2.0 out of 5 stars
Rough early writing of Greenwood's, August 18, 2010
This review is from: Crown of Fire: Shandril's Saga, Book II (Mass Market Paperback)
Ed Greenwood -- you're alright in my book. And you've got some good work out there. That said, my review:
This work is by Ed Greenwood (a highly imaginitive man who started the most-written-about land of fantasy in the world, "The Forgotten Realms" [you may know sites from books and games like Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Waterdeep]). His imagination is clearly displayed on every page and you'll love his delicate twists on typical and/or cliched fantasy that makes each event and character something new and intriguing.
This story is good and would be well-liked by fantasy readers.
What isn't so good is the writing. This is one of Ed's earlier books and I suspect he was working on a lot of projects at the time (I think this was around the era where he was really involved with getting Forgotten Realms up and running inside of Dungeons and Dragons' books as well as working on a few other pieces of fiction).
If read aloud, the words have such poor rhythmn that I found myself stumbling over them quite often. Sometimes I'd have to get my wife just to show someone else some of the strange groupings of words that read unclearly, unrhythmically or nerdy-dungeon-mastery. It's so rough that it takes a 4 star story down to a 2 star book.
All of that said, if you like the Forgotten Realms, you might like this book. It's worth checking out if you're hungry for more. And some people just love this style. But there's a lot better out there from this author and other authors.
I found myself quite disappointed with the writing. But I also found it imaginatively stimulating.
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0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I enjoyed this book, April 8, 2009
This review is from: Crown of Fire: Shandril's Saga, Book II (Mass Market Paperback)
I enjoyed this book. I wish I chould find the whole series In hardback. I think in five years or so I chould read it again to my kids and they could enjoy it too.
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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good 2nd book in a great trilogy., July 3, 2007
This review is from: Crown of Fire: Shandril's Saga, Book II (Mass Market Paperback)
Ed Greenwood has a style of writing that I just like to read; and he created the Forgotten Realms! The man needs to be inducted into the Fantasy Authors Hall of Fame just for that one act alone.
This book picks up where the first book left off and continues the story of Shandril. It's pretty good writing, and Ed Greenwood writes about the swords and sorcery things I like to read about. I don't know how many other books, and movies for that matter, that over the years have fallen short just because they don't have enough magic in them. While the whole Shandril Saga has way more "spellfire" than magic, it's still interesting and fun to read. The characters are funny and interesting and I really wanted to find out what happened to them next.
I felt like this book (#2 of 3) wasn't as good as the other two, but I can't really put my finger on it. I don't remember enough really to make any kind of detailed dissertation on it, but I remember it being a little slower-paced, and not quite as interesting as the other two were. All in all it was a definite must-read of course to get to the 3rd book (the best in the trilogy!).
The Shandril's Saga trilogy is one of my favorite series, and I look forward to rereading them one day.
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