The Siege

Forgotten Realms: The Return of the Archwizards, Book 2

By: Troy Denning

Narrated by: Kevin Kraft

Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

For Evereska, the last elven refuge on Faern, it’s a battle for survival.

For the Chosen of Mystra, it’s a potent rival for their goddess’s dominion over magic.

For the human realms of Faern, it’s a permanent shift in the balance of power.

For a lost race of powerful archwizards, it’s a flying mountain they call home.

From the author of The Summoning, Beyond the High Road, and Death of the Dragon (with Ed Greenwood), the Realms-shaking Return of the Archwizards series continues!

©2011 Wizards of the Coast LLC (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

A complete waste of time

Where the first book, "The Summoning," was filled with several problems, but offered a great world-building-experience, "The Siege" offers the reader/listener basically nothing at all. Every flaw of the first book is back with a vengeance, often expanding (if one can call it that?) on the terrible narrative devices of the first book.

I cannot stress enough how much this book is not worth anyone's time. It leaves behind much of what made the first book bearable, focusing almost exclusively on its dull story and horrid character-relations.

The only redeeming quality of "The Siege" is the Princes of Shade, who each pretty much steal the show every time they "enter the stage." However, this judgment should be taken with a grain-of-salt as the Princes of Shade are my personal favourite D&D-villains of all time and are presented truly gloriously in other Realms-Novels elsewhere, being given real stories to be a part of. Indeed, the Princes and their flamboyant personalities and flair for the dramatic was the only thing managing to drag me through this dungpile of a book, and even they couldn't stop me from taking a 3-month-long break from listening to it. I was that bored.

If the reader of this review does not love the Princes of Shade as much as I do; or alternatively find the prospect of listening to 12+ characters engaging in near-cartoonish acts of flamboyance (and thereby feel prepared to come to love the Princes as I do), then there truly is nothing else here for anyone to enjoy. Save yourself hours of your lives and skip it.