Realms Of The Elves: A Book Review

Well seems I'm gonna be posting back to back book reviews anyway, so here goes. Realms of the Elves is a Forgotten Realms anthology, consisting of seven short stories by different authors. As might be expected from the title all of these stories feature elves to one extent or another (usually as the central character/s). The anthology is edited by Phillip Athans, who also found time to write one of the stories. The stories are as follows:

1. Traitors by Richard Lee Byers. Set in the distant past of the Realms, this story is in essence a prequel to Byer's Year of Rogue Dragon's trilogy, and it details what motivated the elves to curse the great dragons as they did. It's not that great a story though, but as a historical account it is very good indeed. I rate this one 3/5.
2. The Staff Of Valmaxian by Phillip Athans. This is pretty much a straight forward morality tale about the dangers of taking "the easy way" of doing things. It is well written though, and it nicely captures the hubris and pride of the elves at the height of their ancient civilisations. 4/5 for this one.
3. Necessary Sacrifices by Lisa Smedman. This is a wonderfully written tale on the theme of revenge, with a great twist at the end. One of the best stories in this collection and thus it gets a 4/5 rating from me.
4. The Greater Treasure by Erik Scott de Bie. A confusing tale about two elven treasure hunters looking for an ancient artifact in the city of Elversult. There they team up with another elf and clash with the cultists of a demon lord named Graz'zt. There is a twist in the tale here too, but it really makes very little sense at all, and the story doesn't really have an ending either. Still the characters are well written, and a couple scenes are really well detailed, so I'll grant this one a 2/5 rating.
5. Comrades At Odds by R.A. Salvatore. I usually hate Salvatore's writing, and I can honestly say I've not enjoyed any of the short stories he has contibuted to pat anthologies that I've read. But I really liked this one! It acts as a bridge between his recently finished Hunter's Blades trilogy, and whatever book will be following on from the events of that series. It stars his signature character, the renegade dark elf ranger Drizzt Do'Urden as he makes the disturbing realization that the orcs who swarmed down from the Spine of the World Mountains are setting up forts and roads in the wilderness, using the lull in battle that winter has brought to secure their position and establish the basic beginning of a nation. While the story is left hanging at the end, it still gets a solid 4/5 rating from me.
6. Tears So White by Ed Greenwood. Ed is the guy who created the Forgotten Realms world... and as this story proves he is by far and away the worst author writing for it. This story is utter shit, and frankly stinks of the worst kind of cliched fantasy I've ever had the misfortune to read. The plot (what little there is of it) has the powerful wizard Elminster take several of the Knights of Myth Drannor with him to a place of nothingness. There he and one of the Knights vanish leaving the other three (one of whom is an elf!) to battle unending hordes of lich's, all the while putting up with another elf who pops up, spouts some cryptic nonsense and vanishes again. As it turns out these masses of liches are being sent by a more powerful lich called Larloch (one of the most powerful villains of the Realms and a master strategist), even though they are virtually powerless in this nothingness place! I mean "what the fuck??" None of the story makes any sense at all (even to the Knights stranded in that place, as Elminster never explains to them why they are there or what is going on), and is pretty much an excuse to feature as many "big name characters" as possible in the space of 50 pages. A complete waste of space and this gets a 0/5 rating from me as a result.
7. The Bladesinger's Lesson by Richard Baker. This is a tie-in to his current The Last Mythal trilogy which strongly features the elves, and is set between books two and three of the saga. It is superbly written and to my mind the best story in the book, dealing with the themes of presumption and redemption. It also has a fantastic battle in it, as Baker is very good at detailing military tactics and his battle scenes as a result are easy to picture in the mind. Top marks for this story 5/5, and I'm now eagerly looking forward to reading the final book in the trilogy.

All in all I'm going to give the book an overall rating of 3/5 as while some stories are good (and one is excellent) the couple bad ones really drag the score down, especially Greenwood's tale, which has put me off ever buying another book written by him. True, this means that I won't be able to read all the Forgotten Realms novels as I have been attempting to do. But, it does mean that reading all the ones I'm going to read will be a lot more enjoyable without having to put myself through the torture of enduring his writing.