Customer Reviews

Johan (Magic Legends Cycle, Book 1) (Magic: The Gathering)

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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Getting back to a more localized story, away from the epic and world-spanning tale of Urza and Gerrard, this book tells of a psychotic and deranged ruler (Johan) trying to conquer Jammura, and of the colorful group of characters that stand in his way. The Legends Cycle represents the return of Clayton Emery to the MTG multiverse, the same author who wrote the first four MTG books published (1,2,3,4). He was good then, and he's good now. Full of unexpected surprises, intense action, gory descriptions, and favorite characters who suddenly die, Clayton Emery's books are typically better than the average MTG fare. While the evil magician Johan is only perfunctorily described here, with nothing much about his motivation or background, this book is full of other great and well-developed characters. My favorites were Adira Strongheart and her loyal "band of seven" (composed of between 4 and 9 bravos, depending on how fast she can replace fallen comrades), who aren't your typical heroes, but a bunch of low-down pirates with shaky morals at best, but who are nonetheless wrangled into fighting on the side of good. Others include Hazezon Tamar and Jaeger, neither of whom developed into very compelling characters, despite their having great potential. The story told here progresses quickly and is entertaining throughout, but this is definitely only part of the overall tale, so you don't get the firm feeling wrap-up you would with a true stand-alone novel.

Overall, better than the majority of MTG books, a decent effort by Emery. Still, recommended for fans of the series only.

DESPITE the fact that SOME people think Jaeger is his son Jedit, I still think that this book is pretty good. The ending, however, could have been better. Johan's character is too underdeveloped. The reader has no idea of what motivates him. I'll say this book is pretty average. (And yes, My REAL name is Johan.)

The book was overall great, there were something I didnt care for, such as the pirates... and the very end, but despite these it was still a very good book. Clayton Emery, writer of the original magic series(produced by Harper Prism) returns to write the first book of legends cycle... despite my dislike of pirate related thing, Emery does an exceptional job of keeping the reader intrested, and even further I awaited the term of each page and found myself wanted to skip partts of sentances just to find out what happened next. However... the plot seemed to go kind of far out at times, but was much like an epic would. The other weak point in my opinion was the end... The long awaited confrontation between Johan and the Tiger Man was rather much to short, however I did not expect it and so even this was in a way a nice surprise. If oyu find any of Clayton Emery's first books, I suggest you pick them up as well