Fisrt up, I got to say Sharn is a pretty cool city. It’s a really neat concept: a city built vertically through massive towers, subterranean caverns, and a healthy dose of floating islands and lofts. It has a strong array of every sentient race in the D & D game, good and evil, from humans to mind flayers to new races like the warforged and changelings.
In to this city come three arrivals from the destroyed country of Cyre. The book’s kind of unclear about the history of the country,.the ward that destroyed it, or The Mourning that took its place, at least until you get to the appendix and glossary. Personally, I’m of the feeling that I shouldn’t have to reference sections in the back of the book regularly to understand the book as a new reader. Admittedly it saves some exposition in the narrative itself, but I’d rather have seen them work in some of the background details of the world as we work through the novel, revealing the secrets of the world at a steady pace. Instead, Baker takes a different tact to build the secrecy of the novel; one that definitely has its ups and its downs. More on that in a moment.
The cast seems to be quite well thought out. We have the fighter lead, simply named Daine, whose past is cloaked in shadows. The artificer Lei is the chief momentum for the story of the early part of the book, as she returns to the city for her arranged marriage, only to learn that her house now shuns her. Jode is a halfling bearing a healing dragonmark, which are apparently mystical tattoos passed through the large houses that give specific powers to those in each house. Finally, Pierce is a warforged archer and scout, a giant crafted being that finds itself with little purpose now that the war is at an end. The party definitely works, and it does a good job of putting the fighter/thief/wizard/priest set-up of an average D & D campaign on its side. All the characters seem well written, though at times I’m left to wonder if some of the uses of their special abilities would actually work in the actual game. However, that’s a problem I have with much of Wizards of the Coast’s fiction, so I won’t gripe about it too much here. We’re just chalk it up to artistic lisence.
While the characters do seem to have elaborate backstories and well-developed personalities, it’s through them we find the books chief weakness. For some reason, Baker chooses to move us through the book without a strong focal point character. This coupled with his selective omniscient writing that lets us in to the characters’ feelings (on occasion) but not in to their thoughts. It weakens the writing overall and seems to be little more than a way to keep the secrets the author wanted to hold off until the end of the book. Instead, it just hurts my enjoyment of the book. I really hate the endless conversations and musings about each other’s pasts, but the inability of these supposed friends to ever comment to one another about their feelings, or to even hint at their secrets through their thoughts and actions. Instead we get Daine meeting people the others are surprised he knows, with little explanation until the end as to why he knows them. It serves to make me impatient and annoyed, not to keep me in suspense.
Nonetheless, I’ve got to say I enjoy the overall story of City of Towers. Contrary to much of the game-related fantasy on the market, City of Towers revolves more around mystery solving and intrigue than out and out fighting (though there’s still plenty of that). Baker breathes life in to the city, which is enough alone to make me want to pick up the next book. I’m guessing fans of the Eberron setting will really enjoy this book, while casual fans with a passing interest, will probably find something they like. But I doubt many non-D&D fans will get much enjoyment out of the book, as it is utterly steeped in the setting. Hopefully, Baker will strengthen his prose a bit by the next book; if he does so I will say it could be a winner.
