Customer Reviews

Spellfire: Shandril's Saga, Book I

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This book starts out like another trilogy I can remember. It reads like a page by page record of a Dungeons and Dragons game with a little story peppered in here and there, which is not all that bad really. Ed Greenwood has a literary style that is quite different from most other authors I can think of. It's strangely different, but it holds my attention and keeps me reading more. I can't really explain it any better. He's a storyteller, a bard, and he has the gift that draws me in and holds me there. Oh, and that other trilogy was the Dragonlance series: Dragons of Autumn Twilight or something...

I thought the fighting, action and magic (spellfire) were all well-done. Some of the kissy-kissy sequences between Narm and Shandril were a little annoying, but this book really evoked scenes of another world, filled with magic and creatures and all sorts of items, and I felt like I could actually see the things Ed Greenwood was writing about. It was colorfully written, with plenty of amusing dialogue between the characters, as well as lots of magic (spellfire) and swordplay.

Definitely worth rereading, and I will someday.

I'll try to keep this short.

I loved the amount of lore--especially magic lore--in this book. Like another reviewer, I often feel that most stories are very skimpy on the magic, mages, witches, and the lore and rules governing the use of magic. This book delivers on that without going overboard, which is difficult. It is a great adventure, a wondrous story.

I must say, however, that Greenwood's prose gets in the way sometimes. I do not like any of the romance/relationship development. It was too quick; things were brought to their conclusions before any buildup. I didn't care when the main characters interacted in this specific way because they were drawing on a nonexistent past...it just totally fell flat. Other areas have awkward sentence constructions, non-concordant vocatives on the part of Elminster which didn't appear to be purposeful, and a few hackneyed dungeon scenes which had great action, but poor description.

I cherish this book, but I believe it is better suited to young adults, the age at which I read it and loved it.

I'd borrowed this book from a friend and enjoyed it back when I was in grade school and remember it being a good tale. Many years and books later, I saw it on Amazon along with the 2 other books in the trilogy, which I was until then unaware it was a trilogy. So decided to get the trilogy and reread the first book and follow up with the remainder of the trilogy which would be new to me. After finishing the 1st book I must say that I liked it better when I was younger and had much less reading experience under my belt. Still its descent book, with a good story, worth reading imo. Hoping the other two books are as good or better...

Pure and simple. The man can write editorials like he did for magazines but when someone gave him a chance to write novels and stories for his cute Forgotten Realms campaign it shows. If you want something to help put you to sleep at night try Spellfire. Quite possibly his worst effort. First read it back in the late 80's or early 90's when his D&D FR campaign was popular and I thought it was the worst book that I ever made an effort to read. I was only 19 or so...and I still remember how bad it was.

This is book 1 of three. This to me was the best one. I enjoyed the second and third, but this one was the best.