Forgotten Realms: Elminster Must Die!: The Sage of Shadowdale Book

Ed Greenwood created the Forgotten Realms setting in the early days of D&D. Many of his characters were created all those aeons ago in the far flung 20th century. OK, so it's not all that far off, but this is his world and these are his characters. Elminster Aumar being one of the most memorable of them all. Elminster, a grey old Gandalf character, was the chosen of Mystra the goddess of magic. With the advent of the Spellplague, for those of us in the real world, more or less, that would be the advent of D&D's 4th edition. The rules of magic have changed. Mystra was murdered by her long time rival, Cyric. As a result magic went wild and devoured some and chewed and spit out others. The ravages of the Spellplague have left Elminster unable to use magic without losing his mind, and his lover the Simbul is mad unless she consumes enchanted items, and her periods of lucidity are getting shorter. Weak and weary and less able to cast magic than ever before Elminster hunts magical items to keep his lover sane, until coming to the realization that enough sufficiently powerful items could cure the magical malady that afflicts the former Witch Queen of Aglarond. Of course an old enemy seeks to destroy 'El' and take over the world, as is the way of all evil overlords. So there's a lot of confused running around and a lot of gloating over steepled fingers, but there's also dandified nobles both plotting and assisting, and a "stripper with a heart of gold." Not kidding.

OK, so the problem is that the confused running around is super confusing, because, the heroes are a stealing magical items, and trying to stop someone from stealing magical items. The side story between the noble and the "mask dancer" as our cliched supporting starlet is referred to, drags on and on and on. And of course, Greenwood makes a point of telling everyone how evil and self-serving and evil and bigoted and evil and narcissistic and...did I say evil?, the nobility of the nation are. Question 1, why are we not exposing these worthless nobles and trying to bring them out of the positions of power and, oh, I don't know, put someone in who's actually going to be effectual? Yes, I can guess that his diatribe is the product of our times, but don't just complain about it; suggest a solution. Not to mention that all nobles can't be bad, one of our intrepid supporting cast is a noble. No wait, they are all bad, he even admits to being a bad person. But he's helping someone, without potential gain. He's also doing the right thing. All nobles are bad, but he's not bad, but he is bad, but he's not bad. Seems like that episode of Star Trek: The Original Series with the androids. Aside from my meager attempts to be witty, my point is stop complaining about all nobles everywhere being evil incarnate. After a while it becomes tiresome. Especially when you're reading a fantasy novel looking for a little excitement and derring-do.

Furthermore, the story's just not that exciting. Elminster runs up this corridor and misses the bad guy 'cause he tripped over his robe. The foppish noble goes to a strip club with his buddies. Elminster wanders into a contingent of guards and get's away by yelling "Oh no! What's that?!" The pretty young thing dancing on a stage is impressed in spite of her weeks of cynicism by the young fop's polite manner. All our heroes meet and decide to stand together to fight evil. Oh no! The evil mastermind seems to have triumphed, but wait, there's a twinkling speck of hope, no, not...on your right...no, just down a bit...yes, there! There I just saved you eight bucks.