Customer Reviews

The Gossamer Plain (Forgotten Realms: The Empryean Odyssey, Book 1)

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

 

 

The Gossamer Plain by Thomas M. Reid is the first book in the Empryean Odyssey trilogy. The second book in this trilogy is titled The Fractured Sky and is scheduled for release in November, 2008, the third book is titled The Crystal Mountain and is scheduled for release sometime in the middle of 2009. Mr. Reid first burst on the Forgotten Realms scene with the second book in the War of the Spider Queen series titled Insurrection. Mr. Reid then went on to pen the Scions of Arrabar trilogy. Those three books are; The Sapphire Crescent, The Ruby Guardian, and The Emerald Scepter. All of the previously mentioned books are very much worth the read in my opinion.

For fans of the War of the Spider Queen series, many will be happy to know that this book continues the tale of two characters. Both Kaanyr Vhok and Aliiszra are featured in this novel. For many, these are two of the more memorable characters. For fans of the WotSQ series, Lisa Smedman has also just started a new trilogy with the first book titled Sacrifice of the Widow and focuses on Hallisstra Melarn.

The plot of this book is a little hard to read at first, however, upon completing it and digesting all the nuggets that Mr. Reid puts out there, this novel seems like it is a set up for larger grander things. One of the main plots is a scheme of Vhok's, don't worry, I won't say what it is (I don't do spoilers), but the plot seems to be large in scale. Another plot involves a situation Aliiszra finds herself in that I am fairly sure will please many fans of the WotSQ series. The main plot of this book (Vhok's plot line) stretches far and encompasses many different places and scenarios. Such as the city of Sundabar, the plain of fire, and the City of Brass. Most of these places are well described with just enough information to give the reader an idea of what the scene looks like, but not enough that it comes off as telling the reader what to see. It's often a fine line, but Mr. Reid toes that line well in this book.

The characters in this book fall into three categories for me. The first category is interesting and imaginative. There are about three characters that fall into this group Vhok is certainly one, another is Myshik, a half hobgoblin with some dragon blood (interesting mix there), and Zasian a human priest of Bane. The second category of characters is supporitive, but just there. In this group I would put Aliiszra and a few others. Nothing against these characters, but they didn't grab me all that much. Personally, I wasn't a big fan of Aliiszra in the WotSQ series either. The last group of characters are the ones I could have done without, or that needed something more to be interesting. The main one in this group is Tauran, whom is an angel of Tyr. To me he had little personality and the scenes he was in were a drag and a couple times I wanted to skip them. He just had little personality and I found little motivation to read about him.

With that said, overall this book is a solid addition to the Forgotten Realms. It almost seemed as though, due to the plot, Mr. Reid was constrained in some way as his normal writing style (at least what I perceive to be his normal style) didn't seem as evident in this book. I did enjoy the further fleshing out of Vhok, he seems to have great potential to become a powerful force in the Realms. The twist at the end of the book was a nice touch as well, and one I certainly didn't see coming.

Some things I would have liked to see changed. The plot seemed to drag, for me, during the scenes when Vhok and Zasian were traversing the plain of fire on their way to the City of Brass. It almost seemed to me like Mr. Reid needed to add a battle or two for word count purposes. Also, as I mentioned before, the scenes with Tauran just felt forced to me and while at times they advanced the Aliiszra plot line, he is a character I could honestly care less about.

I will continue to read this series because I think there is a good story here. If Wizards of the Coast has shackled Mr. Reid with the storyline and plot arc, they should loosen the reins a little and let him work his magic that he is quite able to work. While this novel is not the best offering from Mr. Reid it has a solid plot and one I am sure many fans will enjoy.

Reid's fancily titled book, The Gossamer Plain: The Empryean Odyssey, caught my eye while browsing for new books in the Forgotten Realms section. I was elated that a new series came out as an standalone offshoot from the latest Drizzt's book featuring the villain Kaanyr Vhok. 3 hours later, I finished the book, feeling significantly disappointed and unsatisfied.

The book is split into 2 main arcs, one follows the adventures of Kaanyr Vhok (a convincing and sometimes likable villain turned main protagonist) and the other trails Aliisza, Kaanyr's consort. Both arcs start off as seperate quests and eventually merge together at the end of the book.

The main reason for my initial dislike is that Aliisza's story is so poorly developed, utterly boring, and at times confounding (how she gets from point A to point B) that it is worth skipping over whenever Reid transitions to her. Kaanyr's story is infinitely more interesting yet still suffers from a lack of cohesion. The reader is left grasping at straws trying to understand why Kaanyr goes on this planes-spanning quest. Kaanyr himself comes off as too one-dimensional (always angry/annoyed). The battles in general were poorly conceived albeit thoroughly detailed. In addition, there were not enough supporting characters to flesh out the plot considering how insipid the main characters are at times. You just never get too excited about anything when reading this.

One of the mediocre books in the Forgotten Realms collection. I hope Book 2 can right the series.

The Gossamer Plain by Thomas M. Reid takes a different point of view then most FR novels. Usually the major focus is on the heroes with some views from the villians perspective. This is not so with this one. In a sense, Kaanyr Vhok could be viewed as the protagonist in this one since he is the focal character along with Aliisza, both of which are from The War of the Spider Queen series. The main plot revolves around Vhok's ambitions and the majority of the novel deals with his travels to achieve an objective. A subplot involves Aliisza learning more about herself on a different plain. While there she has dealings with an Angel named Tauran who is doing what he does of the good of all. A couple other characters are Zasian and Myshik who travel with Vhok.

The pacing starts out very slow. I really had a hard time keeping interest with the things that were going on. I really didn't care much for the characters as much at first, but towards the end, Aliisza's character became more interesting and more towards how I felt about her in the WofSQ series. She was one of those characters I liked then and even more later in this one. As for the flow of the book, I did like the way this is written. I enjoyed the say Mr. Reid would get to a cliff hanger part and shift focus to the next set of characters and back. That was one of the things that kept me reading. I needed to find out what happened next. Other readers may not like it as much, but I did.

There was only a little bit of character development with this one, except for Aliisza who had more, but for a first book in a trilogy, I don't have to have major development. The development that was done, I enjoyed very much and made sense. The characters themselves, however, were missing something to me. I really had a hard time connecting with them. Tauran's character was `eh'. He would show up, do a couple things and disappear. I didn't care for him or what he was trying to do much at all until the very end.

A couple minor criticisms:

1. The way the book dragged on or about the first half was hard to push through. I was having a difficult time getting interested enough to pick it back up after I put it down. I feel a lot of that had to do with all the travel through the plane of fire. There was not much of an "umph" to it to keep things moving. This may have been alleviated a bit if there was a little more action to it.

2. This one seemed more detailed than Mr. Reid's previous trilogy, The Scions of Arrabar, which I absolutely loved. I believe with the plane of the Triad and the plane of fire, Mr. Reid had to get more detailed to get his vision across and in doing so, at times, it seemed somewhat over detailed to me.

3. Aside from Aliisza, the characters were average at best. I really would have like to connect and care about them and their plight more. I guess it can be hard to connect with characters who normally would be considered antagonists.

Some positives:

1. When he does grab your attention, Mr. Reid can keep a person captivated and then cut them of at the appropriate moment to heighten the suspense making the reader want to see the outcome of each predicament.

2. The character Aliisza. I know, I keep going on about her, but she was the most interesting of all the characters. There are a couple of really awesome twists that are used with this character as well.

3. On top of all the suspense, Mr. Reid adds some really nice twists to the book. A couple I was expecting and able to anticipate, but the others, I was not and especially the one at the end added the perfect moment for the ending.

When all is said and done, The Gossamer Plain was an average book. I was entertained and did eventually enjoy myself, especially at the end. This one ends with a cliff hanger, but not until after everything else is wrapped up. I am looking forward to reading the next book, The Fractured Sky right away. I would recommend this one of course to the die hard FR fans than need to keep their collection up and those that would like to see a story more from the point of view of a villain type character. For realms and fantasy starters, you couldn't do wrong with this, but I recommend looking to other to get our feet wet first.

-Dimndbangr

This author is incapable of using any past tense reference without the word "had." I couldn't get past the second section without getting extremely annoyed.

The Gossamer Plain by Thomas M. Reid- This is the first book in The Empyrean Odyssey trilogy. This follows the Alu-fiend, Aliisza, and the cambion, Kaanyr Vhok, after the events in the War of the Spider Queen series. This is my second read through in honor of the last book The Crystal Mountain coming out.

I'll just simply reword what the description says on the back of the book. Still upset with his defeat in Menzoberranzan, Kaanyr Vhok takes his Scoured Legion to bring down the human city of Sundabar. In order to do this, Kannyr needs to take a trip the the elemental plane of fire. While on a simple mission for Vhok, Aliisza stumbles upon something that she wasn't prepared to find inside and finds allies she thought she'd never have.

Negatives:
1) The pace. The first 150 pages or so, were just slow and hard to really plow through. Many scenes were just hard to read and at times, I was starting to fall asleep. Most of those scenes were when Vhok and Zasain are traveling the Plane of Fire. At least it picked up a little towards the end.
2) Setting Up. The problem that can explain why the first part dragged on is because it was mostly setting up things to come. The first 100 or so pages just set up things and honestly, could have been told with in a chapter or two.
3) Tauran. The whole two emotion celestial was just annoying like nothing else. Oh wow, he's has a sad smile (which is repeated every other time Aliisza talks to him). He was a robot. He didn't radiate anything other than annoying and boring.

Positives:
1) Plot and the Plot twists. First off, the plot was excellent. After you got around the whole set-up part, you started to understand what was going on. But just when you think you thought of it all, BOOM a twist. Sure some of these are obvious... Myshik betraying the group (obvious after he is introduced), Aliisza's change and her reverting (obvious after you recall the moments lost to her), and Zasian being more than he appears (Not a typical Banite, as Vhok so cunning figured out early yet didn't worry to much over it).
2) The Cliffhanger Ending. Usually I'm not a fan of cliffhangers because they are well, sloppy. However, this ones ending fairly well and even when I first read it, I wanted to read the next one ASAP. I still do want to read the next one after reading this one again. It still hooked me.
3) Zasian, Aliisza, and Vhok. I liked all these characters for different reasons. With Zasian, he didn't seem like a typical priest of some evil god, hellbent on destroying the world. Plus the way he tricked everyone was just brillant, you never would have suspecting him being what he was. Aliisza I liked for a few reasons. The first being, I liked her in the War of the Spider Queen series. Even though she was a minor character, see was interesting. In here, she was more so because of the changes she goes though. I wanted her to be changed. Vhok is very different. I didn't like him in the War of the Spider Queen series because he was a very minor character with little to no depth. However, in this story he grows a lot. His anger and humor at times are rewarding. It's also important to mention that Aliisza and Vhok are among my favorite Forgotten Realms characters.

Overall: 3/5
*Although, I do like Vhok and Aliisza, the slowness of the whole first half the book along with the long set up, just really hurt what could have been an amazing beginning to a great trilogy*

This book is interesting in an overall bigger picture sort of way, but quite puzzling in details.

It's best not to summarise the plot, as it forms part of the surprise and interest of reading the book. I'll write about some of the puzzling aspects.

The big bad half fiend lord is a remarkably powerless being. Besides being a mean and nasty person, he has virtually no powers worth mentioning. I normal human knight could take him down. In fact, a dwarf nearly does.

At the very end, how the heck does being swallowed by a dragon get you transported from one plane to another??? I cant for the life of me figure this one out.

Nevertheless, I will be heading off to the bookstore to buy the second book in this series. It's a weakness of mine. Unless it is truly horrible, I will keep reading to see how it ends.

Read this book if you like Forbidden Realms or these two characters. Otherwise, there are plenty of other fantasy books out there to read.

I discovered the characters of Aliisza and Kaanyr Vhok when I read the Spider Queen novels. They piqued my curiosity, but I was unsure if they warranted a full trilogy of their own. Fortunately Thomas Reid has drafted an aetheral tale that journeys far beyond the realm of the Drow.

This is a story of high fantasy with characters featuring traits and bloodlines of dragons, demons, and angels. The first book travels through environments that are fully detailed and realized; environments that tickle the imagination of readers.

I found myself lost in some of the finer plot points, but I suspect they will become clearer as the trilogy progresses. I think this book may not appeal to readers that prefer swords over sorcery, or characters that are rooted in the human/elf bloodlines.

This was one of the better books for the Forgooten Realms setting to come out in a great while. A solid read with plenty of room for the characters to grow and I have no idea where the plot will be headed next. It was also nice to revisit these characters, and I always love a book where the "bad guys" are the ones you end up cheering on. I won't go into any spoilers, but there are some great plot twists to keep the action moving along.

This book is well written but the plot needs a lot of work. The story seems fractured because it tends to jump all over the place as we follow the story of different characters as they go about their part of the grand plan for invasion. That's only a part of it, there's too much going on in this story and since many the main characters are evil we don't know who to cheer for or care about.
The characters seem a bit flat since we don't know enough about them to care if they survive or not and the things that are supposed to be important to them aren't important to the author. There seems to be a book that comes before this one because the Alu (demon woman) on the cover keeps mentioning things that happened in the Underdark that we know nothing about. I found this book to be confusing and it left me feeling a bit cold.

The best book I've read in forever. A delight to read and never a chore just like a story should be. Both cerebral and filled with action the story is written in a style that makes it easy to grasp. A book like this has been a long time coming with anti-heros that are ever so much interesting and worthy of cheering for. Thomas Reid has gained my #1 author spot with this one book. Recommended fantasy reading, FR fans rejoice.