anacronisms which were yet handled plausibly: surprising gadgets, on which he didn't try to hang the whole story; a little politics, more a matter of how the characters and cast get along. Months later, I remember the links between scenes created by cherry scent to mask chemicals here, an exploding rat there. A pyrotechnic purse for discouraging pickpockets had other uses. The princess isn't simply a pretty ornament and is set on being her own, studious person. Stepmom on one side of door, giant bird on other as comic relief. Vilains stand on their own: soldier tired of playing at war; ambition, sword and trickery in another. I cared what happened, forgot my troubles, found a fantasy with a life of its own. If you set prejudices aside, I think you'll enjoy. Not strictly sword'n'sorcery, or renaisance, or fantastic creatures, Council of Blades is in its own world, but within that, it makes sense, and a good read.

I'll agree, this is not a typical FR novel. If you've never heard of the Italian Renaissance, the de Medici family, or Leonardo da Vinci, you could not fully appreciate this book. On the other hand, if you are familiar with the names above, you will probably enjoy this tale of courtly intrigue and Renaissance inventiveness. The hero, a young inventor, must recognize the danger of his inventions and use brains to defeat the brawn of a power hungery general. The characters remain a mite one-dimensional, but the style is excellent, swinging easily from action to intrigue to humor.

PS- Please don't use the word "LASER" unless you know what it means.

It's been a while since I've read this book, but I recall laughing myself silly every few pages. I am not, I repeat NOT, a Forgotten Realms fan. I've never read a single one except for this one. This book is more along the lines of a Terry Pratchett book. It's incredibly silly and the jokes are pretty good. I recommend it highly if you like Terry Pratchett. It doesn't have the depth of a typical Pratchett plot, but it is just as funny as one.

The book reads more like a cartoon than a fantasy. Expect that when going in. No suprise, considering the writer is a cartoon and comic book writer. If you look him up on imdb.com, you will see that he did the dialogue for the Discworld video games from the mid-90s. Hence, the silly novel this became.

Looking at the other reviews of this book, it looks like people were expecting a serious D&D fantasy story. Therefore, a lot of the reviews seem to be reflective of people's disappointments rather than a fair review of a book that was meant to be a comedy/parody.

This book felt like it was written as a generic fantasy book, not set in any known world, and then a few minor things were changed so that they could publish under the FR Logo. BIG MISTAKE. This is a book that ties in spell misuse, lasers, and far too much of our real world, than it does of the Forgotten Realms.

If you don't read this from the standpoint of it being a book set in the Realms, its a marginally amusing book. However most of the nifty cool parts are all ruined by the author using LASERS and explosives as the main weapons in the book.

Pass on this one unless your bookstore doesn't have soemthing else on it's shelves. And if you HAVE to read it, don't read it assuming it's a Forgotten Realms book.

I read all of the Realms novels. I now wish I didn't. This was without a doubt the worst book I have ever opened. Where most books take me one or two days to read, I was reading this one for over a month. It almost made me wish I was illiterate by the end of it. The plot (if you can call it that) is slow to get moving, and the characters are more boring than watching grass grow. Stay away from this one.

Ugh! What a waste of time. My usual 2 day read was elongated into a 3 weeker. I left this book in the bathroom to skim through during my daily constitutionals. It wasn't worth being in any other room. Boring story, boring characters, almost invisible cast of thousands, with no face and no name supporting an equally invisable storyline. It was almost as if these cities were all bubbled up and kept away from the rest of Forgotten Realms.