Customer Reviews

Everquest: The Ocean of Tears (Everquest)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was surprised by how much I liked the Ocean of Tears. It is set back in the time when Weille was the "free port" and during the formative days of the Combine Empire. Much lore is covered concerning the dark elves, Grieg and his invention of the spires, the Orcs and the high elves and many other facets of EQ1. This is wrapped around a story that is much more engaging than Rogue's Hour. While some of the die hards will disdain any attempt to translate their world of EQ1 into fiction, this is the best of the two published novels. It doesnt create new and unheard of lands and cities as was the case in Rogue's Hour. The Ocean of Tears uses the lands, cities and even spells of the original EQ and the Kunark expansion. I found that it brought back many fond memories of the landmark game.

Really good story with alot of interesting things, I like the way the writer explains alot of detail.

The story is nearly epic in it's scope and yet its not a really long book. I enjoyed reading from the first page to the last and it was also fun as an EverQuest player to see the encounters taking place in familiar territory. I recommend this book to anyone who likes a good magic and intrigue adventure story. Even if you don't have a clue about EverQuest you will still find it enjoyable. If you ever did play EverQuest and especially if you tried the enchanter class this is a must read. It is well written, has a good pace and leaves you wanting more when you are done.

i thought this book wasn't bad in all honesty a bit better then rogues hour but it was pretty cool to learn about the fall of the great combine empire and the feud between sanctus seru and katta kastelum, and the eventual creation of the city of freeport. the other book rogues hour was decent as well but i liked ocean of tears a bit more.

Wieck's "Ocean of Tears" serves better as a fill-in of lore than as a fantasy tale on its own merits. Like "Rogue's Hour," the main thing missing is an engaging and sympathetic protagonist, along with ordinary social interactions and conversations.

In this case, the protagonist is not only an aloof, distant, immortal schemer (a Dark Elf masquerading as various beings throughout Norrath's history to further his own agenda)--he's also impossibly perfect. Everything about him is regularly described as "astonishing," "impressive," "remarkable," etc. etc. He's an accomplished mage, superbly in control of his emotions, brilliant beyond comparison, peerless with a blade, perfect in recall and detail observance, cunning beyond comprehension, and so forth. Wieck's stop short of declaring that "Aataltaal's only flaw is that he Cares Too Much," but you can see the sentiment is there.

And we've seen that dozens of times, in lots of Mary Sue-style fantasy writing. Aataltaal is probably not a true Mary Sue, but he's certainly the subject of author-worship, and the implicit expectation that the readers should worship him as well. He never exchanges more than a few words with various flunkies, usually unnamed--and so there's no social discourse to humanize him or make him more empathetic.

Beyond that, it's a solid and well-told description of the Combine Empire and Innoruk's actions against the races of Norrath, as well as a sidelong view of the history of the dark elves. It's a useful lore-backstory reference of a complex and interesting world, and for that alone it deserves three stars. I just wish it had better characterization.

This book came out in October 2005. It's now the end of February 2006, and I'm going to be the first person to write a review? That's pretty sad, but I guess so many readers were burned by the previous lackluster attempt at an EQ novel that no one bothered with this one.

I was an avid Everquest player for 5 years, and the Ocean of Tears was one of my favorite areas...plus I've been reading fantasy since I was a small child. As I browsed through the bookstore the other day, I noticed this on the shelf and figured I'd pick it up and see. I'll keep this short and sweet...don't waste your time. If you want a real EQ experience, play the game. If you want real fantasy, dust off the Tolkien or Goodkind or Eddings.