Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms: Finder’s Stone #3: Song of the Saurials

It was a night like this forty million years ago. I lit a cigarette, picked up a monkey skull to go. The sun was spitting fire, the sky was blue as ice. I felt a little tired, so I watched Miami Vice, and walked the dinosaur, I walked the dinosaur. Let’s sing the Song of the Saurials, by Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb.

Synopsis:

High fantasy adventure takes a turn with mystery in the final title in the Finder’s Stone Trilogy by Jeff Grubb and Kate Novak.

When the Harpers judged the Nameless Bard responsible for the death of his apprentices, they sentenced him to exile and obscurity. Now the Harpers are reconsidering their decision, but with the arrival of the monster Grypht, Nameless’s new trial dissolves in a string of disappearances and murder. It is up to the bard’s friends, Alias the swordswoman, Akabar the mage, Dragonbait the paladin, and Ruskettle the thief, to prove one enemy is behind all the chaos—the ancient evil god, Moander the Darkbringer. Unless Alias and her companions can find Nameless and convince him to sacrifice some of his precious power, Moander will return to claim the Realms.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

Moander the Darkbringer, an evil god who was involved in the creation of Alias, is once again threatening the Realms. That means it’s time to get the old band back together to face him once more. Alias, the swordswoman a magic tattoo and impractical armor! Akabar, the greengrocer and part-time mage! Dragonbait, the mute lizard paladin! Olive, the halfling totally-a-bard-not-a-thief! Not Giogioni, though – nobody cares about him. Anyways, these brave heroes will foil Moander’s latest evil plan and destroy the evil god once and for all – eventually. They spend the first half of the book pretty much running in circles due to misunderstandings and stubbornness; it has a page count to meet, after all.

Okay, snark aside, this book was actually decent. I didn’t have any major problems with it the way I did with the second one. That said, I don’t really think it rises up to the level of the first one. The first in the series had all these mysteries regarding Alias, her companions, and her enemies, which we slowly discovered over the course of the story. In this book, we already know from the start what’s going on – Moander is returning – but the heroes waste a lot of time arguing with each other because some of them refuse to believe it. So, while it does have lots of good individual moments, the overall plot doesn’t flow as well.

In any case, this brings the Finder’s Stone trilogy to a conclusion. It was a series that had a strong start, but faltered in the middle, and only partially recovered for the ending.

Final Rating: 3/5

Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms: Finder’s Stone #2: The Wyvern’s Spur

Tell me are you really free? Tell me am I really free? Is the world frozen right in its tracks? Let me show you how to keep your crown. Let’s fight gold with The Wyvern’s Spur, by Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb.

Synopsis:

More than a hunk of junk, the Wyvern’s Spur has moldered in a crypt for fifteen generations until now. The Wyvernspur family’s powerful heirloom has been stolen, and grand wizard and patriarch Drone Wyvernspur is the first to fall to the ancient item’s curse. The family fool, Giogi, is left to find it, but even recovering the spur cannot guarantee his clan’s safety. Fortunately, the famous halfling bard Olive Ruskettle and a mysterious and talented mage named Cat are determined to help. But when betrayal and enchantment threaten Giogi’s progress, he must invoke the spur’s awesome might… or become its next victim!

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

We now return to the Realms for the sequel to Alias’s first adventure. However, as it happens, Alias herself does not appear in this volume. Instead, the focus is placed on two other characters which were introduced in that book: halfling bard/thief Olive Ruskettle, and foppish nobleman Giogioni Wyvernspur. Now, Olive makes sense as a POV character, since she was an important companion to Alias and got her own character arc; but Giogioni? He was a very minor character; not one of Alias’s allies, but a minor comic relief role. So, at first glance, he seems an odd choice for main protagonist status. Still, Azure Bonds was really well written and quickly got me invested in its characters. Can The Wyvern’s Spur do the same with Giogioni?

Okay, look, I have to get this out of the way right off the bat. Early on in the book, Jade refers to Giogioni as JoJo. And, as the timing happened to work out, I was watching Vento Aureo at the same time I was reading this book. So, past that point, I couldn’t stop mentally picturing Giogioni as Giorno Giovanna, despite the two characters being otherwise nothing alike. Such is the cross every JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure watcher must bear: forever seeing imaginary JoJo references in unrelated media.

But seeing as how Jade’s come up, let’s talk about her. One of the dangling plot threads introduced in the previous book was the existence of a number of other magical simulacrums similar to Alias. I was naturally expecting that they would play a role in the sequels, so I was very interested when the book introduced one of them, Jade More. I was excited to see how she would be developed… except she wasn’t. She was immediately killed off. Totally worth the wait, right? Well, that really got things off on the wrong foot for me, and set a sour tone for the rest of the book.

In the end, I was never really able to get into The Wyvern’s Spur. I can’t care about a story unless I care about the characters, and I never really got interested in all the various members of the Wyvernspur clan the way I did Alias’s band. It didn’t help that Olive spent the first half of the book polymorphed into a donkey – while amusing at moments, it meant that the entire weight of the narrative had to be carried by Giogioni, and he just wasn’t up to the task.

Here’s hoping the third book in the trilogy is able to deliver a tale more on par with the first.

Final Rating: 2/5

Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms: Finder’s Stone #1: Azure Bonds

Drifting, dreaming, in an Azure mood; stardust gleaming through my solitude: here in my seclusion, you’re a blue illusion, while I’m in this Azure interlude. Let’s tie up Azure Bonds, by Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb.

Synopsis:

Her name is Alias, and she is in big trouble.

She is a sell-sword, a warrior-for-hire, and an adventuress. She awoke with a series of twisting, magical blue sigils inscribed on her arms and no memory of where she got them.

Determined to learn the nature of the mysterious tattoo, Alias joins forces with an unlikely group of companions: the halfling bard, Ruskettle, the southern mage, Akabar, and the oddly silent lizard-man, Dragonbait. With their help, she discovers that the symbols hold the key to her very existence.

But those responsible for the sigils aren’t keen on Alias’s continued good health. And if the five evil masters find her first, she may discover all too soon their hideous secret.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

Recently, I’ve been reading a thread on the RPG Net forums which is focused on re-reading and reviewing old issues of Dragon magazine. Naturally, Dragon featured reviews of lots of sci-fi and fantasy books coming out at the time; and also naturally, many of the books so reviewed become topics of discussion in the thread. And some of them sound so interesting that I naturally feel compelled to take a look at them. This is how I ended up reading Quag Keep, for instance.

My interest in today’s offering came about due to these comments:

“Alias and that Saurial paladin. Now there’s a novel for you. A textbook example of the impractical cheesecake cover too. Hee. You can’t spend 15 minutes lacing up sideless leather trousers (I speak from experience here) in the dangerous wilderness when wandering monsters strike at night.”

– (un)reason

“Amusingly the costume shows up in the books. Alias wears full plate until she gets the heavily over enchanted cheesecake costume off her mother.”

– Littleredfox

I’m not sure why, but for some reason the image of a fantasy adventurer wearing a ridiculous cheesecake outfit which she actually inherited from her mother struck some kind of nostalgic sentiment in me, like it reminded me of something I deeply loved. Can’t imagine what, though.

As it happens, the acquisition of the outfit doesn’t occur until the very end of the book, and under very different circumstances from Gracia Ul Naga Saillune’s. The important thing, though, is that the hint of nostalgia stirred by the poster’s description, dubiously accurate as it may have been, made me pick up this book; and I’m glad I did, because I ended up enjoying it quite a lot.

The plot concerns the swordswoman Alias, who awakens from a drunken stupor to discover she has a new magic tattoo on her arm and no recollection of the past month’s events. It’s surprising that doesn’t happen to adventurers more often, honestly, what with how many parties meet in taverns. In any case, Alias soon finds herself being targeted by mysterious villains, and sets out on a quest to find out why. Along the way, she joins up with a number of companions: the talented but inexperienced wizard Akabar Bel Akash, who Alias derisively considers a mere greengrocer; the mute lizardman Dragonbait, a mighty saurial paladin who Alias mistakes for some sort of jester (in her defense, not many paladins choose to put skill points in Perform (Juggling)); and the greedy halfling bard Olive Ruskettle, who is definitely a bard and not a thief, whatever gave you that idea, she’s just holding onto those thief’s tools for a friend, honest, and race-class restrictions are bullshit anyways.

Incidentally, this is the first D&D book I’ve read to feature Elminster as a character. I was a bit worried about that, since for years and years I’ve been hearing people bitch about how he’s the biggest Mary Sue in the setting; but honestly, I thought his appearance in the novel was fine. Maybe because he only showed up in a minor cameo role, instead of the plot being all about him being the most awesomest mage in the world and banging lots of hot women?

In any case, I thought the book’s plot was very strong. While the overall focus was on Alias and her quest, each of her companions got their own moments in the spotlight, giving them all enough character development to make them interesting – even Ruskettle, who I initially worried was going to be a kender-type “comic relief” character. Fortunately, that did not turn out to be the case. The book did spice up its action scenes and interpersonal drama with some humor now and then, but it didn’t rely solely on the halfling for that – my favorite humorous scene was actually between Akabar and Elminster’s secretary Lhaeo.

Azure Bonds was a delight to read, and I eagerly anticipate the remaining two books of the Finder’s Stone trilogy.

Final Rating: 4/5