Customer Reviews

Elminster in Myth Drannor: The Elminster Series

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

As one reviewer noted, there are a few problems with the portrayal of the elves, such as the Coronal snoring. However, I take issue with the other aspect's of that person's review. The "fact" that the most beautiful of all elf-waifs falling in love with Elminster isn't even true. The most beautiful elf-waif wants to USE Elminster and loves him less than the rest of his enemies. Two elves love him: The Keeper of the Tomb, and his fellow captive. Secondly, the elves are portrayed with quite a bit of realism, just not in the way that the reviewer would like. Many people read about elves and dream of being one to escape dirty, greedy, selfish humans. If you are one of those people, this is not for you.

However, if you like to read about what an ancient people with thousands of years in their lifespan might be like, it is for you. Ed portrays the elves as being much like White Wolf's vampires. If you aren't familiar with the concept, they are selfish, greedy, malevolent, manipulative beings, bent on controlling everything and being quite egomaniacal about their own nature. If you have read this book, this will immediately sound familiar to you, as this is exactly how all of the elves behave.

In short, Ed Greenwood did that most forbidden of fantasy novel things: He didn't leave the ugliness of our world behind when he wrote it, and, thus, created characters that you can hate. Characters that aren't even noble while they are evil, but are simply selfish and cruel. The elves are insulated and xenophobic, casually cruel in places, and concerned only with their own existence. In short, they are all you would expect of an arrogant race that lives thousands of years. They are realistic. None of this noble houses of morality banalness. Rather, they are believable. You will hate the Starym, and you will smile at Elminster's charisma and wisdom as he lives amongst the elves of Myth Drannor.

It was wonderfully written, a beautiful piece. It dares challenge the belief that fantasy is all about escapism, alone earning it five stars. But, in addition to all of that, it is satisfying, fun, and pleasant. Well done. Buy this book, read it, enjoy it, and read it again.
Harkius

With names like Aulauthar Orbryn and Eltargrim Irithyl, and about 40 other names and nicknames for a host of key characters..this book is way to hard to keep up with. The story was below average, and even the epic battles couldn't save it's let down of an ending. Ed's written better stuff.

The whole story was really good, but I agree that the elves were badly portraited. I read all of RA Salvatore's books, and I really liked the dark elf trilogy. But my point is that some of the elves were almost as evil as the drow, especially the Starym.

This is a book that really deserves to be read. I've seem some say Elminster is always painted too perfect and too powerful by Ed Greenwood but he IS an exceptional character by design, one of the great forces of Faerun. As about killing elves at will. He did what he must to survive and always in self-defense and this caused him many difficults along the story. Saying he slaughtered elves at hundreds and no one cared (as I've read Here in a previous review) is erroneous at least and a totally distorted viewpoint in my opnion. When someone threats your life not always you'll come with a way to dominate him without harming or killing him. And rarely you will take the chance of doing that if it presents more risk to you. Last I'd like to say that Fiction Stories, and I'm not talking only about Fantasy or Science Fiction but all Fiction, have idealized and artificial characters that tend to be inconsistent in some aspects but this do not necessarily conts against them. Fiction gives us worlds to explore, realities to uncover and the possibility to see and feel other lifes. And this books succeeds with merit on doing that.

As with other postings on Ed Greenwood's material, I agree that he tells a good tale, but can be somewhat scattered in his approach to storytelling. Elminster in Myth Drannor is a great story, providing excellent background material for the Forgotten Realms setting in one of the, until now, most mysterious settings. Often referenced in other Greenwood and Realms' books, Myth Drannor is an intriguing look into the inner workings of this elven society while still letting the reader learn more about Elminster.

Ed Greenwood does a good job overall, but again, he can be too jumpy in his storytelling, not letting things flow as smoothly as they could, and can become slightly confusing. Overall, a very good book, but could be so much better.

If you're looking for elf lore, don't look here. Although I applaud Ed Greenwood's pioneering works for Forgotten Realms, and I'm sure he was an excellent DM, he didn't do his homework on established elven lore ... the Reverie, male vs female roles in nobility, and where did this fascination with mushrooms come from? And the sentance about a second human mage dropping his disguise countered all that Ed had led up to about the challenge Elminster faced in getting into the city in the first place.
I do support Ed's vision of the politics of bickering, quarreling elven houses. Sure, they sound like drow in that regard... but remember the Crown Wars. Power corrupts, and elves are not immune to that.

I found this book rather dry and predictable. It was very confusing in places, as all wording was in an old english styling. It left me wondering, in parts, what exactly Elminster was doing, or why he was doing something. Another aspect of the book was the fact that he was pretty much superior in all ways. I realise being "The Chosen" of Mystra has its advantages, but every time he invoked the goddesses name she answered. It seems to me that she would like to see her "Chosen" to solve things on his own. This makes him to powerful, leading to a rather dry story. The book is nice to read, for those players and DM's in the AD&D Forgotten Realms game, to know where the greatest mage in the realms came from, but for plain readers of fantasy I would not recommend it.

First things first. I thought Elminster had BLACK hair. On the cover of the book he has BLOND hair. In earlier Elminster adventures, he's always portrayed as "a young man with black hair, blue-grey eyes and a hawk-nose". So you would think after hearing this desription hundreds of times in the other novels, that the artist would have gotten something like this right.

To the story. Elminster is told to journey to Cormanthor by his beloved goddess of magic, Mystra. Why is he sent there? Well we dont find this out until the end of the book really. On his way to Cormanthor, he sees a group of elves being ambushed by hobgoblins and tries to save one of them. This one elf happens to be the heir to an important elven house in Cormanthor. As he dies, he gives Elminster his family gem which has memories stored from all previous owners. The fact that the elf just GAVE it to Elminster seems too perfect. So Elminster takes this gem and disguises himself as the elf who gave him the gem to gain entrance to Cormanthor. He makes his way through the streets of Cormanthor to the elven house that the dead elf belonged to. While in the house, he blunders about (killing an elf in the process of course) and loses his disguise when cornered by all the family members of the house. This is where the story really begins.

While Elminster is in Cormanthor, he is constantly under attack by the elves, who are portrayed as surface drow (scheming, plotting. Not at all like Elaine Cunningham's elves, who are regal, poised) because he is a human and the elves feel like he's nothing more then an animal etc. Only the Coronal (who is like a king) of Cormanthor and the Srinshee are ok with Elminster being there because they want to open Cormanthor's doors to the world and allow all races to enjoy Cormanthor's beauty and blah blah blah.

While reading this novel, I felt absolutely no care whatsoever when Elminster was attacked or hurt because I know his goddess would save him. When he almost dies at the hands of a few elves in an abandoned castle, I didnt get my hopes up, and sure enough, Mystra rescues him. Greenwood is really inconsistent with portraying Elminsters strength. If he is the worlds greatest mage, how did he let a handful of elves defeat him, while in "Elminster: Making of a Mage" , when he wasn't even that strong of a mage, he single handedly defeats 3 of the realms toughest monsters all at the same time! (a Red Dragon, an Illithid and a BEHOLDER). C'mon Greenwood.

At the end, like I mentioned earlier, we discover the plot. Or better yet, it seems Greenwood didn't really have a plot for the whole book, and suddenly came up with one as he was about to finish. Anyhow, in order to safely open the doors to Cormanthor, a Mythal (or mantle of magic) must be laid over the entire city, so the elves can control magic and etc. WHY DIDNT HE TELL US THIS IN THE BEGINNING AND BUILD UP THE STORY AS HE WENT, LIKE OTHER AUTHORS DO?

Another thing that bothered me is the dialogue. Since when did elves say "aye"? It also seems that Greenwood has no concept of how natural dialogue should sound, if said aloud. For example, there is a conversation between two elves and one of them says "Coyly gloating young lordlings?". Try saying that out loud. It sounds utterly stupid and ridiculous. I'm no writer, but I know that one important thing when writing a story is that the dialogue must be natural sounding and realistic to the characters used.

Stay away from this book if you are only mildly curious about the realms or Elminster. If you are looking for a great story about a great hero, you wont find it here. I read this knowing it was going to be bad because I had read other Greenwood novels. I am a realms addict and am trying collect and read all the books, even if they are horrible.

If you want to get into the Realms, start with with RA Salvatore. Then read the Sembia series. Then read the EREVIS CALE TRILOGY (now THERES a great story about an imperfect hero).

After reading through the Making of a Mage, the Dark Elf Series (through current), and, of course, Tolkien, this book held little interest. I had a hard time fighting my way through this book in favor of reading the Merck Index for fun (a chemistry reference). My thoughts were:1. Are the elves of Cormanthor not just Drow with light skin? They had matron/patron elders of houses who were plotting, diabolical, and beat their servants. "Accidents" were talked about being arranged, and nearly everyone was out for themselves or their house. And they are supposed to be good? Huh? 2. Characters were rather under-developed. Some of the main characters had a decent background, but for the most part, the characters were rather 2-dimensional and didn't really attach themselves to me.3. According to this and the Making of a Mage, Elminster is a weakling. There is only ONE battle/encounter in the entire book that Elminster handles on his own. Every other time in his life, he doesn't even bother to think for himself, he just goes off crying for help to Mystra. "Mystra help me" is his tag line, and 99% of the time, she does. I don't care if he is a chosen of Mystra, it's ridiculous. Mystra might as well have come down in avatar form that looked like Elminster and done the same stuff. 4. Of course, the spells don't adhere to the rules of the D&D game at all, in any edition that I know of, but it's just a book. The only problem comes when the spells and powers become internally inconsistent. Why not just use the rules laid out in the D&D rules? Hell, Ed wrote half of the rules, he's certainly familiar with them. Elminster has this infinite ability to shape his spells to whatever he wants, but can't even figure out if a person is a friend or a foe without calling to Mystra. You may disagree, but this is based on my opinion compared to other fantasy novels. Obviously, Tolkien is far and away the master. However, Salvatore does an excellent job in writing fast-paced novels that manage to keep consistent with the D&D game rules, which provides a consistency throughout the series. Salvatore's writing is more masterful and he crafts much better characters and stories than Greenwood. I have since started reading Elaine Cunningham's Evermeet book and it presents elves the way they should be presented, in my opinion. The quality of writing style is much better than in Greenwood's book. My last complaint is the title of the book. I thought it was going to be about Elminster and his adventures in Myth Drannor. Not so. The Mythal wasn't laid until the very end of the book, and there are no adventures of his in the book. It should be called "Elminster in Cormyr: the Founding of Myth Drannor" For the money, the book was not worth it to me. I would have rather spent the money on another Cunningham book.

Anyone who has played Baldur's Gate 2 can really appreciate the different spells used in the numerous mage battles in this book. The tactical attack/counterattack approach is much more interesting than the typical "firewall" spells.

The reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is that many times the author glosses over explanations of scenarios, launching the reader headlong into important situations without you ever having heard the characters' names. You almost have to skim ahead. Overall the book is pretty good though, and well worth the read if you like the genre/character.