The cover of Realms of Magic. On the left is Khelben Arunsun, a black-haired, black-bearded man holding a black staff. In the middle is Elminster, a white-bearded old man in red robes and a big red hat. On the right is some young man carrying a bunch of scrolls and a book.

Realms of Magic

“Another year, another anthology! This year’s theme is ‘wizards and magic,’ and it must be quite the well of inspiration indeed, because there are no fewer than seventeen stories this time around plus a prologue and epilogue.”

The cover of War in Tethyr. A black-haired swordswoman dressed in blue is cutting down a bunch of random bandit-looking guys. The bandits look unhappy about the situation. The trees in the background don't care.

War in Tethyr

War in Tethyr starts off as a potentially interesting story, but devolves into a polemic where the author uses this mass-market paperback fantasy novel as a soapbox for espousing his political convictions.”

The cover of All Shadows Fled. A man with an eyepatch tentatively reaches out to touch a floating hand that's holding some sort of cylindrical object, a scroll or rod or something. The background is a swirl of random blue stuff. None of this has anything to do with the contents of the book.

All Shadows Fled

“It’s basically Malaugrym spring break — unwise youngsters on their own without supervision for the first time, making bad decisions and getting into trouble — which is the worst way to sell them as impressive villains.”

The cover of The Titan of Twilight. A chubby-cheeked giant wearing a crown is ripping a tower off of a castle. Inside the tower is a cloaked woman with an expression of dull surprise.

The Titan of Twilight

“If I were to rank every baby in fiction by how sympathetically they’re portrayed, Kaedlaw would rank just ever so slightly above the keening fetus-beast from Eraserhead.”

The cover of Masquerades. A red-haired woman in the foreground is looking at a full-face mask held in her hand. Behind her stand a couple of weird-looking men, one with a wide-brimmed hat who appears to be doing a Phantom of the Opera impression and another who looks eerily like Hugo Weaving in the Lord of the Rings movies.

Masquerades

“It’s such a relief to spend time with a female character who feels like a real person after slogging through so many women used as sex objects in the recent Ed Greenwood novels.”

The cover of Cloak of Shadows. Swirling blue stuff obscures most of the image, but we can make out Khelben Arunsun wielding a black staff against a flailing humanoid figure.

Cloak of Shadows

“The general impression is that the world revolves around Elminster to such an extreme degree that if he were to spend an hour in the toilet after eating a bad mussel, the world would crumble to its very foundations.”

The cover of Once Around the Realms. Two portly bearded men sit next to a campfire. In the smoke from their fire can be seen several ghostly faces.

Once Around the Realms

“I’d heard whispered rumours of this book before, sinister intimations that someone had written a Forgotten Realms novel so bad that it would rend your sanity and leave you a gibbering wreck should you dare to peer into its pages for too long. Naturally, like the protagonist of any Lovecraft story, I assumed this was overblown nonsense and plunged right in…”

The cover of King Pinch. A black-haired swordsman holds a glowing goblet in one hand. At his feet lies the corpse of a tonsured monk. A city is visible through a window.

King Pinch

“Pinch makes a fantastic anti-hero protagonist, as morally grey, vicious in a fight, and good at ferreting out plots as any Dashiell Hammett detective.”