Customer Reviews

Faces of Deception (Forgotten Realms: Lost Empires, Book 2))

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

 

 

I love Troy Denning, and have enjoyed many of his books. That's why I was very surprised by this book, which really disappointed me... I kept reading only hoping that it was going to get better. I found that I didn't really care about the characters, that the story didn't do well at holding my interest, and that the ending was very unsatisfactory. I would definitely recommend Troy Denning as an exceptional author... just not this particular book.

Faces of Deception is the second in a series of four novels (known as the Lost Empires series and which includes The Lost Library of Cormanthyr, Star of Cursrah, and the Nether Scroll) that deal with the secrets of four of Toril's long lost ancient civilizations.
The book describes the adventures of Atreus Eleint of Rivenshield, a Quasimodo-like follower of Sune (!!!) (and his ogre bodyguard!), as he sets forth to complete a quest for his goddess which includes finding the mythical realm of Langdarma and bringing back a vial of sparkling water from the Fountain of Infinite Grace found therein.
The book was a great disappointment from beginning to end and is reminiscent of Troy Denning's other poor work (i.e. The Veiled Dragon) as opposed to his commendable work (e.g. Waterdeep, The Parched Sea, Prince of Lies, and Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad to mention a few).
Troy Denning sets up the Mar as being very similar to the inhabitants of India and the Ffolk to the British. Subsequently, Rishi Saubhari's words should be read with a thick Indian accent for accuracy.
On the positive side, Troy Denning does a good job of acquiring and presenting essential knowledge relevant to Toril, including customs, religion and history, such as the Bloodforge Wars described on pages 14-15. Additionally, the author does a wonderful job of describing ogre customs: "...don't let the crows get your eyes." "They believed crows to be spies of Skiggaret, the fear-loving god of their bugbear enemies."(p.241)
Moreover, on page 123 he provides a very good description of the effects of fear, while on page 107 he does a formidable job in presenting a barbazu.
Additionally, Troy Denning is on the ball when he has Atreus stating that: "There is no duty greater than that of a mother to protect her child." (p.235)
Finally, the author strikes gold with graphic descriptions of violence such as: "So powerful was the strike that the man's eye popped free of its socket." (p.117) "The man's nose exploded across his face, spewing blood and cartilage in every direction. (p.120) "Atreus grinned and leaped into the fray, biting an ear off and gouging two eyes out with his naked fingers, both favorite ogre brawling tricks." (p.120) "The slaver's jaw clacked shut. He spit out the tip of his tongue and stumbled back, blind with pain and slashing his dagger about madly (p.135) "Atreus kept his jaw clenched, nearly snapping his own neck as the devil's ear came off in his teeth." (p.193) "Tarch went sailing down the icefall, leaving his tail in Yago's hands and trailing an arc of rust-colored blood." (p.194) "His mangled eye was dangling out on his cheek, and his wounded leg lay stripped to the bone from the hip down." (p.294)
On the negative side, the author repeatedly fails in accurately describing the barbazu and instead treats it like any other natural creature. Specifically, a barbazu would not have let go of Atreus' ankle after being stricken by a mundane club since they can only be hit by +1 weapons or better. (p.124) In addition, a barbazu, once per day, may gate 2 to 12 abishai or 1 to 6 additional barbazu, hence it should have made minced meat of the adventuring party. In short, the struggle against the barbazu was rather sad!
Moreover, how was a slavers' captive able to hold on to her pouches and brew a healing potion in the midst of commotion? (pp.112-113)
Additionally, what mother (particularly a lawful good one) that has lost her child is in the mood for love-making less than a month after its loss, especially when she was responsible to a great extent for its death???
Other drawbacks include Troy Denning giving the impression that he will include a generous dose of Planescape when he does not, the characters never-ending bad decisions, and Yago never revealing Atreus' mother's name!!!
Furthermore, Tarch reminded me of the ice mephit in Soldiers of Ice (a rather dull novel by David Cook for the Harpers series)
Finally and most importantly, the characters were just not likable, making the reader not really care about the outcome and taking away from the overall enjoyment; the ending was a different (and very disappointing indeed) story altogether with nearly all questions left unanswered.
In conclusion, Faces of Deception was like watching a National Geographic documentary, which although can be very enjoyable, there is a place and a time for that and not at the expense of a Forgotten Realms novel. Nevertheless the book will provide for a fair amount of entertainment if you are looking for a D&D fix.
Troy Denning allows for a dramatic cliffhanger, however, I do not believe one ever materialized due to a lack of demand attributed to the weak plot and the weak characters.

I found the basic premise of this book very good. I cared about the character, his friends and their adventures. However, he never seemed to learn from his mistakes and the last part of the book just left you hanging. Nothing was really explained...the identity of his parents, the real motive Sune Firehair had in the task she set for him, etc. I would read a sequel that tied up the ends, but otherwise it was a disappointment

HAVING READ OVER 100 FORGOTTEN REALMS NOVELS, I HAVE TO SAY THAT THE ENDING FOR THIS BOOK WAS PROBABLY THE WORST I'VE EVER READ. IT'S TOUGH TO SAY EXACTLY WHAT IS WRONG WITH IT WITHOUT VIOLATING THE GUIDE LINE ABOUT REVEALING CRUCIAL PLOT ELEMENTS, BUT YOU CAN'T END A BOOK LIKE THAT. I WOULD HAVE BEEN LESS DISAPPOINTED IF ONE OF THE TWO LOVERS HAD DIED, AT LEAST THEN IT WOULD HAVE TRAGIC. THERE DEFINATELY NEEDS TO BE A SEQUEL. THERE ARE WAY TO MANY QUESTIONS LEFT UNANSWERED.

Being a big fan of Forgotten Realms books, I really liked this one. I would have given it 4 stars, but I was so upset with the end (it left me with to many questions) that I gave it 3 stars. All along the story, the author writes everything in details, why has he changed this for the end of this story? I wanted to know at least a bit more about how it finished. Despite the end, I recommend this book to whoever likes to read fantasy, especially all the ones that are fans of Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms.

An excellent book from the first to the second-to-last page. The characters are wonderfully fleshed out and Troy Denning writes some of the best action in the business. Unfortunately, he must have realized what an impossible situation he wrote his characters into. Instead of coming up with a remotely satisfying ending, he cops out. This is not even a tragic, sorrowful ending. He just stops writing and leaves the reader with an empty pit that Denning dug but didn't fill.

Book was interesting and leading to a good resolution, however ending of book was abrupt. After checking for a sequel and finding there was none I was ready to throw the book across the room.

I have read three if Troy's other FR books and enjoyed them all, but this one was a big letdown. The story was vaguely interesting, but there was no payoff (good or bad). And what the heck was that ending about?

I became a Denning fan after the Athens novels, where he did his best works. I had high hopes for this book, and the story I thought was great, but the ending? It just ended out of nowhere.

I imagine that Troy Denning's success as a Realms author earned him the right to produce this strange, non-commerical, personal and dare I say even literary work. While there's perhaps a trifle too much archness in naming the cursed hero Atreus (Denning showing a command of Greek tragedy), Denning crafts a compelling portrait in which no characters are either all good, or all bad. This is far more than the Realms version of Lost Horizon.