“I’d love to see more Forgotten Realms authors run with this depiction of godhood, which gives the gods a delightfully alien feel. Alas, I suspect that everyone else is going to keep writing them as powerful, slightly dim humans and I’ll continue to be annoyed.”
“It’s not perfect — the pacing drags at points, Adon’s survival feels more preposterous than miraculous, and there are a few duds among the supporting cast — but it’s still a marked improvement over the previous couple of books.”
“I’m intrigued by how the author tries to take Shadowdale’s established “peaceful utopia” characterization and twist it into something darker and more cynical. It doesn’t actually work, but it could have if it had been handled more deftly.”
“The setting was only two years old at this point — it’s not like it was growing stodgy and needed some sort of shake-up to make it feel fresh again. All it accomplishes is to show you the bones of the tabletop ruleset poking through the fiction like a compound fracture.”