Product Description
Heroes Stand Trial!
When Elminster, the Old Sage of Shadowdale, is apparently slain, Midnight and Adon stand trial for his murder.
When Bane, god of murder, and his allies seek the lost Tablets of Fate, a slender dark-haired woman is all that stands between Faerûn and disaster.
When a friend betrays them, Midnight and her companions can trust no one.
Anonymous @ 5:30 am
The Gods of the Forgotten Realms still wander among the mortals, since the Tablets of Fate have not been returned to the Gods’ overlord, Lord Ao. The assault by Bane’s Zhentish forces on Shadowdale has been repulsed, but Elminster has gone missing during the battle and is presumed destroyed. The Dalesman put Midnight and Adon on trial for Elminster’s murder. But Cyric kills several guards and succeeds in freeing Midnight and Adon, and together the three flee down the River Ashaba and away from Shadowdale. Kelemvor and a force of Dalesmen are sent in pursuit. The chase leads to the occupied city of Scardale, then across the water to the city of Tantras, which will witness a titanic struggle between Bane and Torm, God of Duty and Honor. Along the way, loyalties shift and alliances fracture. By the end of “Tantras,” the characters of Midnight, Adon, Kelemvor, and Cyric will be remarkably different than they were at the end of “Shadowdale.”
Another reviewer said that this book doesn’t work well as a bridge between the lst (“Shadowdale”) and 3rd (“Waterdeep”) books of the series. I disagree.
This book does not stand on equal footing with the other two books. That being said, “Tantras” is just as good as the others. “Well, wait a minute,” you’re saying. “Didn’t you just say it wasn’t as good?” No, that’s not what I said. I said it doesn’t stand on equal footing. That’s because it’s a different kind of book. The only reason this book was written, in my opinion, was to set the stage for “Waterdeep” by exploring the different characters and their different motivations in depth. The best part of the book is the journey down the river, because it allows the reader to get insider Cyric’s, Midnight’s, and Kelemvor’s heads and understand what makes them tick. Since Adon is still catatonic for that part of the journey, his motivations don’t get the same in-depth treatment.
If you’ve read “Shadowdale,” buy this book. If you haven’t, read “Shadowdale” first, because the changes that take place in the main characters will be more profound with the background of “Shadowdale.”
Yu-jin Chia @ 7:02 am
This is a classic Forgotten Realms trilogy, and reading it is pretty necessary if you want to make sense of a lot of the goings-on in the Realms. This is especially the case if you care a whit about the FR pantheon, since a lot of the material comes from these books. I have to admit, this was really the only reason I picked them up, and I went ahead and got all three at once.
After reading Shadowdale, I seriously regretted it. Frankly, I couldn’t (and still can’t) believe that book is the start of a classic anything- let alone a FR trilogy. Compared to any of Salvatore, Denning, or Cunningham’s novels, it is utterly pathetic. The characters are flat, and the book reads like a transcript from some Dungeon Master’s game (and not a very good DM, at that). Despite the fact that I already had the other two, I was somewhat reluctant to continue.
Fans of the Realms, take heart. This book is good enough that I’ve forgotten most of the unpleasantries of Shadowdale. I’m pleased to say that Tantras is a huge improvement over its predecessor. It is supposedly written by the same author, Scott Ciencin (a.k.a. Richard Awlinson) and if this really is the same author’s work, then he has seriously improved. It’s true that the characters are still a bit undeveloped, but at least they don’t act like cranky, somewhat deranged children anymore. I’m still not quite sure why Adon is even present, but he does at least do something useful in this book. Additionally, some of the perplexing, seemingly random events that took place in Shadowdale are given at least a partial explanation. For example, the haunted woods that appeared out of nowhere to waylay our heroes was just nature gone bad. Oh.
The villains here are largely what they were before, plus one that you can probably figure out if you’ve read the FR Campaign Setting. More or less, Midnight, Kelemvor, Adon, and a few extras in red shirts (who die just as quickly as you would expect) are done mucking around and fighting the good fight for people that would rather just hang them. Now they’re getting down to business- namely, securing the Tablets of Fate and stopping all the madness. The heroes journey to exotic new places, meet exciting new people, and of course kill them. It’s not a very deep or thought-provoking plot, but it is engrossing and fun. In the meantime, ham-fisted but heavily-armed Bane and his ugly sidekick Myrkul are up to their usual no-good, and you can expect to see great deals of violence and slaughter that would seem to indicate that the God of the Dead is the only one winning this whole show… but that’s to be decided.
For those that suffered through Shadowdale and thought it to be drivel, it would be a shame to not read Tantras. This is your reward for putting up with the heroes in the first book, and it does satisfy. While still not up to par with some of the other ‘non-classic’ Forgotten Realms novels, this one is at least enjoyable enough to recommend.
L Gontzes @ 7:52 am
Definitely a great fantasy epic and one of my personal favorites, The Avatar Trilogy- Shadowdale, Tantras, and Waterdeep, is about the Time of Troubles when the Gods walked the Earth (in this case Toril). The books are so incredibly well written that the reader feels that they have been transported to another plane of existence and are actually present among the characters, seeing what they see, feeling what they feel, sensing what they sense. The authors have truly outdone themselves and have presented us with a masterpiece of literature the likes of which we have seen only in JRR Tolkien’s work, RA Salvatore’s The Dark Elf and Icewind Dale trilogies, and in authors Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends trilogies. Love, honor, bravery, magic, and heroes are all about. In conclusion, it’s what Fantasy reading SHOULD be. A GREAT trilogy indeed and a “must read” along with James Lowder’s Prince of Lies and Troy Denning’s Crucible: The Trial of Cyric! DON’T MISS IT!!!
Eduardo Luis Costas @ 10:09 am
OK. So here we have the second installment in a series in which I didn’t have much faith in after finishing the first book SHADOWDALE (Refer to my review for it.) The first thing I found annoying was the whole trial ordeal. With very little development, and alot of circumstancial evidence, the Authors (remember, Richard Awlinson is a pseudonym for various Authors) hope to make us believe that the heroes of the story, after putting their lives on the line to save Shadowdale, are accused of killing the sage Eliminster (I think I spelled it right) because A: Eliminster was nowhere to be found, only his hat and bits of his robe were around, and B: the ranger Silver… something, was very angry. Honest. Thas how it is presented. It is believable that the townspeople might see things like the way they were presented, but to have us (the reader) believe that the Lord of the town would also accuse them without giving them the benefit of the doubt, makes for poor characterization, and a King (Or whatever he was) that is not even memorable. Well, in this book, I feel as if the characters start to show signs of a more developed personality (whether by design of the authors or just the fact that I know the characters from the first book.) the authors also make some headway into not only telling us more about what drives the characters, but also start being more descriptive about the surroundings and events the heroes are faced with. I recognize that this was probably the first attempt to write a novel by both authors (Or whomever else colaborated.) Again, I felt as though the characters were lacking in personality, that the authors did not spend time developing the scenery where events took place, or the personalities of the characters, which I think is crucial to any story. What a character is feeling, thinking, and what drives him, are essential (in my humble opinion) to making people care enough about a story to read it. When they showed it, it seemed forced, sorta because they probably were told it was missing. They were probably more worried about the action in the story (Which is a mistake, the action doesn’t make the story, it just spices it up) In the end, it was a little more improved, but still lacking in most respects. The end battle between Torm and Bane was sorta cookie-cutter/Clash of the Titans style. I hope the third fares better.
Read the Elven Nations Trilogy, its very good stuff.
Anonymous @ 11:42 am
“Tantras”, second in the epic Realms shattering Avatar Trilogy, continues where “Shadowdale” left off. We continue to follow the pawns of deific machinations toward their fated end, watching, as the entire world seems to collapse around them. Will it, or will they succeed in their fated quest to right what the gods themselves put wrong? Read the book.
In my estimation, as I’ve read the series twice, “Tantras” functions not as much as a bridge between “Shadowdale” and “Waterdeep” but as an integral portion of the tale as a whole. Yes, while the distances traveled and questions asked and answered in the previous and subsequent novels may prove larger, and in more numbers, this title serves as the story of Cyric. Other reviewers, here as in other locales, have claimed the change in Cyric’s allegiance too swift and without build up. I have to disagree, while they may not overtly flag the signs of his inner workings, enough is put forth in the first title, as well as throughout this title to validate any character developments. It has also been proposed that the characters within these titles are flat and without development. I again disagree; I felt that by the end of the novels I knew the characters, especially Kelemvor and Cyric. I have to admit that the catatonic state in which Adon spent most of the first book sat poorly with me the first time I read it; however, as I grew in understanding of the mindset within the Sunite clergy, it grew to make perfect sense. I recommend this title, as well as the others in the avatar series:
“Shadowdale” & “Waterdeep” by Richard Awlinson, The Shadows of the Avatar Series by Ed Greenwood, “Prince of Lies” by James Lowder, and “Crucible: Trial of Cyric the Mad” by Troy Denning.