F/SF

El pozo de las tinieblas emanaba muerte; era un negro agujero bajo la luz del sol. En su interior, la Bestia, Kazgoroth, iba alimentándose de esa luz. Por su parte, la Madre Tierra trataba de ejercer toda su fuerza, pero la Bestia se estaba volviendo muy poderosa. Solamente Tristán Kendrich será capaz de defender la paz de los ffolk y mantener el equilibrio entre la Madre y las Tinieblas. Para ello, reúne a las criaturas de las islas Moonshaes que le ayudarán en su propósito.

I liked this book. It was a fun and quick fantasy read. As other reviewers have noted, it is the first book written in the Forgotten Realms setting for Dungeons & Dragons. There were lots of good fight scenes and some pretty good action throughout the story. I'll say that if you are a fan of firbolgs, you won't be disappointed. The story and characters were interesting and there was also a good mix of different races, creatures and personalities. ( )

Nope, not good. The best things it has going for it is that Niles didn't feel compelled to write any D&D rules into his story. It's just a straight fantasy epic that happens to be set in a D&D world. But if it wasn't being published by TSR to pimp their product, I don't think anyone would have bought the hackneyed plot. ( )

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Title: Darkwalker on Moonshae
Series: Forgotten Realms: Moonshae #1
Author: Douglas Niles
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 351/110
Words: 121.5K/40K

Synopsis:

DNF'd at 29%

My Thoughts:

I haven't read a Forgotten Realms book in almost 3 years. My tastes had matured enough that I simply could not enjoy them anymore. So rather than rage or rag on them for being what they are, I simply stopped. Then, as has seemed to happen several times this year, I allowed myself to be convinced by another book enthusiast that this one might be a cut above the herd. A really fat juicy cow amongst a herd of starving and anemic animals. Verily, Pharoah himself would have dreamed of this cow and Joseph would have delighted in interpreting it. Well, as a modern day Joseph, I'm declaring that this cow was ugly and bony, more ugly and bony than any cow ever seen in the entire land of Egypt!

I dnf'd this at the 29% mark because I couldn't take any more. It was trope'ish, written at the level of a 12-15 year old and was EVERYTHING that made me stop reading Forgotten Realms books in the first place. I have to admit, I was pretty disappointed. I had had hopes that this just might be enjoyable.

So I quit and began looking for some higher quality covers, as the ones on amazon were blown up to the 500xwhatever from old 165pix. Turns out, this book was written in the late 80's and was either the first FR book, or one of the first. Which explains a lot.

In all fairness, this really isn't worse than all the other FR books I've read in the past. Don't let that 1star fool you into thinking it's somehow worse than them. It is on the exact same level as all the others and that 1star represents my disappointment that it wasn't a big fat juicy cow that exploded into steaks and then served themselves to me. Douglas Adams would have been disappointed too!

★☆☆☆☆ ( )