Customer Reviews

The Summoning (Forgotten Realms: Return of the Archwizards, Book 1)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As a fan of the Realms and Troy Denning's books in general, I was eagerly looking forward to this book and in most regards it didn't disappoint.

The book features the return of the ancient Netherese, the escape of the Phaerimm and the endangerment of Evereska, all very interesting story areas that have been in my opinion been sadly neglected and underdeveloped in the past. In addition to these new elements the book also revolves around a tour of "The North" with the characters visiting many of the sites and areas that have been previously been bought to life in the D&D campaign expansions for the North (Dekanter, High Forest, Karse etc). To top it off the book is well written like all Troy Dennings books (though it definitely should have been longer- it needed an extra 100 pages at least to do the story justice!!), with good action scenes, strong plot and interesting characters, including the return of 'Malik' who has to be just about the funniest and coolest servant of an evil god ever featured in Fantasy.

The book also goes out of its way to incorporate the game features of the new 3rd edition game into the story, with the main character being a multiclassed sorceror and the action scenes also kinda reflecting the change in game mechanics (spells, skills etc).

"The Summoning" is the first in a three part series of the return of the City of Shade to the Forgotten Realms. Shade has been in the demi-plane of Shadow for the past 17 centuries. The story revolves around an elf desperately trying to redeem himself and coping with a newfound power that threatens to consume him.

This book also has appearances of Elminster and Storm Silverhand. I found Denning's portrayal of Eliminster a trifle annoying.

All in all I enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the other two. I think that Denning could have done a better job a fleshing out the characters but he may be saving that for later on the story. This book may not be one of Denning's greatest works but it is still worth reading for any fan of the Forgotten Realms.

The Phaerimm are brought out from imprisonment, Elmenster is brought into imprisonment, Khelben Blackstaff gets a hole blown out of His chest, Mind Flayers, Eye Tyrants and Bugbears are manipulated into helping the Phaerimm destroy Faerun (Or at least try to), Shadow Magic is explained (And the evil gods want to learn it's secrets..), Liches do battle, undead knights are avenged, a stone giant that has a soft spot and an elf that sleeps like a human...Troy Denning went above and beyond in this book. A pity the next one wont be out until Dec. 2001. Until then, check in on ol' Elminster and his battle/imprisonment in the 9 hells comming out in aug. 2001.

Troy Denning definitely understands the overall feeling of Faerūn and the races that dwell there. His work with Ed Greenwood gives him great insights into the characters made famous such as the Seven Sisters, Elminster, and Khelben Arunsun.

However, where Denning shines is his creation of the minute details of many places in the Realms barely touched on such as the Dire Wood and Evereska. His descriptions brought these very places to life and one could feel that they were there along with the main characters during this adventure.

The main villians were also wonderfully captured as malicious beings willing to destroy all of the land to once again rule it. The Phaerimm had up until now not had an attitude, but just a general description. This book gave them a malice that Denning describes beautifully.

As for the main characters, this is where the book is up to general taste. Galaeron, the main character, spends too much time in doubt of himself, instead of acting like an elf. He lacks the discipline that even his father had. Takari, his wood elf companion is a little one dimensional. However, the character of Melegaunt is very well described and one can understand what he thinks and feels by how Denning writes it between the lines.

Overall, this is a great book for fans of the Realms and it is a great read!!

In the late 1980's-through the early 90's, I read most everything published by the old TSR. One of my favorites was Forgotten Realms. News of TSR going bankrupt saddened me, so I stopped buying the novels. I figured Wizards of the Coast was going to retire fantasy novels to a card playing format. I was wrong. My favorite setting survived and grew. One of the most interesting storylines was the Netheril Empire set centuries before the current timeline. The tale of the flying city of Shade was never told ,until now.

The original Netheril trilogy left me disappointed. The story seemed rushed and heavy handed. Nearly 10 years later, I came across Troy Dennings Epic trilogy of the Return of the Shadow Wizards. What a concept, right. I began reading. His style is good, but not great. The plot moves rather quickly. Too quickly for my tastes!

There are many characters introduced here without much developement. Most of the major characters are here; Khelben Arunsun, and a very tired Elminster. The city of Shade finally reappears on the last page of the story. It is a page turner without any pauses. It brought me back for my continuing journey through the realms. What is good about this story is the basic premise; shadow magic, heavy magic and the mighty mythallars that keeps these cities afloat. What is bad, is not keeping them central to the story line. Overall, this is an interesting. I can only hope it gets better.

This was a decent enough book, but there seems to be some recurrent threads in it that are overtreated. For example, the love triangle between Vala, Galaeron, and Takari is dealt with more than is really necessary. More useful than all of the talk would be small, illustrative incidences where we could see how much each of the women love him. The shadow self is always dragged to the surface (understandably to an extent, since that is a major plot line, but still...) and his motives are constantly questioned. These are minorly annoying, but the real problem is that the book lacks anything of real substance. Its simply another romp through the FR, dealing with liches, phaerimm, and other monsters, and even Elminster makes a tired appearance. It seems odd to me that at one point Elminster, the greatest archwizard in the realms, has less magic memorized than Galaeron, who was kicked out of the Elvish Academy of Magic. Nevertheless, Elminster is a figure whom should either be a very tangential character or the center of the story. A bit player is not a good part for him, as it takes away from his mystique.

Not bad, just too fluffy for my liking. I hope the sequels are better.
Harkius

I really enjoyed this series. This first book describes how the main character accidently sets an extremely powerful race of evil free and then tries to right his wrong. I disagree adamantly with a previous reviewer who claims that this series portrays the elves as human sex toys. There is some interplay there, but unless you have some serious hangups it is a non-issue.

The action in this book is great, as is the character development around Galaron. There isn't as much development of the supporting cast but they are just that, a supporting cast. What I really liked was the interaction between the humans and elves concerning magic. I've always been curious about the elvish high magic and them being a part of the weave, yet Mystra's chosen are all humans. This doesn't explain that but at least we get to see humans and elves interacting in a large, world-changing way, not just in a 5-person band of adventurers or something.

The phaerrim (evil race) are awesome too. They were banished thousands of years ago and can basically think of spells to use them (no chanting, hand movements). Since they feed off of magic they want Evereska's mythal for their own. Of course the shadow mage that was released in the beginning along with the phaerrim is just one person in an entire city dating from ancient Netheril. This sets up a gigantic series of events between three very powerful forces: Evereskan elves+Mystra's Chosen; the Phaerrim; the shadow mages. Book two really kicks off this war.

Everyone being overly critical of thsi book is wrong..

Read my review of the 2nd book of this series for some good info..

So many bad books out there (ex: BG Books novels, a lot of the harpers series etc..), but this one is great. Very Good characters, the evil ones are REALLY evil, not cartoonish (the Phaerimm are unbeliviably powerful Mages, alien like Mind Flayers who use humans and all others like cattle.)

The Shadovar are complex, very, very cool as the only survivors of ancient Netheril, and they're back to the FR.

Frankly, it was dumb to say that all of Netheril was destroyed, considering all the poweer rthey commanded as ArchWizards; now, with Shar the Goddess with her own source of magic, these Shadovars are NOT steretypical villains, but ruthless opportunists; they can do good, as well as evil.
One last thing, I still tingle when the elf mage DRAWS the City back to the Prime from the Plane of Shadow; very well done, very, very cool. BUY This one, they are rare when they are this good (Only early Drizz'zt and Ten-towns novels compare..)

Well, I'll start with the good of this book.
It goes into a little detail of the shadow weave (though this explanation is the complete opposite of what it is. He says in the book that the fall of Netheril split the weave and made the shadow weave, while the FRCS states that Shar created the shadow weave.)
A few of the characters are done well, though they change so rapidly it's hard to get any feeling for them.
Okay, so there isn't really much good to this book. Now to the bad.
I'll start with the worst. Elves are complete and utter sluts in this book, though at first Denning shows them as being the opposite he quickly lets you know he thinks of the elven race as a race of nymphomaniacs. (I don't mean to flame but this annoyed me to no end, and was even worse in the second of the trilogy.)
Next, he portrays Elminster as a spying, idiotic, women chasing old man.
He portrays Khelben better, and the Seven Sisters, but at times you will be wondering 'who are these people'

All in all this book downgrades elves and tries to bring them off as nothing more then human sex toys.

This book deals with the return of the greatest spellcasters on Toril, the mighty archwizards of Netheril! I have high hopes for this series and cannot wait for the other novels to come out. TSR tried to bring Netheril alive with its Netheril boxed set some while back and a series of novels, but then Netheril just diappeared again without further word. Now it is being brought back and I cannot wait. After hearing Netheril mentioned in tons of FR novels, we are finally going to have a series dealing with it entirely.

The only fault I had with the story was lack of character development. I just was not made to feel for the characters as I usually am and I was disappointed. Mr Denning is a great writer and I wish he would have added more details. The book, however, is wonderful and promises to start a great line of novels- pick it up!!