Invasion (Magic: The Gathering - Invasion Cycle Book I) (Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

by J. Robert King (Author) "White clouds fled through blue skies..." (more)
Key Phrases: powerstone pike, trench worms, titan suit, Tsabo Tavoc, Urza Planeswalker, Heart of Yavimaya (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The Phyrexian nightmare begins.

Dominaria faces its biggest threat -- an invasion by its greatest enemy, an attack planned for eons by merciless foes. No one is exempt from their terror. No land is safe from their onslaught. In the shadow of the Phyrexian horde, Dominaria has but one hope -- the Weatherlight and her crew. The time has come to defend hearth and home from invasion.

Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 311 pages
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast (October 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786914386
• ISBN-13: 978-0786914388
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #500,212 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Invasion Begins, April 9, 2007

By	WayneXtreme "Reading Fiend" (Indianapolis, IN USA) - See all my reviews

I've literally been jumping around in my cycles of Magic the Gathering and have finally come to the Invasion Cycle. Unfortunately, I've just learned that this story is started in even earlier cycles which bites because most of those books are pretty tricky to come by. Anyway, onto my review.

The story of Invasion tells of the world Dominaria that is being invaded by a "race" of mechanically/genetically altered or genetically engineered to be killing machines. The race is from a world known as Phyrexia that long ago a man went there with a "dream" of ascending he and his people to become even greater beings than they were before (read the prequel, The Thran for the full story). Anyway, the story itself seems to center (from the Heroes side) around a ship known as the Weatherlight and her crew who are steadily fighting and trying to defeat the Phyrexians and save the world of Dominaria and its inhabitants from being destroyed by these "invaders". Now, the crew of the Weatherlight as well as the planeswalker known as Urza must try to bring together the races of Dominaria to be rid of this evil menace once and for all.

This is just a very basic summary of the story itself. I thought that this was a great story, the book itself is pretty much a non-stop war that gets told from both sides, from the Commander of the Weatherlight (Gerrad Capashen) and "the boss" (at this point) of the Phyrexian invasion, Tsabo Tavoc (as well as some point of view from Urza and the forest spirit of Yavimaya, Multani). There's just so much to this story that I'm having a hard time understanding it all. But if you are gonna read this cycle, I think it's best to read The Thran before starting Invasion, because it really helps to fill out some of the story that's told in the Thran.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dull., August 4, 2002

By A Customer

Invasion, Planeshift, Apocalypse

In a word dull.

This trilogy represents an attempt to extend what would have been a reasonably interesting and well paced novel into a trilogy, with the predictable outcome that its slow, repetitive and over-explained.

With few exceptions the characters are shallow, often cutout classical archetypes, who react in painfully predictable ways, rendered in scenes that are excruciatingly repetitive, rich in pointless grapic depictions of action sequences that do nothing to move the story forward, and in fact bog it down. The reader is dragged from climax to inexorable climax and in too many cases can't help but have guessed whats going to be on the next page before reading it.

The vocabulary is rich but jarring; it feels like the author used a thesaurus, desperate to relieve the monotony of seeing the same sequence of events playout with slight variations over and over and over again.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Book, Great Start for The Cycle, June 14, 2002

By	J. D. Cicci "lcicci" (Peckville, Pennsylvania United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is an exciting account of the first stages during the Phyrexian Invasion of Dominaria. Chapters are short (only about 4 or 5 pages each) but provide a very accurate description of each event as it happens, step-by-step. It flows at a very fast pace and the action doesn't slow much until after the Llanowar chapters. Even then there's plenty of action to go around. A very exciting battle concludes the book, leaving more questions to be answered by the sequel, Planeshift. Character development is also very well done and you really begin to feel for some of them during the later chapters. Overall I was very pleased by the detail of each event and the pace at which the book moves along. I do recommend, however, that you read Time Streams (also by J. Robert King) because it poses as sort of a prequel to the characters and events in this book. If you didn't read Time Streams, don't worry, the book reviews many of the events and happenings of Time Streams in detail.