Customer Reviews

Rath and Storm (Magic the Gathering Anthology)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was very good - it was a major part of the Magic Universe. This book only gets four stars for two reasons.

1) The climax was very lacking. It just seems like the authors assumed that you would piece everything together. There was no big battle or anything. And what is up with leaving Eirtay behind? And Crovax turning into a vampire? Starke's story never resolved, and many characters were never touched on at the end.

2) Errors! I was astonished at the number of grammer errors, typos, and printing mistakes that the editors should have caught. I felt that I was reading a rough draft.

Besides this though, the book was well written and I liked learning about each character from their viewpoint. A must read for any Magic fan!

This book told a clear descprition of the card game I like so much. It showed a section of the back story known as The Rath Cycle. It surrounds a boy named Ilcaster being told the story of the rath cycle by an old, wise, librarian. It sinks into great description and even farther information then I even was aware of. it jumps from character to character telling their background and the current events. I enjoy the fact that you can feel the emotion through wonderful description makes a vivid reader want to continue. It makes the card game make more sense also. It's kind of wierd to look at a card and say I know why this is a card. Many people find the book confusing but I kept track and I think most could to. The book's wide variety of wonderful authors for each section gave the book a great stripe of vibrance. The "Dark Room"comes every other chapter where Ilcaster is being told the story can get old after awhile, but it is worth reading through to get to the real chapters. The Chapter of Crovax's story written by Kij Johnson were wonderful, as well as Karn's. I recommend this book to Player's of Magic ad non-players that enjoy a good fantasy books. Adventure, inner stories, heavy descriptions, great interpretations of Magic Legends,and every different creature type from Tempest, Stronghold, or Exodus.

As far as anthologies go, this is one of the best I've ever read. That's probably because it doesn't really read like an anthology at all. All of the individual stories tie into one another to make up the complete story of Gerrard's quest to Rath, where he rescues Sisay and confounds Volrath's plans of conquest. This story is the focal point of the Weatherlight, Tempest, Stronghold, and Exodus expansion packs for MTG. Additional resources for this story include the graphic novel Magic - The Gathering: Gerrard`s Quest and the beautifully done ART OF MAGIC, THE (Magic the Gathering Artbooks). These two supplementary volumes help flesh out the characters and their mission in better detail (and in full color). I'd recommend them to gain a better understanding of the story.

Gerrard and his companions are some of the coolest characters up to this time (publication date) in the MTG novels. Complex and highly intriguing interactions between the characters and their individual motivations make for an interesting read with lots of side stories to interest the reader. While not all of these are brought to a conclusion, the overall story was wrapped up rather nicely at the end of the book. The most impressive thing to me was how all of the different authors were able to mesh their individual contributions into the whole to make a very satisfying and complete feeling novel. Peter Archer's intermission scenes, where an old librarian is relating the tale to a young student, aid in filling in many important details and are a necessity for the true story.

One of the better MTG novels I've read, and definitely the best of the anthologies.

First, let me state that I've been playing M:TG for about 6 years, am a huge fan, and have read all the books in the Artifact Cycle plus the Mercadian Masques book. I'm reviewing this book in comparison to the other books I've read as well as the knowledge I've gained about the characters through playing M:TG.

Each chapter is written by a different author and is from a single character's vantage point. The chapters are tied together by a series of "Dark Room" chapters where a librarian tells the story to a youth. The book is, for the most part, very well written. However, each author has a different style so it lacks some consistency in a few parts. It becomes frustrating when all you can read is one character's account of what happened. This effect is magnified when you realize the book spans the Weatherlight, Tempest, Stronghold, and Exodus expansions. Many times I found myself wondering what the other characters felt during any given situation. Authors also seem to have left out many minor details which can add up quickly.

I am very critical of this book because it is such an important chapter to a much larger book in the Magic Universe. My one major gripe is that each chapter focuses on only one character, instead of attempting to portray what everyone else sees and feels during each situation. Overall, I give this book 3 1/2 stars (7.0 on a scale from 1-10). It really is a good read, but to me it just wasn't in-depth enough. It's more of a general overview of the events that transpired in each of the 4 expansions mentioned earlier.

However, I strongly recommend reading this as it will make nearly all of the other books easier to understand. It also helps to add to your overall understanding of the Magic Universe

Like most fantasy books, this story starts out centering on one event (in Rath and Storm's case, the event is Sisay being kiddnapped), but towards the end, however, the picture becomes larger. For example, Gerrand's goal to save Sisay turns into a quest to save two worlds. Unlike a lot of fantasy books, Rath and Storm uses a unique system in which each character tells a pat of the story from his/her/it's point of view. Rath and Storm oozes with character and emotions are portrayed as well as the plot of the story. Each character has a unique history, and they are altogether an unruly bunch. My favorite character would have to be the living statue, Karn. In his tale, the capturing of emotions is so perfect, I swear I felt as if I were Karn himself! By the end of the first tale, I found myself hooked. I would recommend Rath and Storm to enyone who plays MAGIC, or anyone who likes fantasy books

This book is a must read, only because you will be lost in future books if you don't. I hate anthologies and this is why. There is not enough room to go deep into each of the characters. The thing hops around so much, it is hard to follow. There should have been another trilogy of books to tell the stories properly.

A must read for sure. I loved all the magic books and this is one of the best. It has a great plotline and many points of view. I personaly like Ertai and his veiw which leads greatly into the book nemesis.

Rath and Storm is about the adventures of the weatherlight crew, with each chapter being told from the perspective from another member. In terms of the books literary merit, I can't give much praise. The switching of perspectives and authors gave a somewhat disjointed feel, and certain aspects were not fully developed (e.g Orim and Crovax's relationship). Also there's one point in the book were the author writes: "Ertai casted a cone of flame and then an aether storm." The juvenile attempt to stuff source material into the book was kind of laughable.
Those were just minor qualms, however. If you are a magic fan, this book has some good backstory on key characters and covers some cool storyline from the tempest block. If you are not a magic fan and these characters don't mean anything to you already, I wouldn't recommend this book.

I loved this book,

It really fleshed out the story line i had always wanted to know within MTG lore. The tempest card set was always my favorit so it was nice to flesh out all the background storyline with a nice involving novel.

It did feel a little disjointed due to 3 seperate writers working on this one novel but i was imperssed with how much it managed to get across in such a short amount of paper.

If you want MTG lore you have it right here, you can even pick it up 2nd hand and get it for a bargain.

Enjoy!

The one-liner sums it all up. As a whole story, the tale of the Rath Cycle breaks down from the multiple authors. Different viewpoints and retelling of the same stories by different people tends to throw it off balance. However, if you look at each story individually, it holds better. Granted, reading one story in the middle may not make much sense, but you will get a better view of the story from the same author. It does do a good job of telling the Rath story, though; it's just hard to follow sometimes.