Stormlight: A Book Review

So I just finished reading this novel (and I mean literally minutes ago), so while it is fresh in my mind I figured I'd write my review of it. Stormlight is a Forgotten Realms novel written by Ed Greenwood (who created the Realms in the first place). The book is named for it's primary character, Storm Silverhand, a legendary bard and champion of the goddess Mystra who has lived for centuries (part of Mystra's power resides in her, granting her near immortality as well as several very potent powers).

Storm is a very powerful character, and so she needs a very powerful adversary, enter her ex-lover Maxan Maxer (crap name I know), or rather somone who appears to be him. The book begins very much like a murder mystery, with a string of bizarre killings at an isolated castle on the border of the kingdom of Cormyr. Storm, being named in the inheritance of one of the dead, turns up at the keep to try and find out what is going on. She is not made welcome by anyone there, despite being a legendary champion for good. This doesn't bother her in the slightest, nor does the fact that all the food she gets fed is poisoned (another of her powers, she's immune to poison).

While the book starts out good, it rapidly descends into one long running battle which is well over 100 pages in length, has a truly horrific body count (there are like a dozen people tops who survive, and the castle is nothing more than a pile of stones by the end of it), and is frankly really tedious to read through. Endless repetition of mad villain ranting (turns out he is actually a fragment of the dead evil god Bane, who can change shape and absorb powers/memories from those he has killed), buildings crashing down, wounds, deaths, Storm blasting things with a seemingly endless supply of her silver fire (yup, another of her god-given powers).

The book does have some good points, Storm herself is very well written as a character and I'd have no trouble roleplaying an encounter with her in D&D after reading this. She is also very funny, and has a habit of losing her clothes (the number of times she has to get dressed because her robe, outfit, etc has been blasted off her, or cut to ribbons is hilarious). A shame then that the rest of the characters seem very dull by comparison, so much so that only minutes after finishing the book I can scarcely remember their names. I'll give this book 2/5.