Thursday, August 31, 2006

Bloodwalk: A Book Review

I finished this book a few days back, and I'm already halfway through the next novel on my reading pile, so about time I got this reveiw written up lest I end up with a backlog again! Bloodwalk by James P. Davis is a Forgotten Realms novel, and the second volume in the four book series entitled The Wizards. Each of the novels in this series is a stand alone tale, with the common theme being that each features a wizard as a central character. In this case the wizard in question is the main villain of the tale, a sorceress by the name of Morgynn who possesses truly frightening powers, her magic fueled by blood.

Morgynn's power stems from the death and rebirth she endured years before, having been killed by her own mother and her tribe, they fearful of the then girls natural talent for sorcery which they regarded as unnatural. Brought back to life by the cultists of a devil god named Gargauth, she first took her revenge on her mothers people and then travelled the Realms, being moved on from place to place until her wanderings bring her and her followers to the poorly defended lands of the Border Kingdoms.

Here she sets about raising an army of undead and fiendish creatures, using the power of an ancient ruined fortress/city to power a terrifying storm that will assist her forces in laying waste to the region. While she is a truly scary villain, Morgynn never strikes me as being a very clever one, she regards pretty much all of her followers as expendable and she is supremely arrogant, her anger usually getting the better of any common sense she might have. It is this failing that leads her to manipulate a wandering Ghostwalker to arrive in the region, hoping to use him to create false hope in the areas defenders.

What she hadn't counted on (but which should really have been pretty obvious if she'd thought about it), was that the Ghostwalker wouldn't just go away. The Ghostwalker is a travelling servant of Hoar, the God of Vengeance by the name of Quinsareth, a man seemingly without reason or purpose in his life save to go whereever he feels "called" too and set right the wrongs there, before moving on. I find it hard to believe that any villain would want such a character anywhere near their evil plans, as such a person simply screams "spanner in the works".

Adding to the regions problems are the seers of Savras, the God of Divination, who led by their frankly deluded High Oracle Sameska who espouse a policy of doing nothing to combat the evil growing in the nearby Qurth Forest (where Morgynn's forces are massing near the ruined citadel), because she believes that the Ghostwalker will save them, even though Quinsareth doesn't believe in prophecy or any higher calling save that of his God (and even then only because it gives him something to do).

All in all this is an odd book, and I'm not sure whether it works or not. It is without a doubt a lot darker in tone than most Realms novels, bordering on being almost Lovecraftian in parts. I think part of my problem with this book is that none of the characters seem all that focused on anything. Quinsareth exists but does little more, essentially he is empty inside. Morgynn has evil designs but no actual plan for acheiving them (at least not one that makes any actual sense, would be conquerors do not consider their armies to be expendable).

Overall I'm going to award this book a 3/5 rating. It is undeniably well written, and Mr. Davis writes really well, his description is brilliant, but the motives of his characters are in my opinion a mess. The book does end in such a way as to leave room for a sequel which would feature Quinsareth, though I'm not sure whether I'd be interested in reading another tale about a character who is essentially hollow.

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