Customer Reviews

Outlaw: Champions of Kamigawa: Kamigawa Cycle, Book I

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

 

 

As a Magic addict, I love reading the background stories and lore lurking behind the cards. I've gone Samurai-crazy with the recent release of "Champions of Kamigawa," and I went out on street release day to buy a fat pack of the new set (tournament pack, 3 boosters, this novel, etc. in one package). Kamigawa presents an awesome new setting for Magic, and /Outlaw/ in turn serves as a great introduction to this setting and its major players. The story has a good flow to it and is filled with well developed characters from the various races. The stage is nicely set for the Kamigawa War, and it really is exciting to read the book and see how all the races and spells in the new card set fit together.

I really want to give this book a full 5 stars, but I can't for one very simple reason - the editing in this novel is abysmal. It's inevitable that any book of significant length will contain a typographical error or three. However, there are far too many ridiculously simple screw ups in this book. The biggest offenders were mismatched quotation marks and improperly placed commas. Also, many words are used improperly or are obviously the result of overzealous use of the "replace" button on a spell checker. It's clear that there was no independent reading done on this book before it went to press. Any competent reader would have spotted most of these errors just in a casual read through.

/Outlaw/ is a great book that provides a solid background for the Champions of Kamigawa set. If you can ignore the disturbingly frequent editing errors, you will be rewarded with a very enjoyable time exploring the world of Kamigawa. Despite being marred by the absence of good editing, this is a story well worth reading.

For those that don't play Magic The Gathering or understand how the books help define a set of cards, this might not make sense. For those that do, this book is wonderful. I was so dissapointed with the books after Chainer's Torment that I stopped reading them altogether after starting Onslaught. I would like some advice if I should go out and buy the Mirrodin series now that Scott has restored my faith in the possibilities of MTG books.

Outlaw kept me so invloved I was sneaking around with the book reading it at every possible moment. I agree with the first reviewer in that typos are abundant and silly. If the book was read through completely by an editor, fire that person immediately. I disagree with the second reviewer. This book certainly has a unique twist on the traditional story line of ruler abusing power and child setting things to right. A writer needs to use the basic themes that are available to him in a case like this, but in developing new systems of magic and aprenticeship while creating a purpose for the Kami wars and the characters in this story, he did a fantastic job.

At times I felt like Toshi was a bit too powerful, but then I remeber what became of Khamal in the Odyssey series and he too became godlike; although it took three and a half stories to attain that level of power. I for one, am excited to see what level of power Michiko attains in the next novel and how Toshi uses his new found matriarch.

Keep em coming Scott.

Finished this first book on the Magic: the Gathering - Kamigawa cycle. The story is quite entertaining, but many of the terms used are unfamiliar to me (I guess if you know Japanese you may understand). The story is fast-paced and is an easy read. The plot is more or less quite simple since we know from the start there is something 'wrong' with Konda... the story just moved along towards the last part when everything was revealed.

The downside of this novel is that there is little character development and the characters felt rather one-dimensional. But that's to be expected of a thin paperback fantasy novel, I guess. I would say this is one of the better MtG novels... I hadn't enjoyed many MtG novels since the Invasions cycle, Brother's War book 1, and some of the Anthologies.

Unlike the comments on amazon.com, I don't really find Toshi to be too powerful... afterall there were several occasions when he was overpowered. Plus he's not able to use his Kanji magic at will and actually need some time to inscribe the character - quite realistically depicting the weakness of a wizard or mage. Most of the time Toshi had to find some creative ways to get out of a fix instead of just muscling through (unlike Kamahl in Onslaught). All in all, this character feels rather like Gord the Rogue in Gary Gygax's old Greyhawk series, or Fritz Leiber's Grey Mouser.

One thing I don't quite understand is how towards the end the Myojin of Night's Reach (5/3 on card stats) can overcome the more powerful Myojin of Life's Web (8/8) - although they're both indestructible.

One reviewer in Amazon commented he was disappointed at the lack of Legends in the book despite this being a Legends-rich cycle. I disagree, as there were more legends than I had expected... there was Konda, the twins, Nagao, Ben-Ben, Kiku, Takeno, Marrow, and honorable mention of Godo...

The kanji magic is actually not something new... I saw something similar in one of my Japanese comics. But I like some of the encounter where the use of this kanji magic was quite imaginative - eg the word on the roof to immobilize his enemies. Many times I actually wished the author wrote the symbol of the kanji to show what it looked like (I guess should be same as Chinese) - it would've enhanced the reading experience. For example, Dan Brown's Angels & Demons actually printed the symbols etc to show how they looked like.

Looking forward to the 2nd book where I think the Keiga dragons make an appearance...

I was itching for a nice, short samurai fantasy, so I picked this up. I play the CCG/TCG regularly and am familiar with the characters presented in these novels from the recent expansion set, however I was fairly disappointed with this novel.

In general, many of the named characters come in to serve as cameos and are given little to no character development. Even the main characters interact with dry dialogue which fails to break away from the author's voice.

As a franchise novel, it does fine. It introduces the world of Kamigawa to the players and makes Toshiro Umezawa more than a 2/2 bushido'er w/ some fine looking card art.

Fun for Magic players, but avid readers might want to look elsewhere, although the samurai fantasy genre tends to be a little hard to come by sometimes...

Great story, one of the best for these types of thing. By 'these types' I mean novels for games or movie adaptation.

Story had a nice flow and classic but very compelling plotline. IN other words, it rocked.

However, I must mention that its kind of spoils the entire mystery of the Kamigawa block all too early. By the prologue, reader's would have already guessed what went down and everything is pretty much explained by 3/4 of the book. After reading it, the Kamigawa storyline pretty much reduces down simply down to: " This is bad; that's good; here's the problem and lets try to fix it."

The other reviewers had it right too by saying the the hero is overpowered. We've seen perfect heros, heroes that could do no wrong, and this is not one of them. Here's a rogue that could beat everybody... breaks the story somewhat. The author could have made the hero more vulnerable and gets himself out of jams in more ingenious ways instead of powering himself through everything.

Scott McGough is not a great writer or storyteller, and this comes through in the way he fails to give his characters rich or interesting personalities. But what makes this even tougher to swallow (unless you're a die-hard magic the gathering card player) is that he doesn't do a good job of making his world at all believable or consistent. Magical powers are never well-explained and he never gives the reader an insight into the way magic works (if you want to read a magic the gathering book that DOES, I suggest Jeff Grubb's The Gathering Dark).

All in all, this was a tired read, replete with trite, generic language (even the action seemed dull). The only reason I would give this even 1 star is because for those die-hard magic folks, it's a passably entertaining read if you like action and aren't too particular about how you get it.

Oh, and one last thing that puzzled me. A lot of important or intriging characters from the actual card game are not introduced well or even accurately portrayed. For example, Hisoka is a powerful wizard from the card game who survives the Kami War and uses his wisdom to help mortals withstand the kami onslaught...but Scott McGough just uses him as a filler character and makes him out to be a total tool who gets ignominiously slaughtered. Why he felt the need to directly contradict the very cards he was basing his book on, I'll never know. But it has lame written all over it. Don't waste your money.

Outlaw: Champions of Kamigawa
By: Scott McGough

Well, first off, I'll say this; this is another cycle that needs that better editing. It is rather annoying to get going and then have to stop and re-read something a couple of times to understand it.

Now with that out of the way, I'll get on to the book.

The Kamigawa cycle takes place in an era that shows a likeness to the days of Feudal Japan. It's like something right out of a samurai movie, it really is quite cool.

Outlaw tells the story of the the beginning of the Kami war, a war involving the creatures of the spirit world and the people of Kamigawa in a brutal and bloody battle that constantly wages on. This book introduces the Princess Michiko. Michiko is the daughter of the ruler of Kamigawa, Daimyo Konda, who is born on the night that the war started. Michiko finally tires of being shut in her father's tower and unable to do anything about the war, she soon decides to leave the tower to seek Minamo Academy to study the library to try to find some answers to solve the troubles of the land.

During her journey, Michiko encounters a thief and a very tall and menacing monk who are on a mission of their own. And both parties are soon engaged in a fight for their lives against the orochi, a race of snake-like creatures that keep to themselves and immediately attacks/kills anyone who treads on their territory. The thief, Toshi, is a mysterious character with agendas of his own that are known only to him.

Soon, the paths of Toshi and Michiko become intertwined while Toshi remains the mysterious stranger, only popping in and out when he is needed or when he has a plan that suits his own needs. All the while, Michiko's goal is clear, to find the answers to the Kami War and put a stop to it before everyone in the land is wiped off the face of Kamigawa.

I love this cycle, I love the characters and the weapons, and the monsters that are thrown into the world of Kamigawa. The types of magic are quite interesting, especially Toshi's kanji magic. MTG fans whould love this cycle, but try their best to ignore the poor editing job. I give this book a 10/10. It's a great book and hopefully the rest of the cycle is just as interesting as this one.

Set in the story rich world of Kamigawa, in fact one of the most story driven worlds for Magic:the gathering in a number of years, this book drives from its rich backing to produce an interesting, albeit somewhat predictable story.
The story of a princess out to discover why her country is beset by vengeful spirits (kami) she meets a rogue user of black magic who together must discover the secret behind the kami war that has beset kamigawa for 20 years.
Compared to earlier M:TG books (such as the mirrodin block ones) this is a huge improvement. Though one wonders if they bother to edit the books at all as i found no less then 4 painfully simple grammar mistakes (typos even) in the course of my reading.
Still, its a must read for Magic: THe Gathering fans. Though anyone not interested in the card game can still get a lot out of the book there are many better things to read.

When buying a book based on a card game, I wasn't expecting much. I was surprised to find a good story here with good characters and an overall enjoyable read.

Outlaw was a good book to thoose who know about MAGIC. If you don't you will not understand the plot as well and what is going on. I liked the book because it sucked you in and once you got into it you would forget about everything else. The characters and setting were described very well.

The best part of the book for me was the giant battle in the end when Toshi and Michiko are in the cave. It was good because the description of what was going on and you wondered if they would make it out. You cared for Toshi when he was being squeezed and when he almost stabbed Michiko.

The most vivd parts of the book was the characters and the climax. The characters were described so well you can see their face and how they dressed.The climax of the battle was good since you could see the Orchi charging out of the woods and the priests on the hill. Overall I thought this was a great book.