“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Why wouldn't they just post the story on the website? :/
I think its due to random house publishing the novel and this is a way of payment for it?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
The story from the Mothership gives a passing reference to Sorin and Nahiri helping against the Dreadhorde. I don't have the book, so could someone tell me how they decided to put their feud on hold to fight Bolas, if it was ever mentioned?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Currently Playing:
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
This is the extent of what is written about them helping.
Whatever the conflict was between Sorin Markov and Nahiri had seemingly-and thankfully-been tabled for the time being. While Sorin tore the heads off Eternals with fearsome strength, Nahiri shaped spikes out of stone to impale three or four at a time.
---Taken From Kaya's perspective.
So, they decided to help, that's it no further mentioning as they didn't get their own chapters to tell us from their perspective.
That shows everything wrong with War of the Spark. An interesting conflict resolved in the background so we can have some more named Walkers running around Ravnica.
Was actually hoping for some kind of meaningful resolution, even if it was that they fought it out, realized in the midst of it that they both were to blame, fight the eternals, and then leave to reflect/repair their homes. Not expecting a full blown make up session right away, but something that conveyed a sense that maybe they are moving past this
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Currently Playing:
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
Chapter 2 of the prequel was mailed out. Features our soon to be guild master assassin walkers.
"Part 1"
-We get to see Vraska take over the Golgari.
-Most of the high ranking Devkarin elves and Jarad had the Erstwhile as servants who where secretly working for Vraska which is how she took over the guild.
-We meet the Krul mindmage Xeddick, who later goes on to restore Vraskas memories. Xeddick is used to drain Jareds mind of all the guild info and secrets for Vraska.
-Overall I'm disappointed that Jared shift in character at the end of this from the original Ravnica. I could see him favoring the Devkarin and losing some of his old self as a lich but I wish that had been expanded on.
"Part 2"
-More details on what Kaya was meant to do. Bolas hired Kaya to recuse Teysa and then aid Teysa in killing the Obzedat.
-Teysa herself has been in contact with Bolas.
-Kaya makes contact with Teysa. Teysa decided to stay in her cell to pretend like she knew nothing of Kaya while sending Tomik to make a plan.
-Kaya mentions something called "The Broken Sky" that need to be fix and might be what Bolas might have done to her world.
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
So I read the War of the Spark "bonus chapters" on the MtG website and I have to say, they're very disappointing.
I'm not going to complain about the fact that 95% of it covers the same events we already saw in the novel. The bonus chapters were meant for people who wanted to follow the story without buying the book, so it makes sense there'd be a lot of redundancy, it's the only way to make sure the people who didn't read the novel were still getting the same story. If anything, I appreciated the fact that there were a few extra scenes here and there, like Kasmina's appearance or Kaya's meeting with the Orzhov ruling council.
My real problem was with the decision to have Rat be the point of view character for all of them. I already mentioned that I thought Rat was irritating: she's a one-note character with an overly contrived conflict, her dialogue is so casual that it takes the reader out of the story (I really dislike the trend of using Buffy/Marvel-style dialogue in otherwise serious works), and she's just such a Mary Sue (the fact that this random untrained teenage girl can take out Eternals with ease makes absolutely no sense). Between her annoyingly cutesy comments, her effortless slaying of Eternals, and her concern over relatively unimportant personal drama in the middle of an active warzone, all of her scenes just serve to make the stakes of the conflict seem lower and make Bolas and his army seem like much less of a real threat. In the novel, it was grating enough, but at least she wasn't that prominent outside of the mission to recruit all the guildmasters. But having six short stories entirely focused on her is just unbearable. Her habit of referring to every single character as "Mister" or "Miss" in her internal monologue was particularly obnoxious, along with the fact that she kept calling the Eternals "creepies" as if they were just normal zombies who weren't worth taking seriously.
Also, leaving aside my many complaints with Rat as a character, I feel like telling the story through a single narrator was just a poor decision for a plot like this. They should've switched between characters so we could see things like the mission to Amonkhet; someone who didn't read the novel and only read the short stories on the website would miss out on so much of the plot. And a lot of the plot points we did see were stripped of all meaning and emotion, like Liliana's betrayal and Gideon's sacrifice; not only were we seeing the moment from the perspective of someone who doesn't know or care about either of them, but we didn't even get to hear any of their dialogue! And this was also a missed opportunity, since there were much more interesting characters we could've gotten perspectives from; for instance, it would've been great to actually find out Dovin's motivations, or what caused Sorin and Nahiri to stop fighting, or how the hell Ashiok was even involved in this event.
The free "bonus chapters" get a 2 out of 10 rating from me. If I'd read them before reading the novel, I would've been incredibly disappointed with War of the Spark as a whole. I doubt I would've even gotten the book, especially knowing it was written by the same person.
Chapter 2 of the prequel was mailed out. Features our soon to be guild master assassin walkers.
"Part 1"
-We get to see Vraska take over the Golgari.
-Most of the high ranking Devkarin elves and Jarad had the Erstwhile as servants who where secretly working for Vraska which is how she took over the guild.
-We meet the Krul mindmage Xeddick, who later goes on to restore Vraskas memories. Xeddick is used to drain Jareds mind of all the guild info and secrets for Vraska.
-Overall I'm disappointed that Jared shift in character at the end of this from the original Ravnica. I could see him favoring the Devkarin and losing some of his old self as a lich but I wish that had been expanded on.
"Part 2"
-More details on what Kaya was meant to do. Bolas hired Kaya to recuse Teysa and then aid Teysa in killing the Obzedat.
-Teysa herself has been in contact with Bolas.
-Kaya makes contact with Teysa. Teysa decided to stay in her cell to pretend like she knew nothing of Kaya while sending Tomik to make a plan.
-Kaya mentions something called "The Broken Sky" that need to be fix and might be what Bolas might have done to her world.
The Jarad part is absolutely and totally f***ed up. He is absolutely NOTHING like his old character.
He sounds like a whiny despot, and one moment, he friggin' BLEEDS. A LICH.
Django really messed this part up. Not mention that at the end of Ixalan, Bolas told Vraska that Jarad is imprisoned for her in a particular place.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
100% Vorthos Spike and Storyline Expert
Former Fact Prospector of the Greek Alliance.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
Chapter 2 of the prequel was mailed out. Features our soon to be guild master assassin walkers.
"Part 1"
-We get to see Vraska take over the Golgari.
-Most of the high ranking Devkarin elves and Jarad had the Erstwhile as servants who where secretly working for Vraska which is how she took over the guild.
-We meet the Krul mindmage Xeddick, who later goes on to restore Vraskas memories. Xeddick is used to drain Jareds mind of all the guild info and secrets for Vraska.
-Overall I'm disappointed that Jared shift in character at the end of this from the original Ravnica. I could see him favoring the Devkarin and losing some of his old self as a lich but I wish that had been expanded on.
"Part 2"
-More details on what Kaya was meant to do. Bolas hired Kaya to recuse Teysa and then aid Teysa in killing the Obzedat.
-Teysa herself has been in contact with Bolas.
-Kaya makes contact with Teysa. Teysa decided to stay in her cell to pretend like she knew nothing of Kaya while sending Tomik to make a plan.
-Kaya mentions something called "The Broken Sky" that need to be fix and might be what Bolas might have done to her world.
The Jarad part is absolutely and totally f***ed up. He is absolutely NOTHING like his old character.
He sounds like a whiny despot, and one moment, he friggin' BLEEDS. A LICH.
Django really messed this part up. Not mention that at the end of Ixalan, Bolas told Vraska that Jarad is imprisoned for her in a particular place.
I wouldn't blame Django as much, I'm more upset at lining things up and Jared character which are things creative has better control on.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I mean, we saw stuff like that coming from a mile away. Remember the article where they annoucned that Magic will play fast and loose with continuity if it makes for a better story? Here we see the results of such an approach.
Personally I don't believe it leads to a better story, but whatever.
Chapter 2 of the prequel was mailed out. Features our soon to be guild master assassin walkers.
"Part 1"
-We get to see Vraska take over the Golgari.
-Most of the high ranking Devkarin elves and Jarad had the Erstwhile as servants who where secretly working for Vraska which is how she took over the guild.
-We meet the Krul mindmage Xeddick, who later goes on to restore Vraskas memories. Xeddick is used to drain Jareds mind of all the guild info and secrets for Vraska.
-Overall I'm disappointed that Jared shift in character at the end of this from the original Ravnica. I could see him favoring the Devkarin and losing some of his old self as a lich but I wish that had been expanded on.
"Part 2"
-More details on what Kaya was meant to do. Bolas hired Kaya to recuse Teysa and then aid Teysa in killing the Obzedat.
-Teysa herself has been in contact with Bolas.
-Kaya makes contact with Teysa. Teysa decided to stay in her cell to pretend like she knew nothing of Kaya while sending Tomik to make a plan.
-Kaya mentions something called "The Broken Sky" that need to be fix and might be what Bolas might have done to her world.
The Jarad part is absolutely and totally f***ed up. He is absolutely NOTHING like his old character.
He sounds like a whiny despot, and one moment, he friggin' BLEEDS. A LICH.
Django really messed this part up. Not mention that at the end of Ixalan, Bolas told Vraska that Jarad is imprisoned for her in a particular place.
I wouldn't blame Django as much, I'm more upset at lining things up and Jared character which are things creative has better control on.
A friend of mine asked Django himself, and he said he got some outlines about the characters, but, for example, there was never mentioned that he is undead. Like the card Jarad, Golgari LICH Lord with the types ZOMBIE Elf never existed.
This is a big blunder of Creative or whoever gave him bad instructions and info...
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
100% Vorthos Spike and Storyline Expert
Former Fact Prospector of the Greek Alliance.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
The overall plot of WAR was fine. Greg Wiesman's novel however, was genuinely deprived. I couldn't believe how many cardinal sins of literature that book took the liberty of making. Telling, now showing. Juvenile vocabulary. Toilet humor. Run-on sentences that included name-dropping characters over properly writing them in. I was surprised Kiora was neglected, given her nature of opposing gods. Relying on capital letters over descriptive language to emphasize distress or gravitas. Internal monologues in capitals. Lack of focus, improper attention to senseless details while neglecting crucial story moments or relegating them to one-liner scene drops. Flat characters, limited momentum. The book spends its time getting a group of characters from point A to point B, Ravnica to the citadel across a plaza essentially. Just very poorly written by, I resent saying this, an author that I feel was most certainly beyond their own capabilities.
The bullet point story moments from the cards, or condensed version of the story were good.
"Bolas OBLITERATED Oketra"
I honestly laughed when I read this. It's like an 8 year old's idea of writing a passage.
"Bolas was growing more powerful"
Really? What did the look or feel like, what does it mean to grow more powerful? Did he appear more youthful, radiate a luminous aura of energy, cast more potent spells thereafter, audibly absorb sparks causing a myriad of eruptions that were deafening? Or he just grew more powerful because Greg told us?
Man, a far cry from Scott McGough's Kamigawa trilogy, and Godsend by Jenna Helland. Those are my favorite.
The overall plot of WAR was fine. Greg Wiesman's novel however, was genuinely deprived. I couldn't believe how many cardinal sins of literature that book took the liberty of making. Telling, now showing. Juvenile vocabulary. Toilet humor. Run-on sentences that included name-dropping characters over properly writing them in. I was surprised Kiora was neglected, given her nature of opposing gods. Relying on capital letters over descriptive language to emphasize distress or gravitas. Internal monologues in capitals. Lack of focus, improper attention to senseless details while neglecting crucial story moments or relegating them to one-liner scene drops. Flat characters, limited momentum. The book spends its time getting a group of characters from point A to point B, Ravnica to the citadel across a plaza essentially. Just very poorly written by, I resent saying this, an author that I feel was most certainly beyond their own capabilities.
Whaa whaa whaa, they neglected my favorite blue planeswalker....
And about 25 others, pal. Kasmina was not featured in the book at all, added just to Rat's story on the webpage. Ashiok not even that. Tibalt mentioned once. Tamiyo and Narset maybe three times, with no speaking part...shall I continue?
And the last sentence about Weisman is laughable. Check his record (what he has written) and then consider that he was given not enough time to write this novel and too much hares to chase. It is so cute to see self-entitled random nobod- posters criticize established authors.
I frankly hope that the sequel (Forsaken) would be better, because there would not be so many characters and things to solve.
I honestly laughed when I read this. It's like an 8 year old's idea of writing a passage.
Taken out of context, it indeed seems laughable. When in the chapter, that intentionally used the capitals to emphasize Bolas's godhood and situation he was in, it fits.
Man, a far cry from Scott McGough's Kamigawa trilogy, and Godsend by Jenna Helland. Those are my favorite.
Well, Kamigawa (and Ravnica) were completely different kind of telling a story, a fact we have to accept. Godsend came close to the feeling of old novels, though there were also worse parts (also stemming from the fact that Jenna was forced to shorten the planned extent of the novel). But the thing is that these old books cannot be compared to War of the Spark, it is like you compared the Godfather trilogy to Avengers.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
100% Vorthos Spike and Storyline Expert
Former Fact Prospector of the Greek Alliance.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
COme now, Avengeer os not master piece of writting, but atleast itas entertaining and cooherant. Actually gives each of the ehroes their spotlight and jsutice. can't say the same for WAR.
COme now, Avengeer os not master piece of writting, but atleast itas entertaining and cooherant. Actually gives each of the ehroes their spotlight and jsutice. can't say the same for WAR.
I do not want to badmouth Avengers But it is about the general mood, number of characters, depth of characters vs. the superhero flick where everyone shall shine for a while. Those are completely different premises each of the pieces comes from and has to build on. And yes, Avengers did that far better than War.
It is not a masterpiece, but it does not deserve Jenrik's -flinging either.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
100% Vorthos Spike and Storyline Expert
Former Fact Prospector of the Greek Alliance.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
-Ral meets with Isperia and Aurelia and the secret of planeswalkers is now being spread among the higher ups of the guilds. Seems Aurelia didn't seem to believe in the tales of other worlds and being who traveled between them.
-Side note: Feather got named dropped here and in the last part of the online war stories implies she was indeed in the War as a peudo-leader.
-Dovin seems pretty open to Isperia when he could have played dumb. Wonder if this a way for him to hide that he working for Bolas, since he been telling the "truth".
-I was right, seems like the living guildpact can be shifted to another person only if all 10 guilders agree to that persona being the new living guildpact.
-Cute part on Ral and Tomik relationship. Interesting to see how it will go with him now guild master.
-Back story on Ral and gives us a bit of insight on his character and why he got so angry when it looked ike Niv lose confidence in him during RtR.
-Well I guess we got pregnant woman Bolas now we got sugar daddy Bolas.
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
The overall plot of WAR was fine. Greg Wiesman's novel however, was genuinely deprived. I couldn't believe how many cardinal sins of literature that book took the liberty of making. Telling, now showing. Juvenile vocabulary. Toilet humor. Run-on sentences that included name-dropping characters over properly writing them in. I was surprised Kiora was neglected, given her nature of opposing gods. Relying on capital letters over descriptive language to emphasize distress or gravitas. Internal monologues in capitals. Lack of focus, improper attention to senseless details while neglecting crucial story moments or relegating them to one-liner scene drops. Flat characters, limited momentum. The book spends its time getting a group of characters from point A to point B, Ravnica to the citadel across a plaza essentially. Just very poorly written by, I resent saying this, an author that I feel was most certainly beyond their own capabilities.
Whaa whaa whaa, they neglected my favorite blue planeswalker....
And about 25 others, pal. Kasmina was not featured in the book at all, added just to Rat's story on the webpage. Ashiok not even that. Tibalt mentioned once. Tamiyo and Narset maybe three times, with no speaking part...shall I continue?
And the last sentence about Weisman is laughable. Check his record (what he has written) and then consider that he was given not enough time to write this novel and too much hares to chase. It is so cute to see self-entitled random nobod- posters criticize established authors.
I frankly hope that the sequel (Forsaken) would be better, because there would not be so many characters and things to solve.
I honestly laughed when I read this. It's like an 8 year old's idea of writing a passage.
Taken out of context, it indeed seems laughable. When in the chapter, that intentionally used the capitals to emphasize Bolas's godhood and situation he was in, it fits.
Man, a far cry from Scott McGough's Kamigawa trilogy, and Godsend by Jenna Helland. Those are my favorite.
Well, Kamigawa (and Ravnica) were completely different kind of telling a story, a fact we have to accept. Godsend came close to the feeling of old novels, though there were also worse parts (also stemming from the fact that Jenna was forced to shorten the planned extent of the novel). But the thing is that these old books cannot be compared to War of the Spark, it is like you compared the Godfather trilogy to Avengers.
Having a critical opinion does not make anyone self-entitled. And I am not alone in the criticism. The novel was very poorly written, and I am aware the majority of characters were neglected, which was a critique I made. Kiora is not my favorite blue walker, that would be Jace, who is my favorite character period. I don't need to explicitly mention every neglected character. But of all the secondary characters that could easily have been given a purpose, I was surprised Kiora wasn't utilized in a battle against a god. It's another sign to me that Weisman really was not familiar with the source material enough to do more than name drop characters.
I am highly critical of this book, which was not good. I can't speak on Weisman's given time frame to complete this, but he accepted the job and as a professional, I expected better than this without having to hear excuses.
I wasn't aware about that with Jenna Helland and Godsend. Where did you learn that? I really wish they hadn't done that to Godsend and let her write it as she intended. Still, it was good.
Playing fast and loose with continuity always leads to bad stories, unless you are jettisoning bad lore with the intention of creating something better you will adhere to in the future. Ignoring continuity makes everything hollow and makes it hard to give a ***** about the story. The reader will notice the contradictions and it will take them out of the story. The reader will find it less worthwhile to pay attention to details as they will be ignored, and the stories become increasingly stripped down affairs that simply detail what happened, which of course can be changed at a later date to fit the sloppy whims of creative.
Nobody plays fast and loose with continuity to tell better stories, they do it becomes they don't have the skill to tell good stories. They see something they think will be cool but conflicts with the lore or character traits or established plot points and character arcs and instead of doing the hard work to bridge the gap, or even just forego it because it won't fit, they choose to ignore what came before and do whatever they want because it's easier. It's easier to write "cool *****" when you don't care about what came before or making anything fit together, you just find a cool idea and write it. The MCU is successful because it largely avoids this, and hides when it does it well enough that most people don't notice. Meanwhile, Game of Thrones went from being one of the best received shows of all time to a ******* joke for this very reason, because the writers were hacks who played fast and loose with continuity to make their "better story" fit.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Playing fast and loose with continuity always leads to bad stories, unless you are jettisoning bad lore with the intention of creating something better you will adhere to in the future. Ignoring continuity makes everything hollow and makes it hard to give a ***** about the story. The reader will notice the contradictions and it will take them out of the story. The reader will find it less worthwhile to pay attention to details as they will be ignored, and the stories become increasingly stripped down affairs that simply detail what happened, which of course can be changed at a later date to fit the sloppy whims of creative.
Nobody plays fast and loose with continuity to tell better stories, they do it becomes they don't have the skill to tell good stories. They see something they think will be cool but conflicts with the lore or character traits or established plot points and character arcs and instead of doing the hard work to bridge the gap, or even just forego it because it won't fit, they choose to ignore what came before and do whatever they want because it's easier. It's easier to write "cool *****" when you don't care about what came before or making anything fit together, you just find a cool idea and write it. The MCU is successful because it largely avoids this, and hides when it does it well enough that most people don't notice. Meanwhile, Game of Thrones went from being one of the best received shows of all time to a ******* joke for this very reason, because the writers were hacks who played fast and loose with continuity to make their "better story" fit.
Everything here; but Game of Thrones wasn't changed to be "better" it was changed to End, which the actual story is something like 20 years away from doing, not because it will be long but because it takes 10+ years for 1 book to come out. This actually happens a lot with Anime, there will be a manga that gets popular then an anime starts up for it, the anime quickly devours all content that existed and then makes ***** up to finish the story rather than leave a cliffhanger that may never get a proper finish. One of the most notorious instances of this, because they went back and fixed it, is Full Metal Alchemist. The ending was one of the worst things ever, but 5 years later when the manga was actually finishing they redid the whole series and it is considered amazing. While it's a rather different problem than magic has it still suffers from it in the abstract, there isn't a unified author behind their lore.
The overall plot of WAR was fine. Greg Wiesman's novel however, was genuinely deprived. I couldn't believe how many cardinal sins of literature that book took the liberty of making.
...
The bullet point story moments from the cards, or condensed version of the story were good.
This. Whatever the book's issues, the actual canon of War of the Spark's story is quite good, and well worth the wait. The events that play out are suitably dramatic, fulfilling, and epic. I just think they should have given the novel to another author.
I am VERY much enjoying Wrexler's prequel overall. The characters feel real and layered, and he really captures the threat of Bolas well. Bolas looms over everything, even if he hasn't shown up yet (except in flashback).
And that was a cool flashback appearance. Bolas is genuinely frightening whenever he appears as a human. There's just something so unexpected, sinister, and uncanny about it. I love how friendly and charming he is, how he actually invites Ral for coffee.
Now I know how Bolas knew enough about sailing to teach Vraska. He has probably been a sailor on a ship before. Gee, I wonder how that voyage went.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I'd rather die speaking the truth than live a lie." --Gix, to Yawgmoth (pre-Phyrexia)
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
http://www.randomhousebooks.com/campaign/magic-gathering-newsletter/
sign up is here
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I think its due to random house publishing the novel and this is a way of payment for it?
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
So, they decided to help, that's it no further mentioning as they didn't get their own chapters to tell us from their perspective.
Was actually hoping for some kind of meaningful resolution, even if it was that they fought it out, realized in the midst of it that they both were to blame, fight the eternals, and then leave to reflect/repair their homes. Not expecting a full blown make up session right away, but something that conveyed a sense that maybe they are moving past this
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
"Part 1"
-We get to see Vraska take over the Golgari.
-Most of the high ranking Devkarin elves and Jarad had the Erstwhile as servants who where secretly working for Vraska which is how she took over the guild.
-We meet the Krul mindmage Xeddick, who later goes on to restore Vraskas memories. Xeddick is used to drain Jareds mind of all the guild info and secrets for Vraska.
-Overall I'm disappointed that Jared shift in character at the end of this from the original Ravnica. I could see him favoring the Devkarin and losing some of his old self as a lich but I wish that had been expanded on.
"Part 2"
-More details on what Kaya was meant to do. Bolas hired Kaya to recuse Teysa and then aid Teysa in killing the Obzedat.
-Teysa herself has been in contact with Bolas.
-Kaya makes contact with Teysa. Teysa decided to stay in her cell to pretend like she knew nothing of Kaya while sending Tomik to make a plan.
-Kaya mentions something called "The Broken Sky" that need to be fix and might be what Bolas might have done to her world.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I'm not going to complain about the fact that 95% of it covers the same events we already saw in the novel. The bonus chapters were meant for people who wanted to follow the story without buying the book, so it makes sense there'd be a lot of redundancy, it's the only way to make sure the people who didn't read the novel were still getting the same story. If anything, I appreciated the fact that there were a few extra scenes here and there, like Kasmina's appearance or Kaya's meeting with the Orzhov ruling council.
My real problem was with the decision to have Rat be the point of view character for all of them. I already mentioned that I thought Rat was irritating: she's a one-note character with an overly contrived conflict, her dialogue is so casual that it takes the reader out of the story (I really dislike the trend of using Buffy/Marvel-style dialogue in otherwise serious works), and she's just such a Mary Sue (the fact that this random untrained teenage girl can take out Eternals with ease makes absolutely no sense). Between her annoyingly cutesy comments, her effortless slaying of Eternals, and her concern over relatively unimportant personal drama in the middle of an active warzone, all of her scenes just serve to make the stakes of the conflict seem lower and make Bolas and his army seem like much less of a real threat. In the novel, it was grating enough, but at least she wasn't that prominent outside of the mission to recruit all the guildmasters. But having six short stories entirely focused on her is just unbearable. Her habit of referring to every single character as "Mister" or "Miss" in her internal monologue was particularly obnoxious, along with the fact that she kept calling the Eternals "creepies" as if they were just normal zombies who weren't worth taking seriously.
Also, leaving aside my many complaints with Rat as a character, I feel like telling the story through a single narrator was just a poor decision for a plot like this. They should've switched between characters so we could see things like the mission to Amonkhet; someone who didn't read the novel and only read the short stories on the website would miss out on so much of the plot. And a lot of the plot points we did see were stripped of all meaning and emotion, like Liliana's betrayal and Gideon's sacrifice; not only were we seeing the moment from the perspective of someone who doesn't know or care about either of them, but we didn't even get to hear any of their dialogue! And this was also a missed opportunity, since there were much more interesting characters we could've gotten perspectives from; for instance, it would've been great to actually find out Dovin's motivations, or what caused Sorin and Nahiri to stop fighting, or how the hell Ashiok was even involved in this event.
The free "bonus chapters" get a 2 out of 10 rating from me. If I'd read them before reading the novel, I would've been incredibly disappointed with War of the Spark as a whole. I doubt I would've even gotten the book, especially knowing it was written by the same person.
The Jarad part is absolutely and totally f***ed up. He is absolutely NOTHING like his old character.
He sounds like a whiny despot, and one moment, he friggin' BLEEDS. A LICH.
Django really messed this part up. Not mention that at the end of Ixalan, Bolas told Vraska that Jarad is imprisoned for her in a particular place.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
I wouldn't blame Django as much, I'm more upset at lining things up and Jared character which are things creative has better control on.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Personally I don't believe it leads to a better story, but whatever.
A friend of mine asked Django himself, and he said he got some outlines about the characters, but, for example, there was never mentioned that he is undead. Like the card Jarad, Golgari LICH Lord with the types ZOMBIE Elf never existed.
This is a big blunder of Creative or whoever gave him bad instructions and info...
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
The bullet point story moments from the cards, or condensed version of the story were good.
"Bolas OBLITERATED Oketra"
I honestly laughed when I read this. It's like an 8 year old's idea of writing a passage.
"Bolas was growing more powerful"
Really? What did the look or feel like, what does it mean to grow more powerful? Did he appear more youthful, radiate a luminous aura of energy, cast more potent spells thereafter, audibly absorb sparks causing a myriad of eruptions that were deafening? Or he just grew more powerful because Greg told us?
Man, a far cry from Scott McGough's Kamigawa trilogy, and Godsend by Jenna Helland. Those are my favorite.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Whaa whaa whaa, they neglected my favorite blue planeswalker....
And about 25 others, pal. Kasmina was not featured in the book at all, added just to Rat's story on the webpage. Ashiok not even that. Tibalt mentioned once. Tamiyo and Narset maybe three times, with no speaking part...shall I continue?
And the last sentence about Weisman is laughable. Check his record (what he has written) and then consider that he was given not enough time to write this novel and too much hares to chase. It is so cute to see self-entitled random
nobod-posters criticize established authors.I frankly hope that the sequel (Forsaken) would be better, because there would not be so many characters and things to solve.
Taken out of context, it indeed seems laughable. When in the chapter, that intentionally used the capitals to emphasize Bolas's godhood and situation he was in, it fits.
Well, Kamigawa (and Ravnica) were completely different kind of telling a story, a fact we have to accept. Godsend came close to the feeling of old novels, though there were also worse parts (also stemming from the fact that Jenna was forced to shorten the planned extent of the novel). But the thing is that these old books cannot be compared to War of the Spark, it is like you compared the Godfather trilogy to Avengers.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
I do not want to badmouth Avengers But it is about the general mood, number of characters, depth of characters vs. the superhero flick where everyone shall shine for a while. Those are completely different premises each of the pieces comes from and has to build on. And yes, Avengers did that far better than War.
It is not a masterpiece, but it does not deserve Jenrik's -flinging either.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
-Ral meets with Isperia and Aurelia and the secret of planeswalkers is now being spread among the higher ups of the guilds. Seems Aurelia didn't seem to believe in the tales of other worlds and being who traveled between them.
-Side note: Feather got named dropped here and in the last part of the online war stories implies she was indeed in the War as a peudo-leader.
-Dovin seems pretty open to Isperia when he could have played dumb. Wonder if this a way for him to hide that he working for Bolas, since he been telling the "truth".
-I was right, seems like the living guildpact can be shifted to another person only if all 10 guilders agree to that persona being the new living guildpact.
-Cute part on Ral and Tomik relationship. Interesting to see how it will go with him now guild master.
-Back story on Ral and gives us a bit of insight on his character and why he got so angry when it looked ike Niv lose confidence in him during RtR.
-Well I guess we got pregnant woman Bolas now we got sugar daddy Bolas.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I am highly critical of this book, which was not good. I can't speak on Weisman's given time frame to complete this, but he accepted the job and as a professional, I expected better than this without having to hear excuses.
I wasn't aware about that with Jenna Helland and Godsend. Where did you learn that? I really wish they hadn't done that to Godsend and let her write it as she intended. Still, it was good.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Nobody plays fast and loose with continuity to tell better stories, they do it becomes they don't have the skill to tell good stories. They see something they think will be cool but conflicts with the lore or character traits or established plot points and character arcs and instead of doing the hard work to bridge the gap, or even just forego it because it won't fit, they choose to ignore what came before and do whatever they want because it's easier. It's easier to write "cool *****" when you don't care about what came before or making anything fit together, you just find a cool idea and write it. The MCU is successful because it largely avoids this, and hides when it does it well enough that most people don't notice. Meanwhile, Game of Thrones went from being one of the best received shows of all time to a ******* joke for this very reason, because the writers were hacks who played fast and loose with continuity to make their "better story" fit.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
This. Whatever the book's issues, the actual canon of War of the Spark's story is quite good, and well worth the wait. The events that play out are suitably dramatic, fulfilling, and epic. I just think they should have given the novel to another author.
I am VERY much enjoying Wrexler's prequel overall. The characters feel real and layered, and he really captures the threat of Bolas well. Bolas looms over everything, even if he hasn't shown up yet (except in flashback).
And that was a cool flashback appearance. Bolas is genuinely frightening whenever he appears as a human. There's just something so unexpected, sinister, and uncanny about it. I love how friendly and charming he is, how he actually invites Ral for coffee.
Now I know how Bolas knew enough about sailing to teach Vraska. He has probably been a sailor on a ship before. Gee, I wonder how that voyage went.