The Prodigal Sorcerer

When they're done right, tie-in novels can be really enjoyable - they can expand the universe of the original story, and create nuance and variety where some might have been lacking.

Accomplishing this would be difficult in a M:tG novel. Especially in the early days, the metanarrative of the game was minimal, so there wouldn't be much to hang a plot on, aside from working in game mechanics. It feels like the author of this didn't even try, though - it feels like he just dusted off and unused manuscript, changed a couple of names here and there, and called it a Magic story.

As far as the story itself goes, the characters are flat, we're dropped in media res into a world that isn't adequately developed, and the ending kind of just comes out of nowhere.