“You should be that lucky, elf… After the evil you brought into the Realms, I’ll send you to the Nine Hells to look for Elminster before I let you die a peaceful death…”
-Storm to Galaeron, “The Siege”
“The Siege” is the second book in the Return of the Archwizards Trilogy, or the most current trilogy dealing the most current Realms Shaking Events – the second most recent being that whole sea-monster war thing.
Troy Denning pens this series – he has also written “Beyond the High Road” and “Death of the Dragon” with Ed Greenwood, among other books.
"The dream of reclaiming the Anauroch and driving out the phaerimm was really all there was of Talamont Tanthul."
-The Siege.
The Siege picks up several months after the end of “The Summoning,” which had the Netherise floating city of Shade return to Faerun from the plane of shadow on new years day, 1372. Thought out the book we get to meet all of the surviving Brothers Tanthul. Not an auspicious start to the year.
Galaeron – the elf that inadvertently set the phaerimm free and actively helped the Shades return – is living in Shade. Also with him are Malik (a seraph of lies working for Cyric, first introduced in “Crucible of Cyric”), Aris (a friendly and artistic stone giant) and Vala (a Xena-type of woman from Vassa working off a dept of honor to the Shades). Ruha (a Bedine witch and another old character of Denning’s) joins this ensemble early on.
The Shades are enjoying a somewhat touchy honeymoon with the various local governments of Faerun, such as Cormyr and Waterdeep. These are the only two places were a visit is detailed, but it is inferred that the Shades have been busy else were, such as the large cities in the Western Heartlands, Sembia, the Silver Marches, etc.
A great many of these governments are contributing the war against the phaerimm. For their trouble, they are suffering horrific losses and only slowing the phaerimm.
Later on, Galaeron – who is falling to his shadow side – betrays the Shades and sets even more events in motion. This culminates in the Shades tossing the Faerunians to the phaerimm, armies being wiped out, a prince of Shade dying, Alusair throwing Galaeron and friends into the dungeon, Vangy creating a powerful magical weapon, Caladnei participating in a dangerous desert raid, Laeral getting an arm cut off and a radical reduction in the property value in Tilverton – the destruction is detailed.
To say more would spoil the surprises.
“…the phaerimm won.”
-Aris the Stone Giant, The Siege.
The Good:
It is nice to see Ruha again and the introduction of Caladnei is well handled.
There is plenty of action, both big and small – one-on-one fight sequences and great bloody battles.
There is also a lot of intrigue going on – everyone is trying to trick everyone else and at the same time trying to guess what everyone else is actually doing.
The ending of the second book creates more dramatic tension and sense of bleakness than did the first one. The situation looks bad right about now in Faerun.
In the first book all the bad guys – well, all the humanoid bad-guys at any rate – were all described as “swarthy.” To his credit in the second book, Denning moves beyond this. When viewed with something like a “true sight” spell, the shades appear as they really are – not “swarthy” people but something inhuman between life and death. This eliminates the accidentally racist flavor to the bad guys.
There is relatively little exposition given to explaining what happened in book one. What exposition that does come is scattered through out the book, not just dumped into chapter one. This is an interesting departure from tradition and to be praised.
Several Chosen appear and they manage to keep their cloths on. Kudos.
The Bad:
If you do not like big battles, do not bother reading this book.
Elminster is still missing – how long is he supposed to have been in hell? A day or two or five months or so?
The perky elf woman – whose names escapes me as of this writing - who was jonesing for Galaeron in book one has just vanished. Aside from being briefly mentioned, she makes no appearances. Pity. She was more truly interesting than Vala, who seems like another Xena type.
None of the heroes – none at all – really come across as people with any kind of integrity, moral turpitude or as trust worthy. Whom the hell are you supposed to trust? The humble pig farmers? Oh, wait - their bad too, in the Magehound at any rate. Well, maybe we can trust the humble Shepard’s.
The description of the shades from FRCS and LoD does not mesh with the one in “The Siege.” However, in Denning’s descriptions are more intriguing. This is simply put into the “bad” category because it suggests a lack of communication between the novels department and the game writers.
It defiantly has a “current world killing crisis” feel to it. Comic book companies do they same thing each summer - some horrific crossover crisis that boosts sales. This set of books is the same - but this is not Denning’s fault, but a decision on part of the editorial staff.
Overall, a good FR book. Worth picking up, but to understand every thing going on, you will need to read Book one.
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