And Peace Shall Sleep

Rather surprised that some would mark this book at 5 stars. It was poorly done on many counts. I understand that this was debut novel, but I suspect that the author was forced to include all the highlights of the Fallen Empires set of Magic: the Gathering. It was a pity really; the general feeling is that the book was trying to take on too much with too little pages.

We have this protagonist, who was once a highly-respected captain of the Icatian army, who landed on the wrong side of the fence, and ended up being branded as a traitor. Somehow, he also became a “mud wizard” (whatever that is) in the process, and able to dabble in invisibility spells and making dragon eggs explode. Rather flabbergasting - you'd think making a dragon egg explode would be the purview of a more powerful mage, yet this Reod Dai isn't portrayed as such - just a dabbler. Also, somehow, he was also able to teach goblins (who supposedly have a low attention span and short memory) how to do this as well.

Essentially, the plot has us following Reod Dai around Sarpadia - creating an army of goblins and orcs, bringing about the rise of the thallids, causing the uprising of the thrulls - basically, being an incredible catalyst for the "fallen" part of the Fallen Empires. And throughout the adventure, we see how this traitor was quite a charismatic and formidable character, well-known in many of places, and an apparently an incredible leader and negotiator. And oh, he "allowed" himself to be charmed by a dwarf female and "decided" to fall in love with her. That last part was really awkward - there was no chemistry at all and I don't think it was justified. And another oh, this dwarf woman has a sister who smells like a dragon - no attempt at explanation, so it's just an excuse to bring dragons (as opposed to just dragon eggs) into the picture.

As we go along, we have elves, dwarves, thallids, thrulls, the Icatians, and the followers of Tourach all getting their share of the limelight. It ends up trying to do too little of too much. The overall plot is not bad per se, rather logical in some parts, it's just the execution that didn't feel right. It's like each “arc” was too short and too rushed.