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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Rather disapointing novel, September 5, 2005
This review is from: The Crimson Talisman (Eberron / War-Torn, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
It took me a while to finish this book, as another reviewer said, it is boring in many places. The book suffers from several over done cliches. At first everyone and everything is just too mysterious; you have a mysterious cleric leading a boy with a mysterious artifact on a mysterious journey where they meet a mysterious peddler and are chased by a mysterious evil knight.
Later, the book suffers from the "Show me, don't tell me" syndrome. The characters continually repeat the same thing over and over just to remind the reader of certain facts.
The book also fails as a Dungeons & Dragons tie in product. First, a D&D book needs to have reconizable aspects of the game within it. If I am halfway into the book and the Cleric has not cast a single spell, something is wrong here. Secondly, the author did not do his homework where Eberron is concerned. House Orien is a human house, a half elf would not have the Mark of Passage. The creator of Eberron, Keith Baker has pointed this out.
One thing more I would point out, while this book is part of a series of books; Thw War Torn series. They are all stand alone stories with the theme of recovery from the last war. Don't let this book stop you from looking at the other books in this series.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Utter tripe!, June 9, 2005
This review is from: The Crimson Talisman (Eberron / War-Torn, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
I'm a HUGE fan of the Eberron world, and have been scarfing up all the source material and all of the novels. Most of the novels I've grabbed haven't been super, but they've been readable. Not this one.
This novel gives no attention to character development, and minimal attention to scene setting or providing a description of the world or any explanation for events. My standards for "game fiction" aren't high, but I do strongly prefer that certain basic conventions of story telling and novel writing be adhered to, and in that regard, this work sorely disappointed me. The prose was so bad I didn't even finish reading it; roughly half was all I could bear. (If you knew me, you would know what a ringing condemnation this is, because I finish reading EVERYTHING I start; this will be, I believe, only the third book I've started and not finished in my entire life).
Further, this book isn't really consistent with the Eberron world as clearly laid out by the designer in D&D rules. This I would happily forgive if it in any way approached an interesting, well-told story. "The Crimson Talisman" does not.
So, skip this one, and wait for Eberron books by authors who can actually tell stories.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Worst Eberron book?, April 27, 2007
This review is from: The Crimson Talisman (Eberron / War-Torn, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
I am a huge fan of the Eberron campaign setting for D&D so of course I wanted to read some of the novels based on the setting. While none of the novels have blown me away with their greatness, this one was far below par. The book feels like a D&D adventure that I played when I was [...]. Their seems to be no real point, just one dangerous and seemingly random situation after another. To be honest I could not even finish the book so perhaps there is some redemption at the end, but I just couldn't keep reading. If you are interested in checking out the Eberron novels I highly recommend starting with something else, perhaps Keith Baker's series or Tim Waggoner or Rich Wulf's. Any of those is a much better choice.
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