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For those of you wanting to read through this anthology unspoiled, beware. I’m prone to explain things that shouldn’t and gloss over parts that shouldn’t be glossed over, plus, more than likely, I’m prone to ruin your enjoyment with a badly placed opinion or two.
Halls of Stormweather is set in Forgotten Realm’s Sembia region, more specifically, in the city of Selgaunt. Focused on one family’s trials and tribulations, Halls of Stormweather comes across disjointed, each author favoring a character that would later become stars in their own books or series (Black Wolf is one example).
Meant to setup the remaining books in the Sembia series, Halls of Stormweather doesn’t give enough to some characters, while leaving the reader to desire more about one or two of the characters. In this respect, Halls of Stormweather succeeds, having created a desire the audience to read more. Unfortunately, the reader has to swallow and large dose of backstory, which doesn’t help the first tale along for starters, before getting anywhere.
Greenwood’s patriarchal character, Thamalon the Elder, focus of the first story, basically has the reader sit down and listen to the less than thrilling backstory of the Uskevren family, and its main relic, the Burning Chalice. This chalice is meant to burn the hands of any not of Uskevren blood, and it’s only mentioned in this first story as a plot device that has a “lost relative” returning to take his place as head of the household. Other than some cool swordplay, we never really delve into the makeup of this character, and after this story, I don’t care that much about him to avidly seek out the follow-up. The dry writing keeps a distance between the character and reader compassion, not a good way to prompt the completion of the anthology.
Byers’s matriarchal figure of Shamur Uskevren hints at thrilling identity confusion that plays throughout the rest of the anthology. Shamur has a hidden past, and uses parts of it to solve an unraveling reality at an opera house. The character feels more personal than Greenwood’s Thamalon, but suffers as the follow up of that tale. I keep expecting something related to the chalice plot thread that I felt was gladly ignored by the rest, instead we’re treated to the varying sides of Uskevren women—powerful figures, though limited by their Sembian surroundings.
Thamalon the Younger makes Emery’s entry into the anthology a lackluster sell. “Deuce,” to his friends, suffers a series of misadventures that seem happenstance to the family business. Deuce discovers, holistically by accident, that he’s being stalked and that his capture is meant to make his father more pliable in gaining access to the Uskevren fortunes. Deuce, while the story is good and lighthearted, doesn’t come across that well to the reader as a solidly developed character that we’d like to read more of. Emery’s handling of the story isn’t bad; it’s just hard to just follow a character around that bumps into adventure.
Whitney-Robinson’s Tazi, er, Thazienne is the adventurous daughter of the family, unwittingly following in her mother’s footsteps. Her wanton use of her sexuality to undermine her family’s desire to have her wed unravels one of her adventures. She meant to retrieve a small earring and extricate herself from a too-strong suitor, but it ends up she finds out one of her friends had been working with Thamalon to keep her out of trouble. Whitnet-Robinson does a solid job of balancing the noble-hearted, quick fingered Tazi as a character that the audience should get to know and follow, her tale ends with a forward glance at the underpinnings of her identity as a noble and as a rogue.
Talbot is Gross’s light hearted character that later stars in the Black Wolf. I came to this story already knowing the ending of it, as I read the Black Wolf first, and its hard to judge whether or not I would have read the Black Wolf after this tale or not. I had already enjoyed Talbot’s denigration into his curse, or his struggle with it, that here it appears only as a stage rehearsal for the events to come. Quick with his character’s wit and some thematic elements (that chess game with his father left unfinished, eh), Gross has an idea of where this character could go, if given free reign.
Erevis Cale, the only non-Uskevren in the anthology, is Kemp’s signature character. A man with a very dark past, Cale comes to admire and respect his employer Thamalon, so much so, that Cale tries to avoid entangling his employers life with his past and current connections to Selgaunt’s seedier side. Kemp does a good job of keeping interest in this character, which is good, as this character stars in a Sembia series related novel and a trilogy to himself. Parts of Cale’s story seem disjointed, as at the beginning Cale comes across weaker than he is at the end, I’m not talking about character growth, but Cale’s failing physicality that later fixes itself seem rushed and unnecessary, we don’t need unbeatable characters just more believable ones. Cale’s tale doesn’t really provide an ending that fosters growth, but the character himself engages the reader enough that he might carry over to the other books.
Smedman’s Larajin rounds out this anthology with a closer look at the serving side of the Uskevren household. Larajin is an adventurous female, whose life’s secret puts her into risk she never knew about. The hidden daughter of Thamalon, Larajin is being tracked by wood elves that want to return her to her former woodland home. A sympathetic character, readers may not hold their disbelief that every character has something hidden about them. After six stories abut these hidden aspects, the reader may want a break from the revelations. A good story in its own right, this tale is the only one hinted at from the beginning story. I enjoyed the character’s adventure, but it didn’t provide enough momentum to carry me over to another story about her. The wistful tale about self-discovery was okay, but the tale really feels like the end of her development, as her life is over as she knew it, but she doesn’t have the ability to make the change over to her birthright.
Halls of Stormweather is an overall good set of stories, but not every one of the tales delivers enough “umph” to carry readers over to the character’s continuing adventures. While the idea of a collective writing a series of characters is good, this series’ opening premise has a weak setup with oddly varying follow through. Not a bad read, just it the stories don’t follow each other logically or connectively except in passing.
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