Customer Reviews

King Pinch (Forgotten Realms: The Nobles, Book 1)

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

 

 

Cook put together a sly, gritty, yet likable character when he created Pinch. After reading about Harpers and other assorted do-gooders, its great to read about an anti-hero for change. Not that Pinch is a real evil guy, but he's no paladin either. I could go on about the rest of the book too. The plot was very intriguing, very enjoyable. The supporting characters were very strong too. All in all, a great read. But create more characters like Pinch!

This book is a good mystery, in a nutshell. It's got a good and slightly complex story line, with many surprises along the way. Even though some surprises were expected, others were a big surprise. This story is not a comic FR novel, as some are, but more serious, and terror and surprise are the big attractions here. It's kinda like Sherlock Holmes or something, but the main part is played by a pretty nasty character. Unlike other FR novels, the main character of this one are aging and not in so good shape, which is nice to see one in a while, to know that not all people in the Forgotten Realms are hulking barbarians or mystical mages, it adds realism to an already perfect world. Entertaining as it is exciting and well written, you should definitely "pinch" this one up next time you want to read a good FR novel.

David Cook, King Pinch (TSR, 1995)

The typical Dungeons and Dragons-related novel has one pace to it: breakneck. I've wondered more than once if one of the writing guidelines for new TSR authors is Poe's old maxim that all novels should be written as if they are to be read in one sitting. (This, of course, is why Poe wrote only one novel.) I've read a lot of D&D-themed novels, and very few break that mold. The most recent to cross my desk is David Cook's King Pinch.

Pinch is a thief of indeterminate birth who leads a band of merry men (and one overly merry woman) down a road of small-time crookery-- that is, until a member of Pinch's past life shows up and takes him and his companions back to Ankhapur, the city of Pinch's birth, with promises of a nebulous job that will put enough money in their bank accounts to keep them comfortable for life, and threats of their heads on pikes if they don't come.

The book starts off in an almost leisurely way, with Cook taking some time to develop Pinch's character before getting into the action. While that's never a bad thing, it does jar in the greater scheme of things. The pace does pick up as the novel goes on, but I wonder if most series readers who focus on TSR novels won't abandon this one given its initial slow pace. More fool them, however, because the reader of swords-and-sorcery fantasy will find much to enjoy once it gets going. ***

The plot was reasonably good, and the character of Pinch was interesting and had great promise. In fact, it started pretty well, and it ended well -- the last chapter was a good one.

The other people in Pinch's gang could have used better development -- especially Maeve, who seemed like a useless character until the last two chapters. Therin was the best developed of the other characters, and we see a good bit of tension between him and Pinch at times.

The problems? First, this has to be the most poorly edited book I've ever read. It's filled with errors, mostly problems that a spell checker would not catch. Extra words in sentences, missing words in sentences, "though" instead of "through", "loose" instead of "lose", and so on. It happens ALL over, and it's worse towards the end.

Secondly, the author seemed to be so intent on inventing the next bit of thieves' slang that he forgot to pay attention to the consistency of the story. These problems kicked in about 1/3 of the way through and got worse and worse. This book suffers simply from poor writing. There are contradictions all over the place, sometimes from chapter to chapter, sometimes from one page to the next. The dialog is often repetitive, as if a character forgot what he said two pages ago.

Here are just a few examples (none of these are major plot spoilers):

- Prince Vargo described as blonde, with reddish beard. Later, he is "the dark haired prince".
- On one page, it is "late afternoon". A few pages later (and less than an hour later in sequence of events), Vargo is "sipping his morning tea".
- mixup of which character was being talked about -- the name changed from one page to the next
- An amulet Pinch wears is described as being created from a piece of skullbone from a great prophet, the Dawnbreaker, wrapped in precious metal. Next page, a priestess says the Dawnbreaker called upon its powers once or twice (HOW, if it was made after he was dead?)
- Pinch detects a trap with a rod he carries, and a few pages later is a sentence about "the trap Pinch detected with Maeve's scroll"
- It's established early that Pinch is older than the princes. When he is describing to his friends how ruthless Manferic was, he recounts a situation that happened when he was 10 years old... Which involved the king sending princes Vargo and Throdus to perform executions. (When they were what? 6 years old? 8? unlikely).

There were LOTS more. Many of these detail issues were minor, and just one or two would be easily forgivable. But they were SO numerous that this became a very frustrating read. It's a shame that the writing and editing were so sloppy, because this story and character had lots of promise -- it could have been so much better. If the middle of the book had been written to the quality of the last chapter, it would have earned 3, maybe even 4, stars from me.

King Pinch is definatly one of the greatest FR books ever. It has never ending action, a whole lot of surprises, and much more. This is a great book to read. The action is so great that you never want to put the book down. Definatly one of the greatest books ever!

I am currently reading this novel and have reached the end. This is an excellent
read and I congratulate the author for a job well done. The story is complex but
not overly so, the characters are well drawn and there are quite a few of them. The story has a really nice flow with very few lulls in the action. I found it very easy to visualize everything going on.

There are times when the descriptions are very gross but I made it through without
puking...ha. I can't really pinpoint precisely what makes this novel so good but I
truly feel that Cook is one of the very best of the Forgotten Realms crowd. My only
disappointment is finding out he has only written a handful of novels. I recommend this novel highly if you are looking for that little something extra in the plotting
and character development aspects of a work.

Others have mentioned the poor editing. That was bad. But what really got me was how every time Pinch tries to do something, the worst possible outcome happens...and he's only saved by some un-foreseen miracle. Once is OK...twice is pushing...but every time?!?!? Like I said....it got old quick.

An overall good book. The story was excellent. A few twists and turns that kept things interesting. I like the fact that the characters were all "evil" to one degree or another. Pinch was concerned for his "friends" only in terms of them being usefull to him, and his "friends" were the same.

Definitely could have used some proofreading and editing though. Quite a few spelling, and gramatical errors. Also at one point Pinch goes into some tunnels with an oil lamp and his sword drawn. He then falls down. His candle goes out, and he drops his dagger. Earlier in the book he was in the tunnel with a candle and dagger.

Still, if you like D&D stories, and can find it, it's a good read.

The story of pinch and his little band of thieves is reasonably good, but I began to get the feeling the author was being paid on word count and he padded the story by incessant usage of rogue, old rogue, and regulator.

This novel was very well researched. You can tell that by the extremely thick and heavy usage of the "Thief talk". It is paced quite nicely, although some of the "surprises" were fairly clear to me. If not for the heavy slang the thieves use this book would have really been great.