Rating: 
Summary: Ed Greenwood show, once again, that he is a creative writer!
Review: A Band of Four Novel is very exciting. We all know that Greenwood is one of the most best fantasy writer of all the time. He know how to put a sens of humor and a human relationship like us mortal... the book is not very long but all we must know is in the book.A great sorceress,a thief, a warrior and a healer are combining their power to find the stones for the return of the King. The mage of the ssssserpant are barely needless but anyway, it's funny so I enjoy it however. You've done a great work Mr. Greenwood! I just hope that A Band of Four will have a sequel...
Rating: 
Summary: Fast Paced, Entertaining Action Fantasy
Review: A break from the rich, vibrant land that is the Forgotten Realms, master bard Ed Greenwood pens an entirely new world known as Asmarand. The story of The Kingless Land focuses mainly on Aglirta, also known as, well, the Kingless Land. Named so because of its fragmented baronies which are governed by a dozen or so tyrants, Aglirta is a land mired in hopeful prophecies.Created uncannily similar to an old fashioned D&D dungeon crawl, The Kingless Land's main protagonists are composed of four intrepid adventurers. The thief (or 'procurer' to be more elegant) Craer, the bladesman (or 'armaragor' in the Aglirtan native tongue) Hawkril, the old healing priest Sarasper, and finally, the esteemed Lady Embra Silvertree. This Band of Four, as they are so uncreatively named, must in the traditional D&D sense, overcome the variety of enemies and seek to fullfil the ancient prophecy. Ed Greenwood deviates quite a bit here from his prior Forgotten Realms novels. Each of the four main characters has a particular personality that Greenwood describes well and sticks to the end. Craer, for example, has a particular strain of biting humor, which he so vividly utilizes at every turn to poke at his fellow companions and foes alike, while Hawkril fits the stereotypical mold perfectly and acts like a dumb, straight-forward sword-swinger whose favorite words appear to be 'kill' and 'eat'. The descriptive techniques employed in this novel is also different from Greenwood's prior works. The book is especially gory at times, and Greenwood seems to enjoy painting adjective after bloody adjective to the various limbs and heads and otherwise battered remains of corpses that so liberally populate the story. The book does have its shortcomings. The movement of the plot is largely superfluous, and some of the various locations on the map seem to earn their names simply for the sake of saying 'The Band went here and there'. Despite Greenwood's attempts to diversify the encounters, many seem repetitive, especially the long stretch of the undead in the first parts of the book. The main female character is also, for long periods of time, deliberately forced by circumstance to somehow remain in one soaking wet gown or another with half her breasts exposed, for better or for worse. This seems to sell her a bit too shallowly. Despite this, the book is a fast page-turner crammed to the edges with action, and should not take long at all to finish, especially for Greenwood's old fans or those who are familiar with the D&D adventures. While fun, don't expect any heavy, moral-ridden deeper meaning to present itself at the end. This is downright an action fantasy, and Greenwood accomplishes his objective well with a fine blend of blade-bashing, spell-hurling, and biting humor. -Xiao Zhu
Rating:
Summary: Fast Paced, Entertaining Action Fantasy
Review: A break from the rich, vibrant land that is the Forgotten Realms, master bard Ed Greenwood pens an entirely new world known as Asmarand. The story of The Kingless Land focuses mainly on Aglirta, also known as, well, the Kingless Land. Named so because of its fragmented baronies which are governed by a dozen or so tyrants, Aglirta is a land mired in hopeful prophecies. Created uncannily similar to an old fashioned D&D dungeon crawl, The Kingless Land's main protagonists are composed of four intrepid adventurers. The thief (or 'procurer' to be more elegant) Craer, the bladesman (or 'armaragor' in the Aglirtan native tongue) Hawkril, the old healing priest Sarasper, and finally, the esteemed Lady Embra Silvertree. This Band of Four, as they are so uncreatively named, must in the traditional D&D sense, overcome the variety of enemies and seek to fullfil the ancient prophecy. Ed Greenwood deviates quite a bit here from his prior Forgotten Realms novels. Each of the four main characters has a particular personality that Greenwood describes well and sticks to the end. Craer, for example, has a particular strain of biting humor, which he so vividly utilizes at every turn to poke at his fellow companions and foes alike, while Hawkril fits the stereotypical mold perfectly and acts like a dumb, straight-forward sword-swinger whose favorite words appear to be 'kill' and 'eat'. The descriptive techniques employed in this novel is also different from Greenwood's prior works. The book is especially gory at times, and Greenwood seems to enjoy painting adjective after bloody adjective to the various limbs and heads and otherwise battered remains of corpses that so liberally populate the story. The book does have its shortcomings. The movement of the plot is largely superfluous, and some of the various locations on the map seem to earn their names simply for the sake of saying 'The Band went here and there'. Despite Greenwood's attempts to diversify the encounters, many seem repetitive, especially the long stretch of the undead in the first parts of the book. The main female character is also, for long periods of time, deliberately forced by circumstance to somehow remain in one soaking wet gown or another with half her breasts exposed, for better or for worse. This seems to sell her a bit too shallowly. Despite this, the book is a fast page-turner crammed to the edges with action, and should not take long at all to finish, especially for Greenwood's old fans or those who are familiar with the D&D adventures. While fun, don't expect any heavy, moral-ridden deeper meaning to present itself at the end. This is downright an action fantasy, and Greenwood accomplishes his objective well with a fine blend of blade-bashing, spell-hurling, and biting humor. -Xiao Zhu
Rating: 
Summary: Reads like a video game
Review: After about 50 pages, I thought this book was pretty entertaining, but that notion didn't last. While I was reading this I kept getting the urge to go off and play an RPG (role playing game) because that's basically what this book is. A group of four adventurers goes on a few quests and leaves a heap of bodies in their wake. There was way too much carnage per page - the problem isn't that it's violent, but that people are just dying left and right and it doesn't mean anything. There is almost an irreverent attitude towards death. This entire land must get depopulated in a month at the rate things are going in this book. The other main fault I found is that the characters are way too stereotypical - the warrior is dumber than a rock and basically wants to kill everything he doesn't understand. The author also jumps around a lot, often awkwardly. A whole bunch of wizards will get vaporized two pages after being introduced for the first time, and you don't know who they are anyway so you don't care if they died. On the plus side, the action sequences are entertaining, but you just have to ask yourself why you should care about anyone. I didn't find myself forming any attachments to the characters or hatred for any particular enemies. It's just not a good story, and I don't plan to read the other books in the series.
Rating:
Summary: Band of 4 Beginning
Review: Despite being the weakest in the series, The Kingless Land starts off very fast paced and it has that feel like you're playing a D&D game. The characters are very likable and really grow on you. Would make a great movie IMO, better than Lord of the Rings. I recommend checking out the rest of the series as it just gets better and better.
Rating:
Summary: Imagination is paramount!
Review: From the mind of one of today's most talented fantasists comes this tale of imagination and wonder. The plot may not be the most original, but the settings and characters show a brilliance of imagination not often seen. I would put Ed Greenwood in the ranks of the Grand Masters like Andre Norton and Roger Zelazny for style and world-building ability. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book
Review: Great fun story. Like an old gosh-wow movie. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: A solid fantasy
Review: Having read several of Ed Greenwood's books in the distant past I dubbed him somewhat uninteresting and forgot about him as a writer until now, when he published his first new non-FR novel. After acquainting myself further with The Kingless Land, I realized that despite Ed's best attempts to tear away from his old way of writing, he spent simply too much time exploring Faerun with TSR. His style of writing lacks deep meaning (at least in my opinion), and his unability to produce twists in his work is simply discouraging. The Kingless Land may be a solid fantasy novel with a tried-and-true plot, but if you've read much of the author's previous books, you will immediately see that this is merely his old FR theme in flimsy disguise.
Rating:
Summary: Confusing and Flat Characters But Good Story
Review: His characters were very stereotypical, if there were differences between the barons other than Silvertree I never noticed. There was pretty large type and it was a little short but the story was told. The story seemed to jump around a lot but if more details were given and everything was a little clearer I would have given it 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Superior lowbrow fantasy
Review: I buy about twenty fantasy and sf titles a month, and best like books that I can relax in, enjoy again and again, and that don't try to impress me with "the greatest since Tolkien" stuff. This was one of the best of those I've read in the last four or five years...just good fun. The bad guys are bad, everybody in the story is well-rounded, I can see sequels ahead...and I'll line up to buy them, you can be sure. Aside to "James" from France, who posted a review here: Richard Knaack wrote the Huma Dragonlance book, not Greenwood.
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