The gist:

Twilight Falling (Forgotten Realms: The Erevis Cale Trilogy) was an OK book, but I fully agree with the Amazon reviewer who made the remark about “Riven sneered”.

Full comments:

The book wasn’t bad, though I’ve read better stories. Perhaps it would have helped my enjoyment had I read the previous trilogy, but I’m not patient enough to go that far back. As it is it’s safe to say that I enjoyed it, but it’s also safe to say that it’s not going into my list of favorites.

I’m not sure if I want to buy the next book in the series as I had planned, but I will check the local libraries to see if it’s available. That’s not to knock the book or the author, but it’s not a classic like The Legend of Huma, or the books in The Time of The Twins, or even some of the Xanth books. Those are all books that you display on a shelf, if for no other reason than as conversation pieces.

That’s not to say that Twilight Falling was bad. It certainly wasn’t. I definitely do want to read the next book in the series, I’m just not so certain that I want to spend money on the book, plus shipping costs, and then give it permanent shelf life.

One of the biggest problems is that I never found myself caring about the characters, and this is probably where past trilogies would have helped. I didn’t care if the people in the manse - including Erevis’ love interest - were slaughtered. To me, they were all just flat characters to move along the plot. Heck, I didn’t even care all that much if Jak died or not, or what the conclusion of his internal struggle would be.

That brings me to another point: It was predictable. Certain characters may as well have been wearing red shirts to announce their inevitable deaths. This was on top of finding myself simply not caring about any of the characters.

Lastly, I get the point: Riven sneers. A lot. Every comment made to him, every look shot at him, every gestured made anywhere within his point of view, nearly every emotion that he has; they will all elicit a sneer. We get that. Sadly, it’s forced down the reader’s retinas every couple of pages: “Riven sneered”, or occasionally the more flowery descriptive, “Riven simply sneered.”

Yes, it played into an apparently important plot point at the end, but it was over played.

For all of its faults, it wasn’t terrible. The next book in the series is worth reading, and I am curious to see how the trilogy finishes up. It does give the impression that it’s a story about so much more than just “kill the evil guy and we win”. I expect larger things to be happening in this world that I’ve peeked into, and while there were some speed bumps along the way the author nonetheless has me curious about what happens next.

Twilight Falling (Forgotten Realms: The Erevis Cale Trilogy) is an OK book to pick up and read. Surely there are better, but you could certainly do worse.

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