Customer Reviews

Swords of Dragonfire (Forgotten Realms: The Knights of Myth Drannor, Book 2)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Swords of Dragonfire by Ed Greenwood is the second book of the Knights of Myth Drannor trilogy. The first book, Swords of Eveningstar (Forgotten Realms: The Knights of Myth Drannor, Book 1)was released in 2006 and the third and final bok, The Sword Never Sleeps, will be released in August of 2008. This trilogy is intended to be a prequel for the Knights of Myth Drannor, to give them more `face' time and to better explain how they came together and what some of their early motivations are. Most fans of the forgotten Realms will recognize many characters in this novel, which is both a positive and negative, but I'll explain that later in the review.

The plot of this book is rather jumbled at times. This is mostly due to how the book is written and laid out. The main storyline is that the Knights of Myth Drannor are trying to save the royalty of Cormyr (the King, Queen and two princesses, and of course Vangy). Throughout the course of the main plot there are various sub-plots thrown in for good measure. Sub-plots such as internal strife within the Zhents, a love interest between a couple of the main heroes, and trying to discover what really is behind an ancient mystery for a long lost treasure. The plot itself is decent; there really isn't anything new here. It seems all the plot points and `mysteries' in this book have been read countless times before. In fact there were time while I was reading this novel, that the plot felt stale to me. There were moments of it being interesting though. I would say the overall story of this book was better than the first book.

The characters of this book are largely the same as from the previous book. As with the first book, I purchased this largely because one of my favorite characters was present, Florin Falconhand. While he is certainly featured in this book, I still don't feel as though I know much more about him than I did before I started this book, and trilogy for that matter. It almost seems as though Mr. Greenwood does not care entirely too much on the concept of character development in this trilogy, rather he just wants to `tell the story'. I think that is one of the major pitfalls of writing a story, in particular, a trilogy about characters that are already established. The reader already has a very good idea of what will happen, and that certain characters have no chance of being killed - because they are present in books set many years after these events. One of my complaints about the previous book is that some of the characters felt as though they were two dimensional and very clichéd, I am disappointed to say that those feelings are still present in this book as well. The only character I was interested in steadily throughout the book was Florin, but that was largely due to my previous readings about him, not from this book.

The pacing of this novel does not lend itself to easy reading. The scenes jump from one point of view to another several times throughout a chapter. Just when the reader is grasping what the intent is, the book suddenly jumps to something else. This severely hampers the flow of the book and makes it feel like a jumbled, disjointed buffet of stories instead of one continuous tale. The last fifteen to twenty pages are actually the most succinct and concise parts of the story. That is the only part where there is decent flow and continuity other than that it's hit and miss.

It still appears as though Mr. Greenwood has an infinity to use ultra-strong character at points that don't really fit. There is one scene in particular where Vangerdahast is responding to something, suddenly Khelban shows up, then is followed by Elminster showing up. That scene in particular made me feel like Mr. Greenwood was saying, "Oh, I have to get these characters into this book." And then tossed them in one big lump to make sure they were noticed. It felt contrived and useless.

While this book `feels' more like a Forgotten Realms book, it still doesn't measure up to the likes of Paul Kemp and R.A. Salvatore in terms on plot and character development. I am sure `hard core' fans of the Forgotten Realms, those who read all the source books and articles, will find something to appreciate about this novel. However, fans like myself, who merely read the novels, may find this novel lacking in any real depth. It is my belief that novels should be written for a larger fan base and not just the `hard core' gamer. I say that because I can't see myself recommending this book except to the very niche group. This is by no means an introduction to the Realms or to fantasy novels in general.

While this book is slightly better than book one, I am still disappointed in the overall direction this trilogy has gone. As I said before, there is an inherent danger in writing prequels, and Mr. Greenwood, in my opinion, has fallen into that danger. I don't see myself recommending this book to many fellow readers, which is unfortunate.

If you enjoyed tabletop D&D you might enjoy this. Not because it's fun, but because it seems a 14 year old boy is telling the story. I have enjoyed several books by Ed Greenwood; in fact the first book in this series was a fun and solid story. This book splatters disconnected story segments into a drawn out mismatch of what could be a good adventure story. There is no character development, the setting is cardboard and the action is very formulaic. It is disappointing that someone who helped create such a rich universe of story telling wrote a story that does nothing to make the reader care about the characters or storyline.

I started reading this series with high expectations. Ed Greenwood is an icon in the D&D PnP world, thus I thought these books would be just as impressions as his other contributions. They are not. Dragonfire continued where Eveningstar left off-- simplistic plot and no substantial character development. After >800 pages, I feel I don't even really know the characters. Don't even get me started on the ending-- very abrupt and very Return of the Jedi-- everyone gets a Woo Hoo! and a pat on the back. Ugh.

Having been on a re-reading most of Forgotten Realms kick recently (and just finished a Dragonlance reading kick), I was looking forward to this new series by Realms creator Ed Greenwood.

I was a little disappointed. The books are filled with action, but perhaps not enough grand plot... it feels like you are being constantly whisked from fight to fight.

Not Ed's best, but I guess it is nice to have some background on the Knights.

Worst fantasy book I've ever read. There is not one coherent idea throughout the book. Reads like 5 books that have been randomly mixed together

Im not the biggest Ed Greenwood fan, though I do enjoy his books. I like this series and enjoyed this one, though im a bigger Salvator fan, love his fighting description ;) Characters are a bit flat, main characters anyway, the appearance of the more well known cormyr characters is well done, but they have quite a background already. Overall, 3 out of 5. I enjoyed it enough, to finish the series.

In Swords of Dragonfire, Ed Greenwood continues his Knights of Myth Drannor series featuring the Knights. The first book in the series is Swords of Eveningstar which is a fantastic novel. This series is suppose to serve as an entry way to read books for Forgotten Realms inspiring readers.

Ed Greenwoods writing to many people is 50/50 you either love it or you hate it, and personally, i love it or atleast really enjoy his weaving of stories. He is able to keep your attention throughout the novel. My only beef with Mr. Greenwood is that he does tend to jump around perspectives a lot but, personally, I enjoy it eitherway. This novel continues the story from where it left off in Swords of the Eveningstar, and it does not fail to catch your attention with how the story proceeds with Florin and the rest of the gang pertaining to their duty bound honor to the kingdom of Cormyr. This story is very interesting as there is a plot to destroy the royal family. I deeply recommend this novel and trilogy for anybody who has read the Shandril trilogy which I am sure that if you liked that series, you will love this trilogy.
Thanks for letting me share my opinion with the rest of you on this novel and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I had a blast reading this novel. It was what I would consider a "Rowdy Romp in the Realms". Fast paced and chock full of action, intrigue and love. Also intertwined with enough sub-plots to keep even the most active readers intrigued and enguaged. I love to see the "little corners" of my favorite characters get fleshed out and filled in.
This represents everything good Fantasy should be. Fun. It leaves you with the feeling of....If only this world were real, what fun it would be!
Full of interesting characters that leave you wanting to know more about them all, the only flaw is too few pages!
If you like fantasy you will love this series.

There's character development in RA Salvatore's Drizzt novels? Drizzt has been the same prudish teenager dealing with icky girl feelings who's in desperately need to be intimate with a woman to get over the emotional scaring of having his half sister want to jump his bones after graduating the drow equivalent of high school. There's no development in Salvatore novels, I love them, Crystal Shard is my favorite Realms novel ever, but please don't fool people into thinking he writes anything but good hack and slash books.

Swords of Dragonfire is a good follow up Swords of Eveningstar. The Knights are heroes and they've come into their own. Now they must prove themselves worthy to the powers that be in the Realms, proving they're more then meets the eye. Sure there's a lot going on in the book, but if you've ever read any Ed Greenwood book, you know that's the case. Multiple enemies, plotting onto of plotting onto of plotting. Cormyr has a special guest coming, all of Cormyr's enemies are aligned to interfere but they're not working together. The Knights of Myth Drannor quite humorous stumble and foil multiple plots against the crowd while we get a taste of why Elminster is the man and why the super powered leader of these evil organizations of the Realm don't do the handy work themselves.

Read Swords of Eveningstar, read this. You'll enjoy them.