Customer Reviews

Elminster in Hell

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

Let me start by saying that this is an amazing book, easily the
best Elminster book yet. However you will want to prepare yourself
before you read this book, this book is not a first-read book. This
book has quite a few prerequisites, including the previous 3 El books,
the Avatar trilogy, and the shadows of the avatar trilogy (and the two
books that follow those), and MOST definately Silverfall. I should
point out that this book takes place in the current date of the Realms
timeline, and occurs just after the events in The Summoning, and a
reader may also consider reading that book before hand to see what
caused El to go to hell (and also consider the three Netheril books as
a prerequisite to The Summoning) Now that the prerequisites are out of
the way, we can reveal some content. The book is about our beloved
Elminster trapped in the first layer of hell by a powerful devil who
will not rest until he has raped El's mind of all his precious
memories. The first few pages of the book explain this, and also give
the realms dates for those memories. This book is one of the very
best Forgotten Realms books I have ever read (numbering over 70, and
growing), and would place this book in the top five, along with
Servant of the Shard (another amazing Realms book). This book is very
enjoyable if you take the time to prepare yourself by reading
Silverfall, and the other books mentioned above.

Before I begin to praise this unique novel, I'd like to start off by saying that I strongly recommend reading the previous three Elminster novels by Ed Greenwood before embarking on this outstanding book. After doing so, I decided to pick up Elminster in Hell despite the fact that I heard chronologically it takes place most recently in the Forgotten Realms' extensive timeline. Nevertheless, upon reading about twenty pages into the book you realize that you're in for an immensely interesting and informative read. Elminster of Shadowdale; one of the most recognized, respected and powerful beings in the land of Faerun is attempting to destroy a rift between the Nine Hells and Toril, when he is captured by an arch-devil named Nergal in Avernus. Nergal plans on appropriating valuable memories dealing with the magical technique Silver Fire in Elminster's mind for his own diabolical usage. Elminster displays bravery and sly cleverness despite his predicament, but inevitably is forced to release his memories one by one.

Here in lies the greatness of the book. Ed Greenwood takes over twenty(!) of his signature characters and has them each playing roles in the various recollections that Elminster is providing to Nergal. It was truly satisfying to read page after page, seeing different characters that I have read about in Forgotten Realms source books finally in action all in one book. Without giving away any truly satisfying surprises there are cameos and fairly dominant roles by The Simbul, Storm Silverhand, Sylune, Alustriel, Laeral Silverhand, Mirt, Durnan, Piergeiron, Vangerdahast,and my favorite Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun. Divulging any details about the events that occur in both El's memories and the present day involving Elminster's friends would be spoilinig the overall experience, so I won't reveal any of that info.

Elminster in Hell is truly an engaging, informative novel by the creator of Forgotten Realms himself. There are many moments where you'll laugh out loud at Elminster's sly and witty remarks, Khelben Blackstaff's rhetoric, or the clever plan carried out by the main protagonist at the end of the tale. Lastly, be on the lookout for a truly redeeming quest of a formally evil and aimless villain(and I'm not referring to any of the aforementioned characters.) At the end of this novel, I couldn't help but feel satisfied and impressed by the sheer ingenuity and spellbinding quality of this book(IMHO,the best of the four books in the Elminster series). I'd qualify this book as being worthy enough to be classified in the same league as Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman's DragonLance epics and R.A. Salvatore's equally epic Drizzt saga. In conclusion, I highly recommend Elminster in Hell to any fan of the Forgotten Realms, any readers of other D&D book worlds and to anyone who enjoys fantasy fiction at its finest.

*SPOILER WARNING

I have read every Elminster novel in this series and I thought they were ALL horrible beyond belief. Why did I read this then?

I thought there might be a chance that Greenwood got better as a writer(I thought that same thing with every new Greenwood novel) and the premise of the story sounded really good: An adventure in hell! yesssss.

While the story DOES take place in hell (more specifically: Avernus which is the 1st level of the 9 hells), its certainly not an adventure.

First off. Elminster is all of a sudden shot to hell in the first page. As I read this, I asked myself "how?" and "why?". These two questions weren't answered until much later in the book! I know that any other author would have started the book differently. Maybe from the villans point of view? you know..a little plotting and planning in the beginning so we can know why and how Elminster goes to hell? It just seemed too all of a sudden.

So. As soon as our hero gets to hell. He is captured by an Archdevil by the name of Nergal. Nergal wants Elminsters memories of working magic, so he in turn can learn how to use it to rule all of Toril.

The memories that we read about are all dull and feel like they don't advance the plot. Mirt the Moneylenders night with a "pleasure-lass" who has 2 kids. Vanderhagast's (sp?) missing War Wizard. BLAH!

I understand that Elminster chose boring memories to goad Nergal, but did Greenwood think that the readers might find them boring as well? Does Greenwood even have an editor by the way?

Another thing we come to understand way later in the book, is that Elminster is choosing certain memories to contact his friends indirectly to come and save him (typical Elminster style of course). First there is Vanderhagast(sp?) who cant do anything to help, then there is Mirt, who cant do anything to help, then MYSTRA herself! She gets there and cant do much. THE GODDESS OF MAGIC...couldn't rescue him? Psshhh. Mystra then sends Halaster Blackcloak. He gets there and cant save our hero. So finally. The Simbul herself flies down to rescue of beloved hero and wisks him out of there. So the Simbul (who's pretty powerful) can rescue Elminster from Hell, and MYSTRA (Who gave the Simbul her magic)CANT? That just seemed way too unbelievable to me.

Nergal is an extremely annoying villan. He constantly repeats himself when Elminster's memories have ended. "Don't toy with me human" and others like it, are prevailant. He just seems too much like a cookie cutter villan for my taste.

Elminster himself is tortured so badly throughout the book (getting his arms ripped off, etc...) and still manages to make wise cracks at his devil captor. If I had my eyeball poked out, like Elminster did, I wouldn't be able to even think words in my head. Then again. This is Elminster and he is invincible and unbeatable...please.

All in all, this was REALLY bad. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. If you are like me and are addicted to the realms, then you could try to sit through this, apparently some people have and some actually enjoyed it!

I was interested to learn more about Elminster because I've heard his name mentioned many many times throughout other realms novels as the Realms greatest hero and wanted to learn more.

When I started reading the Elminster novels I was expecting great character development. After all Elminster is the greatest realms hero, so you would think he would have an interesting story right? Boy was I wrong. I think its very sad that a potentially great character was ruined by a bad writer. If any other realms author wrote the Elminster novels, you might have seen Elminster as the Mage-equivalent of Drizzt!

Instead we are left with this horny old mage, who talks like a dwarf trying to speak old english ("aye" "ye" "thee" "thou" etc...), who begs his goddess to help him whenever he gets into trouble (she helps him 99% of the time by the way), who seems to botch things rather then help, who is invincible, who is immortal, who knows every spell, etc etc I could go on for days. I like imperfect heroes, dont get me wrong, but Elminster is too IMperfect and too perfect for me. Also, when has a horny old man ever been a like-able character?

If you are thinking of getting into the realms, I would recommend (like MANY others) starting with RA Savlatore. His books have deep characters that you can relate to and understand, LOTS of action, and great fast paced plots. Unlike this.

I admit I am not a big fan of Greenwood's, yet for some reason I keep subjecting myself to his book. This book differs from Greenwoods's other novels in that this one makes absolutley no sense what so ever. This book is a jumble of ideas all trying for the same page... it doesn't follow a logical line of thought, nor is there any real character development. I enjoy the character of Elminster, but how many Elminster books do we really need? The initial Elminster series was good, then it just fell apart after that.

This book is definatley a pass...

This was a bit of a let down. I expected a much clearer story line and telling. This is a book all Forgotten Realms fans should read, but probably just the once. Its hard to follow at times and kinda leaves you wanting to know a bit more at the end. Not what I've come to expect from Ed Greenwood. His other books were wonderful; this one, could of used some work.

This is just a mess of a book. The concept was enough to get me to pick the book up: the mighty Elminster, fighting for his life against a duke of Hell. And for a little while, the story is somewhat engrossing as we take a trip through Elminster's memories while the old wizard tries to distract his captor from learning all of the secrets of one of Mystra's Chosen.

As the book moves on, however, the story starts to fall apart. Elminster reaches out through his thoughts to a number of his friends and acquaintances. Among those who get involved in the plot are Mirt the Moneylender, Vangerdahast, the Simbul, Halaster, and Mystra herself. However, Mirt and Vangerdahast prove themselves completely useless, worrying about Elminster but being unable to help him or even advance the plot. Halaster only proves himself somewhat useful as a deus ex machina near the end and even then only with Mystra's help. Even Mystra herself, the goddess of magic in the Forgotten Realms, proves to be of little use in Elminster's rescue. As a result, we have really only three important characters: Elminster, the Simbul, and the devil captor. The rest of the cast serves no other purpose than to mill about ineffectually and occasionally serve as the focus of a quick flashback from the old mage.

Even more frustrating than the mess of a plot that Greenwood provides is the fact that he writes like a horny adolescent. Every woman in the novel -- bar none -- ends up undressed at one point or another. Every interlude we get involves sex in one way or another, not as a way of advancing the plot but more or less just because Greenwood seems obsessed with woman wanting to sleep with Elminster. This is the type of writing that gives fantasy a bad name and results in so few people taking it seriously. It's fine if you're just starting puberty and you've never kissed a girl, but considering that the subject matter I would expect a slightly more mature approach to the female characters in the book. Greenwood's novel reads more like soft core pornography than a decent fantasy story. This is the type of novel that makes parents wary of fantasy literature and keeps it from being considered a legitimate genre.

Overall, while Elminster in Hell does start off strong and provides a rare challenge to the nearly godlike old mage, the story is scattered with lots of useless diversions from the main plot, supporting characters who seem extraneous at best, and a deluge of useless female characters whose only purpose seems to be to bare their breasts as often as possible.

I will keep this short.

First, this book does require some previous reading, as others have mentioned. I enjoy Ed Greenwood's style, and found this to be probably my favorite work of his. The short-story-within-a-novel idea certainly kept me entertained, and the whole thing came together, for me, perfectly.

Don't know if this helps much, but there's my thumbs up. :-)

One would probably rate this book as an odd work of Greenwood. It is that. It builds around flashbacks, the technique used in this book is quite interesting. It seemed a bit odd to me at first, not to talk about it being not written on my native language, but I got into it after few evenings of reading. I won't recommend this for those who are not seriously into this Realms series of books or reading in some other way, but for those who are, this is important part of Greenwood's production and literature. Not a bad book certainly.

As a devoted fan of the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms series, this book was an automatic purchase as soon as I saw in on the shelf. I have never, ever in my life failed to finish a book I have begun. This book changed that forever.

The story is ponderous and never really goes anywhere. It is a collection of unrelated snippets of Elminster's memory. I forced myself to reach a halfway point because I couldn't believe that Ed would put out such a piece of .... I then skipped ahead and scanned the remaining chapters and it never changed!!

Unless you have read every other book that has been published by every other author, I strongly suggest you skip this book and not feel the least bit remorseful about missing it.

The idea is straightforward. Dump Elminster in Hell. Have a demon torture him, again and again and again. In between episodes of torment, give us a couple of pages of 'memories', all unconnected and too short for reader identification; then back to the lash. It's terribly tedious.

I actually stopped reading part way through. I did make it to the end, in the end, but it was a struggle. This book should never have made it to market. Much, much worse than the other Elminster books.

It isn't a relaxing read -- it's either irritating or boring. Who wants to identify with someone being tormented all the time? People go to the office to experience that. This sort of fiction is read as a respite.

Not recommended.