“I found myself subconsciously seeking any excuse to avoid picking up The Mage in the Iron Mask and getting started on this review.”
Category: Reviews
“I never thought I would see this day. It’s finally happened: I have run out of R.A. Salvatore books.”
“A favourite game of mine, whenever I read a novel by multiple authors, is to try to pick out which bits were written by which authors. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book where the game was so unsatisfyingly easy.”
“I know what you’re thinking: the Harpers accomplishing something without screwing it up or having it turn into a giant mess? It feels so out of character, and yet so refreshing!”
“If your Western characters all speak fluently and your Eastern characters all sound like ‘Thog discover fire! Cave warm now,’ then you’re implicitly infusing your book with a shitty racist message.”
“It’s not often that we see an author take us far afield from the usual Realms fare, and now we’re getting a whole trilogy that has an opportunity to break the mold.”
“Buckle up; we can’t talk about this one without first dredging up some ugly TSR history.”
“I wish more of these novels would bother depicting relationships where love is something you have to work at and build, not something that just magically happens when two people are near each other for long enough.”
“It’s been a long time since I read a Realms novel that I found myself looking forward to picking up again each time I put it down.”
“If stripped of all the padding and reduced to only scenes which further the bare “escape from Undermountain, remove curse, get revenge on our betrayer” plot, Escape from Undermountain would be a rather short novella.”