Customer Reviews

The Purifying Fire: A Planeswalker Novel

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

 

 

I just finished reading this book and really liked it. I think any magic fan would really enjoy it and probably even someone not familiar with magic would find it to be a good read. I'm really enjoying this planeswalker series of books so far. My only problem with the book and the reason I didn't give it 5 stars is the amazing amount of grammatical errors. It's pretty typical for WOC books to have a lot of errors, but this was like nobody even read the book before it went to the printers. It's not a huge deal but it just takes you out of the moment when you have to read something twice because it doesn't make any sense. I would say it happened to me almost every two or three pages. WOC books cost as much as any other book on the shelves, it seems like they could pay to have someone proof read them.

I am writing this as someone who has read nearly every single magic novel written so far, Particularly ever novel since Wizards started publishing their own books. so when i say that this novel just isnt quite up to par, i mean so in a few different ways. This was written by a new author, who hasnt written a magic novel before, and it is apparent. There are certain consistancies that i feel were needlessly disregarded, which leaves this book just feeling not right. The other main issue i have with this novel, is that it seems to not have even been reviewed by editor, there are typos, all over the place, not just the few you would normally catch in a novel, but WAY more than normal.

basically if you have read every other magic novel, might as well read it, but you will have some issues.
and for those just starting in the MtG novels, it doesnt really exemplify the rest of the books.

This is the book you want to read if you are curious about the story behind the planeswalker Chandra Nalaar, represented in Chandra Nalaar - Magic 2010 M10 Planeswalker - Mythic Rare. The pacing is decent, and it portrays Chandra as an impulsive yet powerful young pyromancer and fledgling planeswalker. Jace has a cameo, Jaya Ballard is mentioned historically, and Gideon is present.

The Purifying Fire is typical of Wizards of the Coast novels -- bad editing, short (the author's name is on both left and right margins of pages, padding the page count), and with no horror-level violence or romance above holding hands. Basically it's a fast paced adventure story with decent insight into the character and history of Chandra. The author takes liberties with the Magic: The Gathering card game's spell casting system, if you care about that.

Overall the book tells Chandra's story, emphasis on 'tell' over show. Three different planes are visited, and my pick for 'best detail' was Chandra's off-color loathing of goblins. For this to be better than average, the 'ouphes-must-be-funny' vibe needed less of the author's overemphasis, and Chandra's inner conflict of anger management needed more. Chanda herself is impulsive, caring yet sarcastic, and destructive, but the author also writes her on the stupid side.

As a long time reader of Magic, I find this book to be highly disappointing in many ways. First off, there are many blatant grammatical errors, typos, and words mixed up in sentences, but this is hardly a hindrance. Second, the story was sub par and had characters with hardly any "life" to them. It took at least 1/2 of the book before the story even began going anywhere or even developing. Last but not least and probably one of the biggest let downs was that after reading through half the book, it feels like the author was trying to cram a crappy romance novel into a Magic novel. There are long and blatant sections of the book that cried out "SAPPY ROMANCE." The author tried to inject shoddy romantic sparks between the protagonist and a "mysterious" stranger. If I had wanted to read a romance novel, I would have gone to Rite Aid and picked it out from their romance section. I bought this book to read about Magic, not romantic developments.

Well written, and in my Kindle version, the amount of grammar and press errors were very few.

This story brings to life Chandra Nalaar and Gideon Jura; both reknowned planeswalkers from Magic The Gathering. What is very curious, is that we see both of them behave synchronous and asynchronous with their respective color bonds. This makes the characters more multi-faceted, and thus much more interesting to follow.

This was my 5th Magic The Gathering book - before that, I mainly read Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms and the Death Gate Cycle.

I must admit, that with the first MtG-book (Arena), I was a bit disappointed. This book, however, is more like the other newer MtG-books I've read (Agents of Artifice and Alara Unbroken).

4 stars of 5; because the book is good and well written; a must-read for MtG-fans (whether of the game or the novels or both), while others might find this book a bit off.


** SPOILER AHEAD **
It is not mentioned in the book anywhere, but the mind mage that Chandra battles, is of course Jace. Why the author has not dwelled more in this, especially because the online comics does, is beyond my understanding.

I do however, like Gideon as a character. I read elsewhere, that the author had totally free reigns with Gideon; the only requirement was, that he was a white mage.

The book is good and gives a good idea of what it's like to be a planes walker and have to move around all the time and keep things secret. The story also has a good plot to it and a good ending. I hope there's another book like it.

There's an awful lot of typos in this book and the ending feels a little rushed, but other than that "The Purifying Fire" gives readers an excellent chance to peek into Chandra Nalaar's wild lifestyle and see how she met Gideon Jura on her adventures. The action scenes are compact and vivid and the settings vary from a Gothic city to a fire-mage sanctuary to the dark, bizarre plane of Diraden. I haven't read many other Magic books so I can't really compare this one to them, but this is a decent book all the same.

As there are many mistakes, the book was well written, just poorly edited if edited at all, I loved the book and will read it again

Every magic book I've read, I've been at least a little dissapointed. Magic books just never seem quite like a real novel that could hold up on its own without the cards and cult following. While this book is no exception, it is much better then others of the books I have read. The storyline is a little chaotic (which I think comes from trying to write a book about a character in 1 short novel), but Chandra is pretty well developed. However, as the author has made other books that I enjoy very much, I am led to believe it is Wizards editing that ruined the book for me. And yes, this is not just speculation, Wizards edited the book to a fair degree, look it up. What bothers me a bit is how much people enjoy Agents of Artiface, but then dislike this book. Purifying Fire definately better then AoA. I liked Jace back when he was only a magic card, but I feel like that book actually detracted from the personality of the cardboard playing card.

Also read:
The Thran, The Brothers War, Planeswalker, The Gathering Dark, The Eternal Ice, The Shattered Alliance, Bloodlines, Mercadian Masquerade, Nemesis, Invasion, Planeshift, Apocalypse, and Johan.