Elminster: The Making Of A Mage (1995) - Plot & Excerpts
5/10/11: UPDATE: Despite having nothing other than Elminster and SkyMall magazine to read during takeoff and landing I officially, disgustedly, completely gave up on Elminster on page 133; wherein Elminster gets turned into a girl and is SO totally diggin' the boobs, man. I wanted to puke. Fortunately, SkyMall offers a variety of products to help with that. 5/09/11: Sixty pages into this book, my darling, dear, precious, sweet husband asked me, "Why are you reading a D&D book**?"::blink, blink::What???? The Fuck????Apparently, though I am mighty in the ways of Geek, I am so uninitiated in the ways of Nerd that it was heretofore unknown to me that Ed Greenwood wrote The Forgotten Realms for TSR, Inc., which vast corporation produces the D&D franchise. Along with learning these vital isn't-everybody-born-just-knowing-this-stuff facts, I also discovered that my husband is a black belt Nerd. Awesome!At this point, of course, it is much to late to protest that it is a Bad Book, that it is Written Very Poorly, that I find it Profoundly Stupid - because I was caught reading it rather than caught pitching it disgustedly against the wall. I can provide evidence to all of the above and may yet*, but the fact remains that I am STILL READING THE DAMNED THING. This is because I am in a Foreign Land and have read every other English-language book immediately available and what else am I supposed to do when soaking in a jacuzzi while sipping a screwdriver? Just sit there?!?*Elminster is a boy who is left Alone In The World when a naughty magelord kills his entire village to get back at his father, who is secretly a prince. Elminster swears revenge. Ho-hum. (Go listen to Another End of The Empire by Tim Pratt right now. Seriously, it's mandatory: http://podcastle.org/2010/01/26/podca... ) I offer the following quotes:"Thieves? Ah, such an ugly word...look upon them as the most honest sort of merchant." (Seriously?)"The movement made her low-cut silken bodice slide, smooth and cool, across Elminster's arm. He hastily transferred his tankard out of the way, feeling a stirring in him." (Look, when I get hot and bothered, there's no "stirring" about it. I feel the blood rushing out of my head and into my ____, which leaves me feeling wuzzly and adventurous. So WTF is this "stirring" of which male authors so fondly write? Can any-male-one please explain?)"What gods should I worship?" "A man must find out for himself - or should. Only fools obey the nearest priest.""What do priests do, then?"Farel shrugged. "A lot of chanting and angry shouting and sticking swords into people who worship other gods." (Okay, maybe this one has a point. But still!)**In point of fact, I was reading this book because JFi sent it to me in a box. That's what we do, we send boxes. And then we read books. It's brilliant. Beware, JFi - I may yet dupe you into reading Trekkie slash-fic.
I confess I hesitated in reading this book. Firstly, a friend had told me some of the plot (although I didn’t remember much by the time I got it to read). Secondly, it’s an Ed Greenwook, who’s known for being... verbose. Thirdly, I didn’t know what to expect from tales about mages — which is a justifiable objection if you consider that for decades the majority of protagonists in fantasy were swordsmen. I think it’s easier to connect to a fighter characters than to spell slingers. Nevertheless, it was ultimately having a book with a mage main character which attracted me to the book. How ironic that Elminster starts the story as a brigand!The plot isn’t far from any other origin story: a humble boy has his family slaughtered by the tyrant usurper king, finds out he’s the last heir to the throne, allies himself to some rebels, renegades his origins, is convinced by a higher power that he’s not only from royal blood but also “the chosen one”, also rejects that destiny—at least until he sees people dying due to his inactions, then goes training, thinks he’s up to the challenge (he isn’t) get his butt handed to him by the villain, goes back to training, loses something important to the villain, something that makes him go after the villain seeking revenge this time, finally beats the bad guy and finds out that revenge has a sweet and sour taste.The best part of this book is that Greenwood tells this cliché story quite well! His protagonist is believable and charming. He also delivers several deep, complex and unpredictable secondary characters — in fact, I think that’s the strong side of the book. The author knows how to create and handle situations that jump out of the book and create an aura of suspension of disbelief around the reader. Also, his scenes are vivid and we can see them clearly in our mind’s eye. I don’t think it’s easy to build dialogues that don’t sound constructed of forced, but Greenwood (at least in this book) managed it.I need to warn that the death scenes, specially when it’s a magician who dies, are pretty gory — things from the movie «Final Destination». I’m not kidding!All in all, «Elminster: The Making of a Mage» is an enjoyable read and a pleasant journey, sorta predictable (specially if you play D&D and know the Forgotten Realms campaign setting), but I doesn’t make the book less interesting. Mr. Greenwood manages to create a narrative which proves that knowing the outcome doesn’t diminish the pleasure or the quality of the reading.
What do You think about Elminster: The Making Of A Mage (1995)?
Le type même du livre initiatique pour mage.Nous commençons le livre avec Elminster qui assiste à l'assassinat de son père par un mage. Comme vous pouvez vous en douter, il est très en colère et jure de se venger de tous les seigneurs mages du coin. Cerise sur le gâteau, nous pensons qu'il est un simple berger mais en fait, il est un des héritiers du trône. Elminster va croiser le chemin d'un ancien chevalier qui va lui donner la première direction à suivre pour commencer son entraînement. Le but du livre sera de suivre l'enfance d'Elminster, au fil de ses pérégrinations, au fil des obstacles de sa vie.De berger à mage très puissant, Elminster découvrira le monde qu'il entoure, la déesse qui le protège et surtout le fait que sa cause, au delà de la vengeance est juste. En effet, tout va mal au royaume de Faerûn et il fallait quelqu'un pour rétablir l'équilibre. Elminster y arrivera-t-il ? Vous le saurez en le lisant bien entendu ^^Un univers plutôt jeunesse en fait.L'univers développé ici est plutôt magique et moyenâgeux. On peut dire que c'est un classique de la fantasy, peuplé de mages, de chevaliers, d'elfes et de dragons. Le récit vous semblera parfois un peu simpliste mais c'est tout à fait logique lorsque l'on se souvient que c'est un roman jeunesse. Et je pense que c'est un des romans qui pousseront nos petits enfants adolescents à apprécier la fantasy, la magie et toutes ces choses.En effet, le style de l'auteur est vraiment fluide, il organise l'histoire avec différentes clés qui permettent le déroulement sans accroc. Vous alternerez quelques petits descriptions au travers du regard d'Elminster, des scènes d'actions tout de même assez musclés, de l'apprentissage de l'histoire du pays (sans trop s'étendre dessus) et surtout quelques scènes humoristiques. Au travers de tous ces passages, vous découvrirez le personnage d'Elminster, le prototype même du jeune héros pleins de dons, mais dont le regard innocent vous montrera sa sagesse.En bref, une très bonne découverte pour mes pauses midi. Ce ne sera pas un coup de cœur mais j'ai été charmée de découvrir l'univers assez fouillé d'Ed Greenwood
—Koré
Completely and utterly blandIt’s a mystery to me how so many Elminster novels were published. This first book in the series is utterly awful. It’s quite possibly the worst D&D book I’ve read, which is quite a feat considering how terrible some D&D books (e.g. the Pools trilogy) are.The plot is unimaginative, bland, uninspired, boring, and hackneyed. Spoilers follow, but since the book is so terrible and predictable, it doesn't even matter....The book tells a story of a boy whose village is destroyed by an Evil Mage riding an Evil Dragon. As luck would have it, he’s a prince in hiding, as Evil Mages have taken over the land and the throne. The boy then runs into one of the few loyal ex-knights roaming the land, who takes him under his wing (gasp). The boy is handed over to thieves, who waylay the Evil Mages’ soldiers, and under whose tutelage he becomes a proficient swordsman. He then moves to a city, where he becomes one of the best thieves. He then stumbles across an abandoned temple that the Evil Mages shut down, where the goddess of magic sees in him All That Is Good (tm) and makes him a cleric. After some years, she asks him to become a mage, after which he trains with elves, and goes out and slays all the Evil Mages. Blah blah, you get the picture. Boooooring. There’s zero character depth and no plot to speak of. The entire story is just a non-stop progression of Elminster becoming more and more awesome. Oh, Elminster is one-dimensional and totally boring. A goodie-two-shoes without flaw or fault. On that subject, the division between good and evil is so completely black-and-white that it makes your toes curl. It’s absolutely laughable. All the Evil Mages do is defile a different wench each night, kill them, and torture commoners. Oooh, aren’t they Evil? Elminster is holier-than-thou and without sin, of course. Cringeworthy.I’ve read some of Ed Greenwood’s recent Dragon magazine stories on various small pockets of the realms, and they were surprisingly detailed and interesting. Perhaps he gained some skill since writing his first novel, or he’s decent at writing semi-historical “fun and facts” stories vs. actual novels. Either way, avoid this boring book at all cost.
—Stefan
I'm giving this book 2/5 mainly because Ed Greenwood's writing style is very hard to follow. I don't enjoy reading books where I have to go back and read something over again just to figure out what is happening a few pages ahead. I am a massive fan of Forgotten Realms though and enjoy learning about the history of the world and of Elminster himself and that is why I forced myself to finish the book and the rest of the series. I will clarify once more that this isn't an enjoyable read but if you are a fan of Forgotten Realms and of Elminster it is a book you should try to read through.
—Peter Kuppers
