The Continuation Of The Spider Queen Series

books:


	• Sacrifice of the Widow (Forgotten Realms: The Lady Penitent, Book 1) Lisa Smedman Wizards of the Coast, 2007 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A great beginning

She had the best book in War of Spider Queen series and now she finally has her own series about Drow. Lisa rocks!!!

Great book

This is one of the few books I have read that I dreaded getting to the ending. I am currently reading the second book and I do not want to read to fast because it is that entertaining.

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The Continuation Of The Spider Queen Series

At this moment I am only half way through reading this book. I am an avid drow fan; I love everything drow!!! The series that preludes this book is War Of The Spider Queen. War Of The Spider Queen was notorious for having been writen by multiple authors who seemed to divert the character's personalities/ambitions with each new book. It was one of the most depressing books ever written, but then again it's focus was Lolth Hell, which has no hope. This book, Sacrifice Of The Widow, is well writen. There is no way to tell at this time if good or evil will win the day. That is enough to string me along when reading. There is one central character, Q'arlynd, whose plight is the most interesting. He doesn't have the flashy personality of the previous drow we loved but he is interesting enough to want to follow through to see his ultimate end in the universe. That is all I know at this time.

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Should have been better

Sacrifice of the Widow is the first book in the new trilogy by Lisa Smedman, and being a spin-off of War of the Spider Queen series, it is strongly suggested, but not necessary to read the 6 book series first.
This book has a very strong plot, supported by several equally strong subplots. The story flows nicely, makes you turn page after page. Writing is, like we got used to from Miss Smedman, fluid and coherent. Believable dialogues, rich but not straggling descriptions, with little repetition necessary in order to keep reader in touch with all the subplots going on.
Book's main character, the Wizard Q'arlynd Melarn is a likable fellow, in many ways similar to Pharaun Mizzrym from WotSQ series. A pure egocentric survivalist, with sporadic "attacks" of soft heart. He gets decent space for development, which is unfortunately not the case with other characters.
This novel has a lot of characters that play more or less important roles in it. Problem is none of them, except the above mentioned Q'arlynd, get any substance throughout the book. They stay just names on paper. Three or four priestesses of Dark Maiden feature in the book, and sadly they differ only by their names.
The thing that bothered me the MOST in this book, is the constant resurrecting of the characters. I have never seen such abuse of it in any Forgotten Realms novel, and I read them all. I am aware that it is the part of D&D game mechanics, but for goodness' sake, a game is a game, a novel is a novel. Characters fall, just to get resurrected in the next chapter. Took the thrill out of it completely for me.
All in all, could have been a really nice novel, if not for the resurrection thing. As it is, just mediocre. I hope we don't see any more of that in the next two installments.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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