-BEST MTG BOOK-

Much, much, MUCH better than the first Odyssey book, the author switch is exactly what was needed to tell this story in a much clearer voice. Sadly the third book gets an author change as well, and I hope and pray that doesn't foul things up again. Chainer is such a likable character and it makes his spiraling decline that much more painful to read, and Kamahl, you really have to feel for the guy, after all he's been through. Its no wonder he ends up making the eventual switch to the druidic way.

#MTG as Storytelling #RPG and Lesser Bad Smells If WotC owns D&D and MTG, why not create a hybrid game?  While not a new subject, Magic as a storytelling RPG might be.Ever watch televised poker, where little cameras show the cards and two emcees call the game?  The role playing version goes something like that.Card players speak if necessary for play, but two role players describe the duel, each voicing each wizard and their spell effects.I've done this as a player/caller.  It's popular in some groups, putting the emphasis on fun and less on player ego.  You can come up with some rippers, like when the wizards came upon an unfortunate smell that escalates into a duel. Witch: "He who declared it blared it!"  Caller describes Fireball as it sizzles towards the Warlock.Warlock: "She who observed it served it."  Describes fizzle caused by Counterspell."He who detected it ejected it.""She who rejected it respected it."       Keymaster's Scrawl:  I enjoyed The Gathering Dark but it gave me a floaty feeling, like I didn't understand the inside baseball. Middle gets soggy at the three-quarters mark. If you slog past that, it's good. It might be the best WotC (non- TSR) tie in novel I've read.  Rating: three spells.  Excerpt from a random search result.  EBay who dealt it, can't smel't it.A: B:A:  Excelsior! 

Urza's Legacy Unfolds.Urza Planeswalker has enlisted the most brilliant minds from across Dominaria to study at his academy on Tolaria. Together they work to bring to life the greatest artifact weapon Urza has ever devised, hoping to use it to defend their home from an imminent Phyrexian invasion. But treachery and tragedy stalk the tiny island, as Urza and his followers seek to manipulate time itself.Linked to the Magic: The Gathering expansion Urza's Legacy

The Phyrexian nightmare begins. Dominaria faces its biggest threat -- an invasion by its greatest enemy, an attack planned for eons by merciless foes. No one is exempt from their terror. No land is safe from their onslaught. In the shadow of the Phyrexian horde, Dominaria has but one hope -- the Weatherlight and her crew. The time has come to defend hearth and home from invasion.

The second title in a series that peers into a mysterious new area of the Magic(R) world. Heretic: Betrayers of Kamigawa continues a series that will explore a new and mysterious area of the Magic: The Gathering world that fans have never seen before. This novel previews the newest trading card game set to be released in February, giving fans a sneak peek at the new elements of the game. AUTHOR BIO: Scott McGough is a former Magic: The Gathering line continuity guru for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. His most recent novels are the Magic Legends Cycle Two trilogy and Outlaw: Champions of Kamigawa. He has contributed short stories to The Myths of Magic, The Dragons of Magic, and The Monsters of Magic anthologies.

Walk the Blind Eternities!The New York Times best-selling author Matthew Stover brings his razor-sharp prose and hard-hitting characterization to the Multiverse of Magic: The Gathering®. From the ashes of defeat, the planeswalker Tezzeret will rise again.  Beaten to within an inch of his life and left for dead by the psychic sorcerer Jace Beleren, Tezzeret has lost control of the Infinite Consortium—an interplanar cabal he built from the ground up to achieve the sort of power and influence few in the Multiverse have ever achieved. Now he must turn to a former enemy for help: the dragon Nicol Bolas, perhaps the only being in the Multiverse powerful enough to get him back on his feet.

I read this to get familiar with the world of Ravnica and it's lore in order to better DM a D&D campaign I'm running.The author does a great job of describing the world and gradually over 3 books making the reader more familiar with the 10 guilds that occupy Ravnica.However he doesn't excel at building story arcs nor describing in prose what is happening in a way that makes the reader feel like they understand everything that is going on.I ended up reading the whole trilogy, which did help understand the world, but at times it was a bit of a struggle to get through some chapters.

A deviously dark read full of devastation and action. Forget about the story being in the world of MTG. Take this world and these characters as they are in this book alone. The heroes are devastated or warped beyond moral recognition by a brilliantly written arch villian, Crovax, a vampire/cyborg who would take a village's elders and children hostage to demand allegiance from the adult population and then secretly kill off the hostages in cruel and unusual ways to drink in thier suffering souls.The end wraps up nicely with the beginning, full of tears and a bit of twisted dark humor concerning the oily heart. The tragic hero is a nice surprise and twist. He is ultimatley not the hero for world you would expect, nor are we assured that he will be victorios for the ones he chose to save.

Bloodlines is exactly the reason I'm wary of series that are passed off from author to author, only being connected by large plot points while even those are muddied from book to book. Now, I'm not a major MtG fan but I've gotten into these string of Magic books collectively known as "The Weatherlight Saga" and I've really been enjoying them. However this book is clearly the black sheep when reading in chronological order, starting with "The Thran." If you're thinking about reading it, here's a quick recap: Urza wants to breed an inheritor to his fight with the Phyrexians. Someone who is capable enough to fight them with the drive to fight them but also possessing great enough empathy with the Phyrexians to understand how they think. To do this he must use genetic manipulation and experimentation, something that brings the master Artificer closer to the Phyrexian way than his principles ever allowed before.The Good:It progresses the storyline. Presents a little bit of moral ambiguity as Urza walks a fine line between this Bloodlines project and completely betraying his own principles to mimicking Phyrexia.Also the conflict between Davvol and Croag over control of the Phyrexian realm, Rath, is fun to read. Davvol is allowed control of Rath for his wit but is clearly being used only for that. Davvol is clever, cautious, and seems to be aware he's having his strings pulled, but longs to be Phyrexian and hopes his Phyrexian masters will allow this if he can only prove himself enough. Croag is ruthless, powerful, and has the true final say on what happens in Rath but he also underestimates Davvol's capability.The Bad:One issue with this novel is that that is there simultaneously too much going on with too little actually happening. In the narrative there are many immortal or at least long lived characters that can survive for centuries. This is used interestingly to update the reader on on different parts of the world as Phyrexia gains a stronger foothold into Dominaria. We see the Phyrexian invasion of Keld, Phyrexian battles near a colony of Serran refugees, and the events that take place at Tolaria in the meantime. This *could* have been used effectively but the book fails to make any character save Gatha actually interesting to read about. Urza can also be interesting but he's so devoid of personality in this book that it's only by the grace of the previous Artifacts Cycle book that he still holds attention. A lot of the times this book chooses to tell you about minor characters that are next to these Godlike semi-immortal beings and because of this they're left in the dust of time, not meaning a thing. Several times you will be reading about a character that just offers absolutely nothing to the narrative. Then you'll learn later long after their death about their great grandkid... who, again, doesn't offer anything to the narrative. You'd think with the name "Bloodlines" these generations that are followed would actually be, you know, important?? Most of them aren't though. A better use of this book's concept would be to emphasize these generations MUCH heavier and show how these individuals are changing lives. It's mentioned by Urza towards the latter half of the book that many of the individuals in his many Bloodlines projects across the nations have shown extreme intellectual and magical capabilities. This alone is a majorly fascinating thread and had it been pulled could have led the novel in a much more interesting direction, showing how it might have affected the nations fighting back Phyrexian invaders. Instead it was used to reveal that many of Urza's brightest students were of the Bloodlines project, unbeknownst to them. Which, somehow, still fails to make any of those characters interesting.So essentially we loosely follow groups of random people, likely in the scope of Urza's many generations long Bloodlines project with plotlines that fizzle out and are just riddled with uninteresting drivel. And when the long awaited "heir" is finally revealed as a baby at the end of the book you're left unsatisfied. I could take the heir being introduced as a baby at the end but as I've said, none of what you follow in the narrative save Gatha's character (with Kreig) and the conflict between Davvol and Croag are actually interesting. The baby is from the Capashen clan whose political significance is presented but left so vague it's just confusing... and they were utterly boring. One might be pleased to know there's finally an heir at some point but there's absolutely no reason to be interested in the individual who turns out to the heir.It'st just so... dull.The Ugly:Despite all the bad I had to say, this is my real main issue with the novel: regressive characterization. This could be the result of how closely published the books are which shows they were almost certainly being worked on at the same time with Time Streams being published in May of 1999 and Bloodlines being published in August 1999. But if this is the case it really just illustrates that if you want to do something right you need to take your time doing it. Wizards of the Coast, in their eagerness to have these books out, really made the quality suffer. Some more time and some major rewrites could have saved this book with the concepts it rested on... But I'm slipping back into "bad." Back to "ugly."I mention the publication dates because it's the only way I can justify the absolute butchering of Urza's established character. Urza is no saint but there was undeniable character growth in Time Streams that's absent here. Urza may be flawed and narrowed sighted in his own genius but during the events of Time Streams Urza not only proves himself sane but also gains empathy like he never had before. SPOILERS AHEAD FOR TIME STREAMS:He was tortured several times and one of these was special because he was exposed to an ancient pain he caused in the events of the Brothers' War. He comes to know pain and experiences it through the eyes of others he's hurt. Urza also learns that his genius is not the only genius. In working so close with Barrin and his brightest students Urza seems to see that he's not the only one with good ideas and actually works with the ideas of others. He also often takes the risk of putting trust in others to get the important work done. Lastly, there is a huge significance at the end with how Urza treats Karn. Despite gifting a silver golem with sentience akin to true life he treats it like a machine. However, after Urza has his gemstone eyes ripped from his head and begins to die he has a revelation about how similar he is to Karn. Despite being a planeswalker, the powerstones in Urza's head are essential to his life... they've become his core. He's like Karn in that his core is something artificial, a stone of power, not based on anything organic. In a way they're both machines... and they both feel just as alone. After this event Urza comes to treat Karn less like a machine and more like a son. Not just like a "person," but like a son.Of course, ALL of this is ignored for the sake of Bloodlines. Yes, the events of Time Streams still happened but any and all character growth Urza had (which, as you can read, is a lot) is neutered. He's presented less in this book than the last but when he is doing something he's back to being a self-obsessed genius with eyes only on his goal of eliminating Phyrexia while treating Karn like nothing more than a machine to be ordered.Conclusion:I really cannot fathom how so much character development can be established then followed with this book. The only saving grace is that they almost certainly were worked on at the same time so the lack of character consistency is at least understandable. But as you might be able to tell from both my bad and ugly portions, characters were never this book's strong suit. The narrative is so busy trying to hit plot point after plot point like they're just bullet points on a list that it fails to make any characters used in the plot as interesting. As a result it's like everything you read is being viewed through a stain glass window, distant. Whereas in Time Streams you really felt the characters in the heart of the plot, especially as they grew. And this is seen in no greater form than Urza.I'm still going to push on with this series. The book does advance the plot and had a few interesting things so it was okay but it just didn't hold up to its fellow MtG novels.They really should have just given the entire Weatherlight anything to Robert King, writer of "The Thran" and "Time Streams" which have so far been the most shining gems of this series.

An enemy beyond evil...Whose eye sees into every corner of Mirrodin.Whose ambition strides across the planes.Whose foe is a lonely elf and her loyal goblin companion.The fury of Memnarch is turned against Glissa and Slobad as they make their way across Mirrodin in search of new allies. From the city of the leonin to the dark fortress Panopticon, their travels range until they come face to face with the creator of Mirrodin himself. And from his lips they will hear the prophecy that can remake their world.

Time is Running Out! The planeswalker Teferi at last returns to his home plane only to find it devastated and barren. Time itself is fracturing, and it’s up to Teferi and his companions to find a way to halt the collapse.It won’t be easy when his allies are poised to turn against him. About the Author Scott McGough recently moved to farm country and can now compare the urban, suburban, and agrarian lifestyles. Not surprisingly, his first choice hasn’t changed since childhood: all things being equal, he’d rather be down the shore.Scott worked on The Duelist magazine before joining the Creative Team for MAGIC: THE GATHERING®. He worked on almost all the Urza/Phyrexia saga and has since written eight novels and a handful of short stories for MAGIC: THE GATHERING. All this, and yet he has only ever appeared on one Magic card. Though he finds this burden bitter and onerous, he will at least admit that that it’s a really good picture.  

A World Beyond ImaginationWhere forests of metal claw the sky.Where razor-sharp metallic grasses stretch across the plains.Where vast oceans of quicksilver conceal predators awaiting the unwary.Across this harsh landscape, an orphaned elf must make her way, seeking the secrets of her past, daring the perils of her present. And she must tear aside the veil that hides the face of a hidden enemy whose power extends across all Mirrodin

A labyrinth of intrigue...Lieutenant Agrus Kos enjoys his work. A top-notch officer of the city guard, he's been on the force over fifty years. He works alone. And the League of Wojek never had problems with him or his work. Until now.They gave him a partner to train, who promptly got himself killed. And the more he looks into the death, the less he likes it.Something dark is moving within the guilds of Ravnica.

This was more of the same....not a whole lot really happened aside from Phyrexians invading and fighting them, at least until the very end.Urza's "twist" could have been done well, but it made zero sense. After (as he explicitly says numerous times) over 4 millennia of his entire being being consumed by hatred of Yawgmoth and Phyrexia, regardless of his obsession with artifice, WHY THE FUCK WOULD HE SUDDENLY LOVE THIS PLACE AND WANT TO SERVE YAWGMOTH?!They try really hard to do an internal monologue to justify it. They take the right track, as that's really the only motivation that could work....but it fails when you're changing 4000 years of character motivation in 5 minutes.I like when you have a "hero" not necessarily have a positive arc! The problem is this is not that. This is not a natural development over time, it's almost equivalent to revealing a character was really the character you thought died last book in disguise. It takes you out of a story when a character just suddenly changes their entire motivation and beliefs so suddenly, especially if that belief was a major driving force behind many of their previous actions for many, many books.

Urza Triumphant.The war between Urza and Mishra is over. Brooding on the death of his brother at the hands of extraplanar forces, Urza drifts among the planes.But the end of the Brother's War has transformed him into something greater. Deep within his heart, a spark has been kindled to a flame that cannot be quenched.Urza has become a planeswalker.Linked to the Urza's Saga expansion of the Magic: The Gathering trading card game.

Book 5 for JALL.Read my review for the first in this series here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...Thank god I don't have to slog past this one like I did the first one. I have much more to talk about this time.This is the second book, also staring Jodah. (Who is still likable.). Surprising, he is now important mage who goes by a large number of titles that is kind of ridiculous. Well, the good news for us, unlike the first book which is long-winded and slow, this one comes out swinging. Turns out, Jodah is in a period known as the Ice Age.I don't want to get into too much here, read the book. It is far better than the first. (Which to be honest, you can probably skip but if you are a purist like me, you are not going too even if it is mediocre.)Characters- Lovable and far more interesting then the first book. I really liked Jaya, Jodah, Dim-Bulb (lul) and Lesharc. Lesharc has this Aura first seen as a sort of devious and downright cruel planeswalker.I will argue that this is the first book in the magic canon that tackled the idea if a planeswalker is good or evil. It is a hard question to ask. Their mannerisms are easy to understand, back to that good old Jeff Grubb style as written in the first book in the artifacts cycle.Setting- Dominaria, during the Ice Age. Besides being a frozen wasteland (Still kind of boring), it is ruled by City-States and mages. During this time, magic is far more accepted and mages are basically chief officers in the military and it is basically a 180 of the previous setting thematically. It builds up in just the right ways without it being an info dump and to be fair, even though I don't like the Ice Age period, the author does a far better job of keeping this world interesting, such as by using magic as now a means of advancement in society and the culture of the nation is far more mercantilist.Plot- Quick and always moving. There were a few small snags in the middle, but this one was not as noticeable as the first book. This plot seems to be moving more so because of Jodah's and Jaya's actions, and they both compliment the plot well, so it is refreshing. The only small snags is the small stop in the middle where the plot halts for a good reason. Can't get into it and it only lasts about..40 pages so it is passable.Time to finish: One day flat, it was that good. I only give it four stars because of the boring setting of a near-apocalyptic wasteland of Ice Age Dominaria, but if that is your fancy, you can gladly rate this five stars!Strengths:No Info Dump, the world has been established thanks to the first novel, even if it was shoddily done. Likable CharactersJodah has really great character development.Plot is so refreshing. I just kept turning page after page and I didn't at one point feel bored. Only took breaks because of eyesores.Weaknesses:Small snag in the middle?I am starting to hate Ice-Age the period.Overall, I recommend this to those interested in the magic story. Jodah AND Jaya are relevant to the current story and are generally speaking, well done in this book and their early interpretations are really a great read. This book also has a 'thin hook', you can stop here for a while. The first book still has an unresolved plot line and it just felt like a tease. Here, the events of the Ice Age ended (thank god) and it felt like a good place to end while also exploring the now rebuilding of society in Dominaria.

If you want a real review, then read the bottom paragraph. This book was a great read as a kid. I had never read any MTG books before and was not expecting much, but this type of book really intrigued me. (Almost a decade later) I went on a 2 week search for this book without the knowledge of the author or title and only the cover picture of the book. It has been eight years since I've read this book and yet I find myself recalling everything that happened... . Even after first reading it I would have vivid dreams for months. It was also the first time I saw a book series (and not fully understanding that I was about to read a book the had two preceding it).In the Magic the Gathering series, this is the first time that the story is told in the perspective of a dead character. Well, he’s not exactly dead, he’s just undead. The main character, who’s the undead hero, Kos was summoned to the streets of Ravnica because he had to save the city from all of the frightening creatures.However, there is a strange consequence for saving the city for Kos. How could he choose between his duty and his freedom? It would be a very hard decision to make for anyone. If he chooses to deny his master, Kos will stay in hell and that means that he only gets to traverse the world of the underground. If he follows the orders that he receives, he will be able to roam both worlds as he pleases. Which path will he choose?

The first title in a series that peers into a mysterious new area of the Magic world.Outlaw: Champions of Kamigawa kicks off a series that will explore a new and mysterious area of the Magic: The Gathering world that fans have never seen before. This novel previews the newest trading card game set to be released in October, giving fans a sneak peek at the new elements of the game.