Forsaken House

Rating:
Summary: When good stories are re-told badly
Review: "All in all, this is perhaps the best-written Realms novel yet". Thus speaks noted Realms author Ed Greenwood on the back cover, which was the sole reason I was interested in this particular book. A big fan of the Realms, and most of the novels, that was enough to grab my attention.

I can only guess that someone threatened a small child or a kitten with a high powered rifle in order to get him to say this. It is perhaps one of the worst of the Realms novels in a long time.

The plot is a rehash of a very recent Realms sagas - an ancient evil no one has ever heard of before is freed from a long forgotten tomb. The evil wages war on the elven strongholds of Evereska and the High Forest. An intrepid band of heroes forms to combat said evil (sound familier?).


A few good sessions of Dungeons and Dragons does not a novel make. The dialogue must have come straight from the game table ("Does anyone have any Teleportation spells Prepared?", "Damnation, that's an Iron Golem, do you have any spells that can hurt it?") and is so bound by the game mechanics that it's difficult to struggle through.

There is even some tedious descriptions of spells and effects that read like the rule books and a half page that lists all the different kinds of travelers they passed on one road (Random Encounter tables as novel filler).

The characters are equally as wooden. The Company of the White Star is spoken of as if the reader should know who they are, but don't wrack your brain, they are only back-story, and a few are already dead (though it seemed like they would have been interesting characters) so this Company is made up of a couple former members, one fiancé and one child of a former member, but none of that matter's because they are so flat and un-interesting that even when one of them dies, the other characters seem to care about it even less than the readers.

There is really not a single character here with a reason for being in this story, or compelling enough to make you care what happens to them.

The comment that this book escaped the editors' desk is quite valid. What might have been a decent story (had it not been done a few years ago and much better in the Return of the Arch mages stories) is ruined by sloppy assembly. Cwm is not a word [see edit below], and looks more like a placeholder the author used until he could get to his thesaurus to look for a better word for valley/glen or whatever he meant to say. The fact that it occurs at least 3 dozen times really interrupts the flow when you are reading.

Maybe you did not know that Kymel Nimesen tried to invade the elven Island of Evermeet "three years ago", but the author see's fit to remind you of this exact point (often with that exact wording) on pages 6, 65, 66, 70, 71 and probably a couple more times, as if this was a plot point, but all these reminders about what happened "three years ago" are totally inconsequential to the story.

There are also more than a few places where characters tell each other the events that the reader "witnesses" in chapters 2 and 3, and its hard reading re-caps when the plot has moved on.

In fairness there are moments of brilliance here, but they are almost so out of place it gives the impression that two people worked on this novel. Some nice scenes in the Elven court and some decent battles, but these do not make up for the rest of the book.

Sadly, there are two more to follow, which having labored through this one, I am not even interested in, which is nice since the final one is not due for release until Summer 2006.

(I stand corrected, CWM is a real word, meaning a small valley with/without a lake- do I really have to consult other books to find out what the author was talking about in a brain candy fantasy novel? 'Valley' would have worked better and not interuppted the reading flow- there was no lake :))


Rating:
Summary: Richard Baker is unmatched! Phenomenal book!
Review: "Forsaken House" by Richard Baker was one of the best Forgotten Realms books I have read in a while. It was original, inovative, and entertaining.

There are so many interesting half-blood characters. The enemies in the book are half sun elf blood, half demon blood, which as you can imagine can be pretty powerful and vengeful. There is also a character that is half human blood, half elemental blood. This character did not "bust out" her powers as much as I would've liked, but I'm sure she will in the next two books.

There is a lot of battles and skirmishes in this book between the elf faction (of moon elves, sun elves, wood elves, etc) and the demon-elf faction but there is one particular battle that was long and nearly epic in nature. The first battle in the assault be the demon-elves was awesome. There was so much magic, hand to hand combat, and it all seemed original and exciting. One of my favorite scenes in all FR books. Baker writes with such creativity that makes spell casting never get old, and all of the spells seem reasonable and likely to happen unlike some of the FR books that just have convienent magic to get the characters out of tough spots.

Baker has such a good writing style, and I'm glad he is authoring the rest of the trilogy. He's got it going on. The last thing I will say is that you can tell that there is an epic buildup of sorts, because I believe that whatever happens throughout the trilogy will more than likely have drastic effects on all of Faerun or Evermeet, or both.

Read this book if you like fantasy, Forgotten Realms, or elves. This book rocks the house!

Rating:
Summary: Before you review...consult a dictionary!
Review: First off...it is sad that (at present) 7 of 10, and 4 of 6 people have found two reviews "helpful" from people that couldnt even be bothered to take 5 minutes to go to dictionary.com and plug in the word "cwm". One of those reviewers even made the effort to consult the "Elven" dictionary in "Forsaken House" (a great way to determine how to pronounce character's names, btw, and generally a nice feature)...but mysteriously couldnt be bothered to peruse an ENGLISH dictionary. I thought it was fairly standard on the elementary school curriculum to teach people to look up words they didnt know in the dictionary...yet these scholars presume to stand in judgment and criticize this author's work. Shameful.

In my opinion, this book was a fine piece of work. I picked it up looking for a "change of pace" from Salvatore's Drizzt novels, and found that I enjoyed it considerably more than many of Salvatore's later works in that storyline...particularly the not-even-mediocre Paths of Darkness series. Spoilers forthcoming...If you scan many of the reviews for Salvatore's books, you find complaints that the "Champions of the Hall" (terrible LotR knockoff, btw) are invincible, even in the face of ridiculously mighty opponents such as dragons and higher demons...yet when the group of principle characters in this book suffer physically from their battles and/or one of them is killed (with appropriate emotional reactions from the remaining members of the band...not sure what that reviewer was talking about)...people come here and complain about _that_. Simply amazing!

Anyway, back to the point...I thought this book was great, and I am looking forward to the rest of the trilogy. I am not the biggest fan of the world of the elves, but I enjoy a good story and this book is just that. The author offers a great depiction of fights and larger battles, and even allows for consequence in those confrontations whereby, as I said above...unlike Drizzt and his gang...enemies actually get in a few hits on the "heroes" and do some damage. What a novel concept, eh? My only complaint falls back on the fact that I am not the biggest elven fanboy, and found the names difficult to roll off the tongue...but as I said, the elvish dictionary in the back of the book helps with that immensely.

I thought this was a very solid book and a fine addition to the universe of Forgotten Realms, and wholeheartedly recommend it to like-minded fans of the genre.

Rating:
Summary: Richard Baker should be proud!
Review: I bought this book thinking that it would be a a fairly decent read, but it was so much more. The battle scenes are amazing, the characters are very interesting, and the story is brilliant.

Richard Baker did a good job with Condemnation, but he did a whole lot better writing this book. It keeps you interested throughout the entire thing; you never want to stop turning the page.

I am anxiously awaiting books 2 and 3.

By the way, Cwm is a real word. A cwm is a steep-walled semicircular basin in a mountain. It may also contain a lake.

Rating:
Summary: It's alright.
Review: I can see the other poster's points about how this book sometimes reads like a tabletop game report. When the genasi character is introduced I swear he just copied the description of air genasi from the FR sourcebook.

Some of the characters are pretty bad, such as the cleric of Lathander, his dialogue was cringe inducing, reminded me of someone trying to roleplay an EverQuest paladin or something.

However this story focuses on elves, and I think it does a good job in that respect. Sometimes I find all the elven names to be difficult to keep track of, but that's not the author's fault.

All in all it kept me interested, and that's all I can ask for.

Rating:
Summary: Meh.
Review: This book was a dissapointment for me. The characters were not fleshed out to any satisfactory level, with some thrown in seemingly just for the purpose of having someone to kill without disrupting the storyline. The villains are not given free reign to be the evil monsters they are painted as, either. Added to that are some boring political discussions and an almost total lack of humour of any kind.

In it's defense, the book does have some entertaining battle sequences, and the story gets considerably better near the end of the book. In fact, it got so much better that I will in fact buy the next title in the series when it becomes available. I just hope I don't regret it.

For a much more entertaining read, pick up THE RAGE, by Richard Lee Byers. You won't be sorry you did!

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: This book, in my opinion, is one of the finest realms books to date. If you like books about faerie, this is for you. We finally begin to delve into the mysterious Elven High Magic. I like the characters, and am excited by the direction the book takes at the end; could we possibly see the rebirth of Myth Drannor? I only hope, and can't wait for the rest of the trilogy to come out. A MUST BUY!!!

Rating:
Summary: oh ya
Review: this is my first forgotten realms book, i am a big star wars man but after i read all the books and there is nothing new i went to this.. but i have to say that it was one of the better books that i have read. but from what other people say it wasnt there better books. i thought it was great, but i guess i need to read more of them. my 2 cents. get the book it is worth it

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best FR books
Review: Unlike some of the more recent Forgotten Realms books this one is really well put together. Baker weaves a fascinating tale that keeps you on your toes. Adding to this as well is Baker's style of writing, which in my opinion is far superior to many other FR authors.

Rating:
Summary: Forsaken?...It definitely was.
Review: While the Forsaken House has the framework to be an interesting tale, it fails for the most part to deliver a captivating story.

From a technical side, the book appears to have missed the editor's desk. What in god's name is "Cwm" and why does it endlessly appear in the text, with no discernable explanation of its meaning? I would suggest turning to the book's small elven dictionary in the back, but of course, this word (which I pray is an elven term that failed to make the cut, along with the protagonist's betrothed) is absent.

The story line also seems heavily rushed, and reads more like a crossbreed between a high-level D&D module and a "Choose your own adventure" book. The abundance of characters (who we never really get a true feel for, apart from maybe the genasi Maresa-The only character who doesn't walk around stating the obvious) never grows in any discernable way. This sense of never delving too deep is compounded by the massive abundance of high-level spells and magic items, which surface as often as the wind changes in Faerûn.

Essentially, the novel plays heavily into the stereotypical Forgotten Realms critiques-too much magic, powerful monsters and not enough believable threats. But with a series title like "The Last Mythal", what did I expect?

If nothing more, I bought the book for the great cover art and a glimpse into what can be expected for the High Forest, Delimbyr Valley Region and Everska/Western Heartlands terrain in the next few years. The twist at the novel's conclusion is almost a selling point-but doesn't seem to resurrect the general rushed feeling of the work. I give it two out of five stars.