Blackstaff

The first book in “the Wizards” series... and it's quite bad. I've read the second book already, Bloodwalk, and that's much better than this one.

This book tells the story of Khelben, and a “next-generation” mage, Tsarra, who is one of his apprentices. It follows Khelben as he romps around Waterdeep and the High Moor, unraveling a conspiracy and a prophecy at the same time, of which he himself was the source of the conspiracy and also being a key element in the prophecy, and manipulating various powerful forces in order to bring the conspiracy to fruition in order to fulfill said prophecy.

Confused? Yeah, that's basically what reading the book feels like.

I think the main problem with the plot is that it's way too convoluted. And we're seeing it unfold from the point of view of Tsarra, who is basically carried along, pushed along, and dragged along by Khelben at various points - just because (i.e. prophecy, conspiracy, and all that). So essentially, the reader is just as confused and frustrated Tsarra is. It doesn't help Tsarra's character at all, as the early bits basically focus on her frustrations and her temper. She ends up being rather bland. There was an attempt at creating a mysterious backstory for her, but that subplot went nowhere beyond a couple of paragraphs.

So as one reads, the reader is also basically just getting carried along and watching Khelben's plans unfold. There's no possibility of predicting what's going to happen because Khelben himself noted that things are meant to be convoluted and obfuscated, to create misdirection and fake leads and throw out false information.

The whole plot ends up being boring because there's never any sense of danger or urgency, since most of the time, you don't really know what's happening - it's just something that's happening. The whole gathering of arcane energy for that finale event was probably meant to be impressive and touching, but it's quite difficult for the reader to become invested. Khelben was not a sympathetic character, and Tsarra is difficult to empathise with due to how she's, well, not really in any danger (and I find her mildly annoying).

And that leads to the other characters in the book - they're all pretty bland. The reason being... there's way, way, too many named characters in one novel. Just the prologue and opening chapter would name more than a dozen apprentices who end up completely forgotten later on. Several antagonists in the middle also disappear after they show up. And finally, the gathering of “big names” of the Realms at the end that's meant to be impressive ended up with the complete opposite effect. Unless you're a hardcore Forgotten Realms lore buff, you're unlikely to even recognise half of those dozens of names thrown at you. It's like reading some stranger's wedding invitation list with a bit of commentary on what they look like.

I've ranted enough about things I don't like about it. Oh, one more. The seemingly mandatory “love” relationship that Tsarra has feels so very forced. There was zero chemistry and zero reason why there would even be any chemistry between them.

The things that I did like were the much smaller-scaled fights. These are nice wizard-centric fights that involve spells and counterspells. Too bad there's not very many of them. I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot more if it was from Khelben's point of view instead, as opposed to how Tsarra was looking at or through Khelben. I kind of get why this story needed to be told (major event in the history of Realms at the end), but watching it unfold from the eyes of a person who just gets swept along, has no idea what's happening, and has basically no input whatsoever is something I found to be not a good read at all.