Shadowrealm (Twilight War #3) (Erevis Cale) (Forgotten Realms)

December 31, 2014February 23, 2023 ~ Bookstooge ~ Leave a comment

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.tumblr.com by express permission of this reviewer

Title: Shadowrealm
Series: Twilight War, Forgotten Realms
Author: Paul Kemp
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 327

Synopsis:

Cale and Riven hook up with Rivalen, Prince of the Netharese, to stop the Shadow Storm from destroying all of Sembia. Revelations abound about Shar, Mask and Magadon’s demon Father, Lord of the 8th Hell.

My Thoughts:

The end of Erevis Cale. He works with anyone he has to to recover Mask’s missing piece of divinity and save Magadon’s half soul.

Lots of fighting goes on, the End of the World Is Nigh goes on, Cale sacrifices himself for Magadon and general Forgotten Realm’ness goes on. Not a bad book to write a final review for 2014.

Of course, we never know for sure if Cale is really dead or just mostly dead [ha], but considering that his son has had an adventure in the last year or so with Riven and it’s been 6 years since this book came out, I do think it is pretty safe to say that Erevis Cale is safely packed away 🙂

Shadowstorm (Twilight War #2) (Erevis Cale) (Forgotten Realms)

October 29, 2014February 23, 2023 ~ Bookstooge ~ Leave a comment

Title: Shadowstorm

Series: Twilight War #2, Forgotten Realms

Author: Paul Kemp

Rating: 3 of 5 Stars

Genre: SFF

Pages: 352

Synopsis:

Erevis, Riven and Magadon make a deal with the Devil to escape hell and to prevent Magadon from being obliterated. This deal is what propels their actions for this book.

In Sembia, and specifically the city of Selgaunt, War happens. Shadow forces are at play and nothing is straight forward or as it seems. Shar, a goddess of dark, is ascendant and she uses, abuses and discards her servants as she sees fit.

Shadovar, long lost shadow sorcerers arise to combat the darkness, but they are servants as Shar as well.

My Thoughts:

Much like the first Twilight War book, Cale only plays a part, not the main part of the story and I find that rather unfortunate. The other characters, while driving the overall plot forward are not really people I am invested in. Cale, I am invested in. I’ve read the Sembia series [where he is a major character in the first 2 books and appears throughout the remaining 5] and the Cale trilogy. So 11 books I’ve invested in him.

Whenever I am reading a Forgotten Realms books, I have to remember to not get to excited about some big change that is coming because that is ALL the books are actually about, gods ascending/descending, the world changing, new conquerors/heroes/villains, etc. Some of the smaller series/authors might be nice little side adventures [here’s to hoping Castles or Rogues are more standalone] but most of the trilogies are always earth shattering events.

This one did get the Ultra-violent tag because what Magadon’s father, the Devil, does to him. Graphic disemboweling while keeping him a live. And then eating half his soul.

The ending, where some sort of portal is opened between this world and a shadowrealm was pretty cool. Looking forward to how Cale & Co save the world and their friend Magadon, as with only half a soul he is sliding faster and faster toward his devil heritage.

Shadowbred (Twilight War #1) (Erevis Cale) (Forgotten Realms)

February 12, 2014February 23, 2023 ~ Bookstooge ~ Leave a comment

d27a04a8dca92ded77c25f0fcae22990 This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.com by express permission of this reviewer

Synopsis

Erevis must rescue Magadon, who appears to have disappeared. At the same time, there are some serious political happenings going on in Sembia which have to do with the Source and the Netherese as much as anything else.

My Thoughts

I’ve come to accept the fact that I’m going to keep on reading these Forgotten Realms books, so I went ahead and made a shelf/tag for them, just like I have for Star Wars. They are a force unto themselves.

For the first half of the book I have to admit I was bored. Not a lot happened, it was barely about Cale at all and you had a lot of politics and religion happening.

Finally Erevis gets involved. He and Riven, Mask’s Second, have both changed enough that there is no more posturing and frenemy’ing. They are allies. It was really nice to see a good solid alliance instead of the bickering we saw in the Erevis Cale trilogy.

Good amount of fighting near the end, with them breaking into a magicless prison to rescue someone.

And the ending, where they DO rescue Magadon and end up IN HELL, was pretty cool. Of course, it seems like every hero ends up in hell at one time or another, so maybe I should have been a little more stoic about it, but I thought it was cool!

Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars

Author: Paul Kemp

Shadowbred

Twilight War #1