Elminster's daughter Book

Quick Word of Warning:

I'd like to warn any potential readers of my reviews that when I rate a Forgotten Realms novel I do it on the terms that it's a Shared World story entwined with an RPG aspect, with all the limitations as well as (hopefully) clear recognition of places, persons etc. of that world...

End of Warning;-)

Okay. So I've read it. I must confess that the last half was more like browsing, sigh. Why? Well, truth be told: Because I lost interest in the story. Double sigh. That is the reason I now give 3 stars instead of the 4 I gave to begin with.

In my opinion Ed Greenwood is one of the finest modern "pulp fantasists" today. He unflinchingly writes to please the crowd of Forgotten Realms fans--and since he is the creator of that world he can do it in ways that are unparalleled. He is a writer gifted with a sense of words and a fertile imagination to write fast-packed, high-magic fantasy stories featuring many-layered intrigues and a huge cast of characters. On top of that he has also managed to do this while finding some new ways of telling this kind of stories even if he also "caters to the public," in the process maintaining some sort of artistic integrity (whatever that is, of course) and quality. Nowhere is this more evident than in his Elminster in Hell (2001) (see Elminster in Hell), which I think is a brilliantly worked out story, using typesetting en masse to give everything a phenomenological twist that is pure bliss to a story that has the notion of personal identity as its main core. (This evaluation is of course also based on the context the story is written in.)

Elminster is Greenwood's trademark character--a Gandalf, if you will--and since there's been quite a score of novels (and even more short stories and, literally, hundreds of articles) with that old, powerful wizard as the main protagonist I salute the decision to let another person be the central character in an Elminster story. Alas, it doesn't really work for me. Narnra--the maybe/maybe-not daughter of the great wizard--is a hothead that I just never really find interesting; and to follow her constant run from one over-her-head scene to another while mighty people from around the globe plot intrigues and cast one powerful spell after another, as well as trying to assassin one another in various, more-or-less fanciful ways simply wasn't interesting enough for me to engage in.

A shame, since there are good scenes. And characters and places that I always find interesting.

Not Greenwood's best. But, hey, 3 stars isn't that bad. I just expected more from him.