Customer Reviews

Master of Chains: The Fighters

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Like many Forgotten Realms novels, Master of Chains is a simplistic adventure that is meant to be a quick read. In that aspect, it certainly succeeds. You won't remember this one as one of the greats in the fantasy genre, but taken for what it is, author Jess Lebow does manage to spin a tale that you should at least find entertaining.

Master of Chains is a simple tale of anger and revenge, with fights aplenty. Unfortunately, for all its action packed splendor, there are some serious deficiencies in the book. Most of these weaknesses present themselves in the plot itself. There are several hooks and holes in the tale that, if examined, make little or no sense. At times, characters make choices that are implausible or even laughable. However, that being said, if you come into this one not expecting a masterpiece, but rather a quick, entertaining read, you should enjoy it. Lebow does emit some emotion from the reader at times, and you will probably want to read to the end, if only to find out what happens to each character.

The bottom line here is don't expect a "thinker". Cleanse you mind of criticisms and just let Lebow take you for a ride of battles and emotion. If you can achieve that, you will enjoy this one.

I must say that I wasn't really expecting a great book when I read the back of this Forgotten Realms adventure. I was excited when I discovered that the character class books (The Rogues, The Priests) would be extended to the Fighters. Reading the book description gave me a strong impression of the movie "The Gladiator." Man is hero, man gets sold into slavery, man escapes, blah blah blah. You know the story, you probably saw the movie. Much to my surprise the back of the book is very non-descript (as has been the case with many Forgotten Realms books recently. They just give you a couple sentences with no real plot summary).

Anyway, this book was pretty good. I am really starting to enjoy these "stand-alone" adventures. There is nothing more to read here. No waiting for two more books over the next two years. However, there is room for a lot of development with these characters and region of the Realms with possible future short stories or other story overlaps. Or, maybe just within my imagination.

There are a lot of battles in this book. Most of them are pretty exciting. The "Master of Chains" is precisely that. He uses his chains in battle. However, the chains are not always the ones he was enslaved with, and gets ahold of some magical chain weapons. I was expecting the main character, Ryder to be chained up the entire time. Half the chapters are plotlines that are not directly related to Ryder. This book focuses on many fighters and even more fights.

This book also has the undead in it. Vampires and zombies and such. Interesting stuff.

The major problem with this book is that it follows the typical recent Forgotten Realms story line: in the prologue something strange and evil is uncovered in someones quest for greed. That person flees and the evil broods and plots for a long time. Then it gets unleashed in a disguised and sneaky way. Sound familiar?

Anyway... Great read. It will be interesting to follow the other "The Fighters" books to read about other barbaric and heroic deeds on the battlefields and in the dark alleys. If you are looking for a good quick Realms adventure, then this book will be right up your alley.

"Master of Chains" is a story of love, betrayal and conflicting loyalties.

This novel deals with emotions much more than other FR titles. It might make it slow at times, but I liked the change. The plot is strong and interesting. It hasn't got a lot of twists in it but it isn't boring or predictable at all. The battle scenes are OK, although the book itself is a bit too battle-heavy in my opinion. At least there aren't any random and unnecessary battles in the novel, as there often are in FR books. And I have to mention the ending. It is hard to comment on it without giving away any spoilers, but I will say it is different from cheesy endings you come to expect from Wizards and their books. I liked it a lot.

On the downside, the characters and especially the villains are crude and uninteresting. This is a book with lot of introspective, but I failed to see any distinguishable characteristics on any of the protagonists. The villains, on the other hand, are terrible. It is true they haven't been given a lot of space in this book, but you really got to have more interesting villains. I see some people complaining about pulpy romance in this book, but there isn't a lot of it in the book, and it isn't particularly pulpy.

All in all, a slightly different FR novel with a strong plot and weak characters. Yeah, and a great ending. A good read.

Great title! Fantastic cover! If only the actual story had lived up to the hype. I love the Realms, amd a huge fan of Paul Kemp, R.A. Salvatore and a handful of other authors who breathe life into this world. I honestly went into this title anticipating great things... which NEVER happened. I did finish it, if for no other reason than I knew with a premise that cool it had to get better. It never did.

Do yourself a huge favor and pass on this one. Mr. Kemp or Mr. Salvatore should have a new book out soon...

You gotta love a book called "Master of Chains" which deprives you of anything even remotely resembling a Master of Chains until the last 50 pages of text. Oh wait... no you don't. Lebow destroys the nice tapestries he managed to weave with decent dramatic prose by tripping through the worst action writing I've ever seen.

As with most of the D&D novels: the editor assigned to this book is completely incompetent and has no business working in professional publishing.

This book was one of the most action packed books I have read in a long time, I could hardly put it down. The reason that this book is so great is just how good the the fight scenes in this book are, they are action packed and are full of great descriptions. Also, the unusual fighting styles of the characters gives this book an extra edge on many other books I have enjoyed. Anyone who loves fantasy will love this book, but also someone who likes to read but does not want to read a whole series should read this book, because the whole story is contained in this single, fast paced novel.

Jess Lebow has written works for the card game of Magic and telling the story of that domain, but in 'Master of Chains' he is diving into the Forgotten Realms, and may I say that he did a WONDERFUL job.

The first question I would give anyone that was about 150 pages into the book would be, want to stop reading? And I say this because the answer and I would give would be NO, this book is amazingly difficult to put down once I started it, and the Characters although, not really shown in detail about themselves, are very enticing.

The plot of the story is great, and is straight foward with non stop action and lives up to the name of the series being Fighters. I would also like to add that if a person came up to me and asked me if i would recommend this novel for a Forgotten Realms casual reader, I would definetly say yes. Although I will admit that the story at the end of the novel felt as if not enough action happened in the end and I just felt that the ending was less then dramatic, but this may not have been at Jess Lebow's fault, maybe his editors, but regardless this novel is great. Have fun reading it if you pick it up!

This book has some very interesting plot points, but as stated before some of the action sequences dont add up. The zombie giant(greater than a ton) VS. man w/ chains. Not very realistic. Although it lacked some realistic action, I thought that it hooked the reader and held firm. I finished this book in 3+1/2 days. The ending is left open for a sequel, this is a plus.(also a chance for jess lebow to redeam himself)I give this book a four because again it has some very awesome twists.(new readers will love) But even for a fantasy novel it lacked physic realism.That and the way they pick up weapons and BAM! Kick a$$! Possible, but not realistic.Good read if you are new to the series. But I would not reccomend it for the die-hards. Peace out God.....

Master of Chains in the first book in the stand alone novels series titled The Fighters set in the Forgotten Realms universe.

Lately it seems that every book is part of a trilogy of series and in order to understand everything that is going on you need to read multiple books. That is why I am a fan of these stand alone series Wizards of the Coast is currently doing.

This book is a fun, enjoyable, and enticing read. If you are looking for in-depth intrigue and plot twists this is not the book for you. The plot in this book is relatively straight forward and the character development is minimal at best.

However, with that said, this book does a very good job of telling the story it is meant to tell. Being this book is part of the Fighters series one would expect there to be a lot of fights - and that is actually what this book delivers. Countless battles forcing the characters to adapt their fighting styles to over come their current opponent.

I don't want to give away any spoliers, but if you like undead - specifically vampires you may enjoy this one even more. If you are looking for large spell battles - this may not be the right books for you. If, however, you are looking for non-stop action this is the book for you. This is the first book by Mr. Lebow that I have ever read, but I found it hard to put down due to the constant action.

I would not hesitate to recommend this book to any Forgotten Realms fans. If this is what the Fighters series has to offer I will gladly read the next three books.

Im mostly writting this review to counteract the insipid and less than insightfull review posted by Robert J. Hickey "yogibob". The plot and stoy flow quite well and the action is fun. I found the end to be a bit rushed. As to why Im cammenting on Robert J. Hickey "yogibob"'s review is because his main complaint was about forgetting the laws of physics. *sigh* This is a FANTASY NOVEL Robert J. Hickey "yogibob" . Why not foster your willing suspension of disbelief and enjoy yourself for a change. Must be tough to walk around with that much of a stick up your butt.