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Title: Lies of Light
Subtitle: Forgotten Realms: Watercourse Trilogy, Book 2
Author: Philip Athans
Narrator: Joey Pepin
Format: Unabridged
Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
Language: English
Release date: 01-08-13
Publisher: Audible Studios
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 3 votes
Genres: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fantasy: Epic
Publisher's Summary:
Philip Athans, the New York Times best-selling author of Annihilation, continues the epic saga begun in Whisper of Waves of a man consumed by his obsession and driven by an overwhelming vision of what might be.
The Wizard: Furthering the plots of the Red Wizards of Thay while spinning his own webs, he works in the shadows, manipulating the highest reaches of power.
The Woman: Tormented by the ghosts of the past and her own passions, she walks the fine line between sanity and madness, and her obsession may destroy the one thing she loves most.
The Man: A visionary who cares nothing for the petty squabbling of those in power, his one desire is to accomplish his greatest work.
Members Reviews:
"The assassin twisted the handle of his long axe...
...and broke Kolviss's head open like an egg." (p.114)
Lies of Light picks up from where Whisper of Waves left off. Set on the shores of the Lake of Steam, in the port city-state of Innarlith, the book describes the (rather dull) story of mainly five characters: two engineers from Cormyr, Willem Korvan and Ivor Devorast, a Red Wizard of Thay named Marek Rymut, a young noblewoman, part-time rogue, and native of Innarlith named Phyrea, and Pristoleph, a fire genasi (!), as they go about their respective business in the city of Innarlith.
The book starts off very well with chapter 1 and then it's downhill all the way to chapter 32 on page 145 (almost half way through) where it picks up again... As in the case of Whisper of Waves one immediately feels the difference in mood compared to other Forgotten Realms (FR) novels, especially the older ones; this is definitely not your second edition era FR novel!
The plot continues to swerve all over the place and to a great extent fails to keep the reader's interest and attention. Philip Athans once again seems to have a grasp of essential knowledge relevant to Faerun, but doesn't do much with it. Other drawbacks include the ongoing dryness vis-à-vis the main characters, which makes reading the novel all too often so very boooooring!!! Due to the characters being weak, delusional, and self destructive, the reader does not care for them, feeling frustrated instead.
Moreover, the Zhentarim's sudden and short lived appearance failed in its goal to raise interest and because it was so badly done it had the opposite effect; I never thought I would ever feel disdain at the appearance of the Black Network.
Furthermore, the black dragon Insithryllax in both Whisper of Waves and Lies of Light is clearly lawful evil and not chaotic evil as it should be.
In addition, there are inconceivable spelling mistakes throughout the book that indicate poor performance all around, such as on pages 74-75 where it should read "an ounce" not "an once of political ambition," "handle" instead of "... the axe handl" (p.101), "Civility" instead of "Civilityh" (p.173), and "Red Wizard" not "Red Wizards" (p.204), while the last word in the first line of Chapter 32 should be "she" and not "he" (p.145).
That said, Philip Athans provides in Chapter 1 an extraordinary description of undead at work: "The ghast took another bite, a mouthful of bloody skin from the dead man's thigh. It came off with a tearing sound, duller than fabric...