Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Temple of Yellow Skulls - by Don Bassingthwaite

The Temple of Yellow Skulls



This is the first story about the Abyssal Plague event initiated by D&D's publisher Wizards of the Coasts. It is a direct continuation of the story from Mark of Nerath, starting just a month later from the ending of the latter book.

In this story, you still see the wizards apprentice Albanon, together with the two friends from his adventuring party Shara and Uldane. There is also a new character added, the priest of Ioun, Kri, which is an old friend of the murdered wizard Moorin. The story begins with what happened to the green dragon Vestapalk after being severely wounded by Shara, then with the content of the Voidharrow poured over him. The focus of the whole story is about the Voidharrow and how it finally becomes the Abyssal Plague which spread across the Nentir Vale.

This one is less a typical D&D story as the previous book Mark of Nerath. This is on more accounting on the Antagonist's side. Characters, especially the antagonists, are described more in depth. I especially like his detail account on Vestapalk's wyrmpriest, the kobold Tiktag, on his loyalty towards his dragon, on how he found out something is wrong and on his struggle on whether to support his master with the Voidharrow or whether to go against it.

Albanon's feeling and thoughts when he encountered the Voidharrow are also portrait in much details, also his regret and respect about his dead master Moorin.

In general, I found this one a much better book than the previous work (not by the same author though) Mark of Nerath. Characters and story are more in depth.

I will rate this book 4 out of 5 stars.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Carmilla - Sheridan Le Fanu


Written about 25 years ahead of the well known classic vampire novel Dracula, this piece of work is considered an inspiration to Bram Stoker's masterpiece. However classical as it is, searching for this book in bookstores has been most frustrating to me. After enquiring from several large English bookstores with no avail, alas there were no other ways for me than resorting to the good old Amazon.com. If only I was a person who minds not of borrowing good texts, I would have acquired the title from public libraries. Nevertheless, it is most definately a worth reading if you are into Renaissance literature.

This book tells a tale from the stand point of a young lady who resided in an old secluded castle in Austria. Living only with her father, her aunt and a friend of her father, she longed for a companion of her age. With the arrival of a noble maiden, she began to experience nights of horrible encounters and slowly revealed the ordeal that had befell upon the nearby inhabitants.

The writings of this book is exquisite, typical for a Renaissance artpiece. If I must compare, this book is far more apprehendable and delicate than Bram Stoker's Dracula. If you are into the modern Twilight style romantized vampires, this book might disappoint you. Carmilla was not blonde, she did not wear lingerie, she was not even goth, she is simply, a young noble lady who could not grasp hold of the lust to prey upon other young maidens. In modern vampire stories you could see them flying dashing at speed faster than vehicles, with the strength that could easily lift up a car or breach a wall, but in here Carmilla could accomplish none of these. She was weak and shrieked upon immediate danger, as instinct instructed. She could however shift into form of an animal and be swift in dodging sword blows. Being capable of such feat in that period of time, was already too hard to be killed. To put Carmilla or Dracula in modern time, with modern weaponry they would simply be put down like stray dogs, let alone wrecking horror to peaceful neighbourhoods.

That being said, nothing fancy here other than classical mysteries. It is a must read for those who enjoyed reading all about vampires, for it spawned ideas that shaped what vampires are to these days. Thanks to Le Fanu first portrait of rather attractive female vampire, we now enjoy quite dearly as in appeared in almost every books, voluptous goth chicks prowling the night alleys like every men's wet dream.

Mark of Nerath



Mark of Nerath is the first book published for the D&D 4E world settings. I read this book on the purpose of understanding the new world setting more.

The book begins with various characters in several story lines: an undead emperor of an long lost kingdom with his knight; a Revenant of the Raven Queen, called back from the dead to fulfill a mission of his Lady; two adventurers from an adventure party which was destroyed during a fight with a green dragon; a young cleric of Erathis in a small town just discovered his hidden identity; and an apprentice wizard in a tower of Fallcrest whom's master had faced his fateful day...

All this people are drawn together during the course by their own fate.

I like this book that all the characters, no matter they are the protagonist or the antagonist, are written in a quite first person perspective (it is third person writing style, but with first person point of view). The reader can well understand the reason behind their acts and their emotions.

This is quite a typical D&D story with clear descriptions of the monsters that the characters had encountered and the fights between them. This helps your imagination of the monsters you are facing if you used to play D&D games.

The drawback is the story is too typical of a D&D adventure story, with no surprise and the readers can easily guess the story and the ending.

It is though a good read and really helps if you are interested in learning the new D&D world more.

I will rate this book 3 out of 5 stars.

Friday, April 29, 2011

White Wolf: A Novel of Druss the Legend - by David Gemmell




This is the fourth Gemmell book I read, and so far is the one I loved most. 

Comparing to the earlier work of Gemmell, this one shows a more mature writing style and more complicated character building. As the other reviewers had said, in this book, heroes are not perfect, but heavily weighted by his own wrong-doing in the past. 

Characters in this book are very carefully portrayed and were put there for a purpose. Every story, every deed have both sides. Gemmell tells the other side of the same story. 

A lot of new materials that did not appear in earlier Gemmell's work are here. Besides love, friendship and heroism, we see age, guilt, vengeance etc. 

The main character of this book is not Druss though (if you expected it that way), but a younger and darker character called Skilgonnon. I am sure you will like him too. 

To conclude, a must have if you like Gemmell.

Welcome to Fantasy Fictions Review Blog~

Welcome to Fantasy Fictions Review Blog~

In this blog you will find book reviews on the fantasy novels that I had read recently.

Hope you will enjoy~