Book Review: Realms of Infamy by Various

Realms of Infamy Realms of Infamy by James Lowder
My rating: 8 of 10 stars

This is a collection of stories set on Forgotten Realms. The Forgotten Realms problem is that it never evolves. It focus on a target audiance in the end we know the good guys win. That's why I am more into Black Library and it's warhammer and 40K publications. Even if they have an audiance of teens you never know how it's going to end. Not everything will be alright. Just because you are "good" that's no reason to win. You can fail.

Said that this short stories focus more on the bad guys from this realm. What's interesting is that most of this "bad" guys are more of anti-heroes and not evil.

Most of this stories are good, believe me on that.
The More Things Change by Elaine Cunningham is a tale about Elaith Craulnober. This tale tells us how and why he fell... from grace. There are some scenes their that are not that explained. Probably I had to read some of her novels.

The Meaning of Lore by Barb Hendee - If this tale had an evil characters I don't know what was. I didn't relate this tale with infamous. This tale is about a loremaster of Oghma (Lord of Knowledge) and a pursuit to knowledge.

The Third Level by R. A. Salvatore- Well, well... Entreri. This guy is evil but we care about him. RA Salvatore is a great creator of characters and I think Entreri is one of his best. He makes an evil character and works so darn hard to give him motives and explaining that we care for him. This tale tells us about his first kill and how he enter the Thieves Guild.

Blood Sport by Christie Golden is a tale that evolves Jander Sunstar. How is he evil? Probably the Shark (vampire hunter) is the evil of this tale. Neverthless in this tale the Shark is trying to destroy the Vampire and will do everything to achieve. Top notch Christie!

Vision by Roger E. Moore is a good tale about goblins. Even the main character is one. He tells us the way goblins feel about the new ways and the old ways. It's truly good My main problem is that goblins are suppossedly to be stupid and our main character, Kergis, is nothing like that. He is rather smart.

Not counting with two weak stories, I think this is one of the best anthologies Forgotten Realms published. It's a nice way to see how the "bad" guys are seen. But as I said before, if you want a evil character then turn around and head for Warhammer Fantasy. There are all full lenght books with evil characters. Not anti-heroes. Real evil characters that will kill your puppy and kidnapp your wife... but in the end you will like them. Believe me. You will.

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