I am a long-standing fan of the books that have been released for the Magic: the Gathering sets. I was quite eager to read the book for the Zendikar cycle, because I was particularly interested to know about the Eldrazi, and to see characters like Sorin Markov in action.

When I first started reading the book, I was quite taken in by it. The character of Nissa Revane was decently fleshed out, and the distinctions between the Joraga elves and the Tajuru elves were intriguing. Sorin Markov's introduction was just about everything I hoped it would be. I was quite eager to read more.

The longer the book went on, the more my enthusiasm for it dampened. The poor was very poorly edited, and typos were everywhere. At points, I had to reread sections to make sure I understood what was going on, due entirely to the typos. I was blown away when I noticed that the main character's name was misspelled, consistently, throughout the entire book. It's even spelled correctly on the back of the book, but then screwed up every time it appears in print. I've seen a lot of Mass Market Paperbacks that were obviously slammed out in a few months in order to coincide with something like a set release or movie release, but few of them suffered from such a lack of editing as this book.

The story itself is interesting, and reasonably gripping, but I'm afraid that this is mostly due to the subject matter itself, and not the author's clever craft. This was Robert B. Wintermute's first novel, and in reading the text, it becomes fairly obvious. Things that are meant to be suspenseful are painfully obvious, and numerous plot points that get built up in suspense fizzle out in a pathetic manner when they finally occur.

I don't mean to paint the book in a completely unfavorable light, however. The character development that goes on is quite good (but this only makes it more frustrating when a great deal of it is entirely cast to the wayside in the last chapter of the book), and the world is fleshed out in a pleasing manner. Fans of the flavor in the Zendikar set for Magic the Gathering will be delighted to read about the vampires of Ghet, merfolk of Tazeem, and The Roil. Just don't expect too much from this particular book. There are far better Magic books to read, but to be fair, there are far worse, as well.

If you are a fan of Magic: the Gathering and its storylines, I would recommend this book. Otherwise, you would probably be better off reading something else. ( )