War of the Spark: Ravnica (Magic: The Gathering)

By: Greg Weisman

Narrated by: Robert Petkoff

Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times Best Seller 

Experience the first official adventure in Magic: The Gathering’s multiverse in nearly a decade as the ultimate battle begins on Ravnica.

Teyo Verada wants nothing more than to be a shieldmage, wielding arcane energies to protect his people from his world’s vicious diamondstorms. When he’s buried alive in the aftermath of his first real tempest, the young mage’s life is about to end before it can truly begin - until it doesn’t. In a flash, a power he didn’t know he had whisks him away from his home, to a world of stone, glass, and wonder: Ravnica. Teyo is a Planeswalker, one of many to be called to the world-spanning city - all lured by Nicol Bolas, the Elder Dragon. Bolas lays siege to the city of Ravnica, hungry for the ultimate prize: godhood itself. His unparalleled magic and unstoppable army appear poised to bring the city to utter ruin. 

Among those who stand in the way of Bolas’s terrifying machinations are the Gatewatch, Planeswalkers sworn to defeat evil, no matter where it’s found. But as they work to unite the other mages and mount a defense of the city and its people, the terrifying truth of Bolas’ plan becomes clear. The Elder Dragon has prepared a trap to ensnare the most powerful mages from across the multiverse - and it’s too late to escape. 

As forces great and small converge on the city and the battle rages, the stakes could not be higher. If the Gatewatch falters and the Planeswalkers fail, the curtain will fall on the age of heroes - and rise on the infinite reign of Nicol Bolas.

©2019 Greg Weisman (P)2019 Random House Audio

Painful for Fans

This book feels like it was written by someone who is unfamiliar with Magic the Gathering's story and the English language. If I submitted this book as a high school writing assignment I would have failed the class.

I am also mad about the way every formerly fleshed out character in this story becomes a teenage fueled by hormones. 30 year old man? Angsty teenager. 40 year old woman? Agnsty teenager. 10,000 year old dragons? One acts like a petulant child the other has such a lack of gravitas that he gets "ticked off." Truly exceptional writing for near omnipotent ancient dragons.

A character who previously is ready to abandon a plan because her people may suffer becomes a heartless murder machine for selfish goals turning corpses of her guild-mates into a chair. I assume this is because the author didn't get the memo about which characters had which traits.

The only reason this gets a second star is the poor narrator does the best with what he's given. I applaud his attempt to save this train wreck.

Misses on almost every level.

The story was weak, and expressed a near phobic aversion to description. Too many characters that had too little characterization and what characterization was present was contrary to previous outings.
Much of the text is devoted to summaries of past events and lists of the characters and factions.
The book felt like a rushed and confused draft rather than a finished novel.

Absolute mess

The plot of this story is an absolute mess. Huge gaps between the timeline of the web fiction to the bolas conflict, characters are bland and devoid any real development, juvenile dialogue, all the magical metaphysics are relatively unexplained and just show up for plot convenience.

A horribly dissatisfying end to a plotline years in the making.

great performance cant make up for poor story

first off, I love mtg. I love the stories, the lore, every tiny piece that goes into making the cards and the game what it is. I love how much detail is put into even the most minute interactions or descriptions. I love how you feel a connection to the characters, to the places and everything else in the multi-verse.

this book has none of that.

The story reads like a poor fan fiction written by someone who has never read or played the game. characters you know and love, who are prized on their wisdom and their vow to never harm a living thing (like karn) barely speak, and are seen going against everything they have come to stand for by actively fighting in the war.

It's almost like the author recieved a list of names that he needed to include in the story, got a brief description of what they typically did, and then started typing. "Jace is a mind mage? oh I'll have him talk to everyone telepathically. I guess I'll have him use illusions as well. karn is a big metal man? guess I'll just have him smash things and stuff. Sorin and Nahiri are two planeswalkers with years and years of history who just now decided to resume a battle to the death? oh, I'll just include a sentence or two where they fight in the background. they dont need their own chapter. Then, because I need to show that they made up, I'll just say they were fighting along side one another near the end of the book. again, a sentence or two will do, no need to go into too much detail. Ugin is a spirit dragon who people look to for guidance and always helps defeat his brother? uhhh..... I'll have him show up in 2 chapters. he wont do anything though."

oh and were you hoping for some questions to be answered from before? like how did niv mizzit die? how did Sorin get out of the rock? what did Nahiri say to calm him down? who is the Wanderer? yeah, that's nowhere to be found here.

overall very very disappointed in the quality of this book. the narrator was exceptional given what he was working with but nothing he did could redeem this novel.

save yourself some time, invest in something else.

MTG's Final Battle

Epic ending to a year's in the making story arc.
A decent story, but poorly writen

Great story and fantastic narration

I began playing Magic the Gathering with the sets in 2020 Standard (Core 2020, War of the Spark, Guilds of Ravnica, Ravnica Allegiance) and picked up this book to give me more visibility of the lore the cards are based on. I wasn’t expecting to get a great story with absolutely fantastic narration in the process; but that’s exactly what I got. I recommend it!

No

Read a tumblr fanfic, itll save you the money. Worth the listen for his faux lady voice.

Lackluster and trite finale to the War

The audiobook was narrated well. Robert Petkoff, the below is not a reflection of your performance, but of the lackluster story:

The previously godlike ability Planeswalkers are written as young-adult stereotypes and Bolas is a Saturday morning cartoon villain. Major plot points are glossed over with a Mary-Sue exposition dump character with no interest in the backstory of Bolas's influenced planeswalkers and their actions. Most of the opportunities for character exploration in a planetside war are glossed over with an air of "No time, killing to do" without giving any meaningful inner dialogue. The lynchpin of the final assault, Liliana, whose story is a compelling story of failure, resolve, reflection, indomitable spirit, and self-sacrifice is marred by dialogue that sounds like a midlife author trying to write to appeal to the 13-21 y/o demographic. The seemingly ageless beings (dragons, no less) use modern-day slang to refer to their intricate machinations in this multiverse-wide chess match between two elder dragon brothers striving for godhood. Disappointing when the flavor texts of a trading card set tells a better story than an author of 30 years.

War of the spark novwl review

It is nice to finally have the mtg story back as an actual book, but for People Who have been following the story up to this point it is kinda a let down. So much time is devoted to telling Who the characters are Even though we already know them, and have been following their stories for 5 years. There seems to be a lot not gone into detail and huge New things were just glossed over. A fine story when keeping to the main storyline, but poorly executed and Will definetly need a better focused storyline in the next releases.

Endgame Without the Setup

The book is really good. Plenty of action and drama can be found. The narrator is also exceptionally good. The down side is, the story is a culmination of ten years worth of lore; ten years worth of characters. I can appreciate it because Ive been following it all that time, but outsiders might be a bit overwhelmed. Still if you saw the War of the Spark trailer and wondered what was going on, this will tell you everything you need to know.

In conclusion, I loved this book and will be getting the sequel, but that might just be a personal choice.