Customer Reviews

The Crimson Talisman (Eberron / War-Torn, Book 1)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I've been reading the D&D novels since the late 80s and am sad to say that this was the worst one I've yet come across. The characterization is at best laughable, and almost pitiable at times. The dialog is almost painful to read, as character after character give lines that sound anything but conversational. The characters never develop a voice of their own throughout the story making it very hard to follow exactly what they are saying Mr. Cole tries to paint some interesting action sequences, but scale and scope are lost in poor prose and a very weak command of pacing.
The Eberron setting is an incredible world, ripe with ideas for excellent fiction, however the Crimson Talisman really doesn't live up to the world's potential.

First, this book is not near as bad as many reviewers claim; it's actually not a bad story, and is pretty well-written. Naturally, it suffers from the typical, written-for-13-year-olds every WoTC/TSR novel endures, and it is an obvious commercial for D&D products. Nonetheless, if you removed all the WoTC-trademark names and whatnot, it could stand by itself as a passing-fair fantasy novel. The real problem is that it is decidedly NOT the tone of Eberron. Readers of the Eberron books have come to expect a certain gritty, anime-inspired, industrialized sci-fantasy setting with a modern tone--the other novels in the line are rife with contemporary language, humor and a style that is extremely cinematic. The Crimson Talisman harkens back to the TSR years and comes off as a Forgotten Realms novel written in the eighties early ninties, that maybe got a quick re-do, replacing Realms names with Eberron names...not a good idea (it is also very, very English). DO NOT pick this book as your first Eberron book. Try The Lost Mark series (definitely, the tone of Eberron is captured in this series, and there are no boring scenes...) or Baker's introductory novels (Dreaming Dark series).

It seems ( of the 6 people that have reviewed this book) that most don't like it. I'm not really sure why. To me this is the best written Ebberon novel to date (ok, so there's only three right now) but still...

I have been trying to give the world of Ebberon a chance. The first two book in this world did very little for me. So, with some trepidation I picked this one up, and was pleasantly surprised by the rishness of the characters, the story, and the plot line along with it's various twists.

I read one review that disliked the names in the book. To me Vaddi while an uncommon name (aren't most fantasy names uncommon?), seemed 'right' for the character. I have no qualms about the names.

Onto the book. Right away the reader is emersed in the story. It almost felt like when you turn on a movie and miss the first ten minutes.. so much is happening that you're not sure where the story is going. Yet, I think Cole did this on purpose and with great effect. There are some things that the author intentionally keeps from the reader until later in the book. This makes the reader more invested in the story.

This is the first novel I have read by Cole and would gladdly read another.

The idea behind the novel may not be too bad, but honestly I'm about half-way through and am not sure if I will finish. I wish I had known that the War Torn series books are stand alones, I would surely have gotten the James Wyatt book instead.

There are so many errors (beyond the typos) that I'm not sure if the author even so much as knew what Eberron is. Someone mentioned the half-elf with the Orien mark already, but he can't even get the basic physics right. The fugitives travel on foot from Voorkesh to Taeris Mordel in one day, which is fine until you look at the book's own map and see that it is about a 300 mile journey (and through mountains yet!). So forget Eberron, there's no sort of internal coherence in the story at all.

I'm sorry I just can't suspend that much belief.

The action is fast paced enough, but it's written in such a slipshod and confusing matter that I really don't care what the characters are doing or what army they are single handedly taking down at the time. Mr. Cole is in desperate need of a thesaurus; there are other ways of describing leaving a building besides "quitting the building" but it's a term he likes so much that he uses it sometimes twice in the same paragraph.

It has it's moments I'll give it that. Overall not a great novel but I can see where some people will like it.

If you like this type of book, might I suggest another I've recently come arcoss. The Unsuspecting Mage by Brian S. Pratt. It's another fantasy adventure sure to please. I highly reccomend it. It's definitely a better read.

The author needs to learn how to write and not sound like a high school freshman trying to cover every least detail. The first four pages are horrid, but I continued forward until I realized that I had commercials to watch on TV.

The characters are so 2-dimentional, that calling them flat would be an insult. The characters are stiff and when the author tries to convey information about the world of Eberron through the characters, that information seems to shock them even though the characters should have a firm grasp of their own reality.

This was the worst book that I have bought in 20 years, hands down.