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Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: * HTML is OFF * Forum Code is ON Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by Lord Karsus[/i] [br][i]Mistress of the Night[/i] By Don Bassingthwaite and Dave Gross The Priests -I read fast. Being as that I was re-reading this novel, having previously read it years and years ago, when it first came out, I wasn’t surprised that I was flipping through it relatively quickly- I knew and remembered a lot of the main plot points and details of the story. When, at the end of the day, after commuting to-and-from work, and reading on my lunch break, I was 2/3 through the book, I surprised myself. But, that’s the hallmark of a good book- you pick it up, and don’t even realize how engrossed you become in it. [i]Mistress of the Night[/i] was a good book. -Don Bassingthwaite and Dave Gross show a keen attention to detail. Little things, like the priest Milfano being the bearer of the ‘Waxing Crescent Sword’ and the priestess Velsinore being the bearer of the ‘Waning Crescent Sword’ are details that aren’t too relevant to the reader (they have some importance to the book, and the world itself, but that importance is never particularly harped on in the book). As such, they could have been completely left out, and we’d be none the wiser. But, they were included, and the book is enriched as a result. During the Sharran initiation scene involving Keph, he drinks the “elixir of the void” from the “cup of night”. Details that, if they weren’t included, wouldn’t impact the book whatsoever. That they were included, however, enriches the book a great deal. Certain gates named after phases of the moon in Moonshadow Hall are only used during their corresponding lunar phases? Details that wouldn’t impact the book whatsoever, but enriched it, since they were. Personally, I think that these are the things that separate decent Forgotten Realms novels from the pantheon of ‘the great ones’. Certain authors, without naming names, have interesting characters, or good stories, but their novels just don’t quite make it into the pantheon of ‘great ones’. These little things, these are probably what separates them. All of the ‘great ones’ that I can think of, they’re chock full of the little details. -Feena, the werewolf priestess of Selûne was an interesting character. Though her being a werewolf was important to the story towards the end, I don’t know. I’m not too big of a fan of characters being exotic for the sake of it, and for most of the novel, that’s the vibe I got from Feena. Keph, the “Sharran”, I liked the character a lot more, though he was maybe a little more moody than what was believable. Growing up thinking you’re not good enough, being taunted about it, being angry and vengeful about it, they’re all powerful motivators, as is love, but at times, Keph was going from hateful to remorseful and back again, all over the place. I guess that highlights the difference between Sharrans, the “true” Sharrans and the “emo” (as I like to call them) Sharrans- the “emo” ones are in the moment and (as the name says) emotional. When they’re angry, they’re all vengeful. When they’re sad, they’re all sorrowful. A “true” Sharran, while espousing Shar’s dogma, they’re emotionally flat. They manipulate and play the “emo” Sharrans. And, speaking of just that, the Sharrans priestess Variance and cultist Bolan highlighted the difference between the “proper” clergy of Shar, and ordinary cults of Shar, which I liked a great deal. To frame it in Star Wars terms, the Sharran clergy are akin to the Jedi (or the Sith, more aptly), trained and honed, while cults dedicated to Shar are akin to individual force users, raw with talent, and a willingness to harness it. -The ending was a little anticlimactic. The endgame was proceeding, and then it just kinda stopped. It was designed like that, of course, since everything ending was simply dependent on Keph bringing the Leaves of One Night to Variance, which he did. Ah, the Leaves of One Night, planting the seeds in [i]Mistress of the Night[/i] for later Forgotten Realms novelists to pick up on and weave an amazing tapestry of a story, in the [i]Erevis Cale[/i] and [i]Twilight War[/i] trilogies. That aside, though, I enjoy reading in-game about the various holy texts of different faiths and philosophies they encompass. The one thing that I wish there was more on, regarding the various faiths of Abeir-Toril, are their holy texts. Sure, some might not have any specific ones, while others might have numerous, but I wish there was a central list somewhere, and that previous books, like [i]Faiths and Avatars[/i], [i]Powers and Pantheons[/i], [i]Demihuman Deities[/i], and [i]Faiths and Avatars[/i] did more, in this regard. -My one complaint, and it’s not much of a complaint, is that Sharran priests and/or priestesses are not the main characters in the book. Feena, the Selûnite priestess is. That is not to say that Shar, or her clergy, aren’t featured prominently in [i]Mistress of the Night[/i], however. Given the title of the book, when I first bought it, I was expecting a Sharran to be the protagonist, with (presumably) a Mystraran or a Selûnite as the antagonist- making the “bad guy” the “good guy”, a point of view not commonly used in the Forgotten Realms novels thus far. That’s not to say that Shar wasn’t featured adequately, or that the Sharrans in the book weren’t interesting characters. I just thought, maybe, we’d get something relatively new. -Out of a possible Five Beholders, I give [i]Mistress of the Night[/i] Five Beholders. [/quote]   Check here to include your profile signature. Check here to subscribe to this topic.