Heirs of Prophecy: Sembia

by Lisa Smedman

Book Overview

Introduce yourself to the Forgotten Realms (R) world with New York Times best-selling author, Lisa Smedman. Larajin, the unacknowledged daughter of Thamalon Uskevren and a half-elf, finds herself... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786927372
• ISBN13: 9780786927371
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Review: Heirs of Prophecy - Never Judge a Book...

This review is for the book `Heirs of Prophecy', which is Book V of the seven book `Sembia: Gateway to the Realms' series. This review is intended as a critique of the writing and flow of the book, not to reveal "spoolers". Please note: I am assuming that people have read The Halls of Stormweather, Book I of the series, prior to reading this review. If you haven't, you may wish to skip down to the last two paragraphs for my overall recommendation of this book, which will not contain any information about previous books in this series. This book focuses on Larijin, a half-elven maid of the Uskevren household and illegitimate daughter of Thamalon Uskevren, written by Lisa Smedman. This story takes place over a year after the events of the short story `Skin Deep'. Larijin's ancestry is still a closely guarded secret, which is even kept from the other members of the Uskevren family. This keeps Larijin as an outsider which fuels her desire to learn more about elven heritage and why the group of her mothers people came to being her back. At the same time, the tension between the wood elves and the people of Sembia is growing, which lands Larijin right in the middle. Underneath the imposing conflict lies the need for understanding and acceptance. Overall, the book is easily on par with may great books written by other great authors, in fact I am hard pressed to think if a book which has been better written. At no time while reading this book did I have a feeling of the story being rushed, nor that it going too slow. The story flows as needed for the events at the time. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed the short story `Skin Deep', as well as readers of the Forgotten Realms and other shared fantasy settings. I would also recommend this book to readers of general Fantasy, looking for a new view on fantasy story telling. I would recommend reading The Halls of Stormweather prior to reading this book. Although the `Sembia: Gateway to the Realms' series is not linear, they occur in conjunction with one another, I would recommend reading the prior books of the series first. Each book will make references to the events of the prior books, so the reader will have a more encompassing experience and a greater understanding of the time line throughout the series. A Note to Readers new to Forgotten Realms: Like many shared settings, especially those stemming from gaming or other media types, the Forgotten Realms books are written with the assumption that the reader has some familiarity with the Forgotten Realms gaming setting. This frees up the author to focus on his or her story, instead of having to explain the world in which the story takes place; the calendar, geography, common races/species, magical properties, etc. This is very important when the book length is normally confined to 300 - 350 pages. As a reader reads more books in the Forgotten Realms setting, they will become more familiar with the world of Faerun and its in

OVERALL SCORE: (B-)

This is a fairly good read, the plot is average, but the story telling, vivid descriptions, and good character development help make this story. This is a story about good/noble/wonderful elves, and bad/greedy/bigoted/cheating/lying humans (sigh). The Heroine must stop a war, stop a evil wizard, save her brothers, and all with the power of LOVE!!! [yuck]. But the story is told with wonderful descriptive prose, reasonable complex characterizations, and seems to make up for the insipid plot. The flying cat is enough reason too read this book! Although giving the elves facial tattoos seriously put me off, and nearly had me toss out the book. If you can get past this `sacralige', and you like this sort of story, you will probably like "Heirs of Prophecy".OVERALL SCORE: (B-)READABILITY: (A-), PLOT: (C-), CHARATERS: (A), DIALOGUE: (B-), SETTING: (A), ACTION/COMBAT: (B-), MONSTERS/ANTAGONISTS: (B+), ROMANCE: (n/a), SEX: (n/a), AGE LEVEL: (G/PG)