Shadow Moon is the opening volume in a trilogy that follows the movie Willow. Set in the same world, and has some of the same characters going around to save the world again with Elora Danan, though this time Elora is thirteen years older and a pompous brat. Willow has changed identities, I still do not understand why, to move about the world in hopes of fixing the damage caused by the night of Cataclysm some time ago.

Thorn Drumheller, Willow’s new name, travels about with the brownies from the movies and some eagles before he encounters a pack of death dogs trailing the Daikini warrior Geryn. Thorn saves him, and the two travel to see the Ascension of Elora Danan, but try as they might, chaos ensues and the world goes to hell.

This book is good, solid and in part confusing as hell. Claremont and Lucas pack the details in and ratchet up the drama with unbelievable stunts and rescues. Building on what the reader may remember about the movies, Claremont and Lucas change what we may have thought that this world had to offer (the one story of the Willow movie) and gives a nice story to fantasy readers.

With a decent pace and somewhat believable characters, Lucas hopes that most reader will rekindle the magic that they had while watching Willow. It’s a nice way of seeing the story continue in a world powered by our imaginations as opposed to Hollywood’s. Some readers may want to revisit the movie again to get a better feel for the characters’ voices, though not necessary (I can still remember how the brownies sound in the film), as the story breaks their voices into something else as the book develops. Not great, not bad, but a noticeable change as the world is shifted closer to chaos and ruin.

Overall, I think that gamemasters will get good plot ideas out of this book, and how to tweak them for their own settings and I believe that readers will enjoy the story and its story-book feel. I do look forward to the rest of the trilogy, if only to see how things end up for Willow and his crew.

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