Elminster in Myth Drannor: Introduction and Table of Contents

[masterghandalf]

Elminster in Myth Drannor

By Ed Greenwood

Alternate Title: Elminster in the City of Fanservice or A Game of Elves
SPORKER: MasterGhandalf

SUMMARY

Having overthrown the Magelords who ruled his homeland of Athalantar, Elminster has been sent by Mystra on a new mission – travel to the elven kingdom of Cormanthor, there to study the elves’ magic, and eventually to fulfil some unexplained role the goddess intends for him. When he gets there… well, we will get to that plot, eventually. But in the meantime, there’s going to be a whole, whole lot Greenwood’s loving descriptions of scantily clad elves and Elminster thwarting constant assassination attempts, and by the end we’ll probably all be so heartily sick of Cormanthor we’ll be wondering why anyone even wants to save it in the first place. Also, the appropriateness of the book’s title is… debatable. All of this and more awaits in the second installment of the Elminster Trilogy, if you dare…





Introduction

I have a confession to make for you all… I actually like elves. Of all the “stock” fantasy humanoids, they are easily my favorite, for reasons I have a very hard time putting into words. Of course, all of this should come with one very significant caveat – I think there are very, very few fantasy writers who do elves well. To borrow a turn of phrase from one of those writers, JRR Tolkien, I think that ideally elves should be “perilous and fair,” but the right balance is apparently very hard for people to hit. Lean too hard into “fair” and you usually get Sue-elves, who are beautiful and powerful and Better Than You and have the author on their side to prove it, and thus never shut up about it. Lean too far into “perilous” and you get asshole-elves, who are not better than you and don’t have the author on their side, but sure as the Nine Hells think they are and do, and also never shut up about it, which is equally obnoxious. In the context of Faerun and the Forgotten Realms novel line, in my experience it’s near-universally agreed that Elaine Cunningham (during the 2e and 3e eras, arguably the third most prominent Realms novelist after Greenwood himself and RA Salvatore, though Erin M. Evans probably supplanted her in the ranking during 4e and 5e) is by far the best writer of elves and just gets them better than anyone else.

Ed Greenwood is not someone I’d consider a good writer of elves.

This fact is unfortunate, considering that Elminster in Myth Drannor, which takes place in the last of the great elven kingdoms of the Faerunian mainland, is, as one would expect, highly concerned with them. As to where Greenwood’s elves fall on the “fair vs perilous” scale, I’d place them somewhere in the middle, varying based on the individual. Some elves, he clearly really likes, though they fall into the same pitfalls that plague all his pet characters (ie, OPness, protagonist-centered morality, etc.). Others… he doesn’t like at all. These elves, if anything, seem to be almost a Scary Sue race, to borrow Mervin’s term, existing solely to hate Elminster and be horrible to him, and then be shown up (and often killed) when confronted with his actual “brilliance” (and no small amount of divine favoritism) so that we can all see how awesome he really was and how bad they were for ever doubting him.

Story wise, Elminster in Myth Drannor is the direct sequel to Making of a Mage, picking up a few weeks afterwards at most (though it leaves its setting, and almost all of its characters and plot threads, with a few exceptions, behind). In the real world, however, it came out three years later, in 1997, with the Shadow of the Avatar trilogy (which will likely by my next Greenwood sporking after this one) being released out between them (it would in turn be followed by The Temptation of Elminster, last of the Elminster prequel trilogy, a year later). Its actual execution is… muddled. For one, having given himself an entire city of hot elves to play with, Greenwood goes a little wild; if you cut out all the drooling descriptions of sexy elf-maids and their sexy outfits (which often don’t cover very much…) I’m sure the book would be measurably shorter. For another, Greenwood is clearly trying to write a Game of Thrones style story of aristocratic political intrigue (though considering the real-world timelines of both their books, I doubt Martin was a direct influence), but there are so many players and most of them get so little development it feels almost impossible to keep everyone straight, or to care about their machinations. Between those factors, the actual main plot takes an embarrassingly long time to kick in and feels extremely rushed, while critical characters are introduced and then have their arcs and development shockingly rushed or otherwise poorly handled. The good news is that Cormanthor, for once, is a setting quite different from Greenwood’s usual “interchangeable wildernesses and human kingdoms,” so for the first time in my sporking of him we actually do get to see a genuine glimmer of Ed Greenwood the worldbuilder shining through the mess that is Ed Greenwood the storyteller. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s nearly enough to make up for the book’s many other flaws. But we’ll have a chance to see for ourselves soon enough!




Table of Contents

CHAPTERS

Prologue

Part I: Human
Chapter One: Savage Trails and Scepters
Chapter Two: Death and Gems
Chapter Three: Fell Magic and a Fair City
Chapter Four: Home Again the Hunter
Chapter Five: To Call on the Coronal
Chapter Six: The Vault of Ages

Part II: Armathor
Chapter Seven: Every Pool its Party
Chapter Eight: The Uses of a Human
Chapter Nine: Duel by Day, Revel by Night
Chapter Ten: Love Oft Astray
Chapter Eleven: To Hunt a Human
Chapter Twelve: The Stag at Bay
Chapter Thirteen: Adrift in Cormanthor
Chapter Fourteen: Anger at Court
Chapter Fifteen: A Mythal, Maybe
Chapter Sixteen: Masked Mages

Part III: Mythal
Chapter Seventeen: Apprenticed Again
Chapter Eighteen: In the Web
Chapter Nineteen: More Anger at Court
Chapter Twenty: Spellstorm at Court

Epilogue

Final Thoughts