Alzrius
The EN World kitten
This one lost me at the very beginning, when it got the circumstances of Gilgeam's death wrong.
I mean, if I'm remembering correctly, it has Tiamat just up and killing him during the Time of Troubles, but that's not what happened. Powers & Pantheons is very clear in that, when Tiamat challenged Gilgeam during the Time of Troubles, he literally tore her to pieces. But her divine essence was spread among three dragons who were driven to kill and devour each other in order to reconstitute her (the winner being the infamous Tchazzar).
By the time Tiamat had pulled herself together, the Time of Troubles was over, and Gilgeam had been busted down from an intermediate deity to a demigod, since his descent into despotism over the centuries had left very few people who actually worshiped him. Since Tiamat was a lesser deity, her avatar went for a rematch with his avatar, and this time she won. In a rage, Gilgeam himself (i.e. not his avatar) left his planar realm to attack Tiamat in her planar realm, which resulted in his being truly slain. But Tiamat lost enough power in the fight to be busted down to a demigoddess herself...which is when Bahamut sent a team of high-level mortals to slay her sole remaining avatar (i.e. the end of H4 Throne of Bloodstone). Since demigods can only have one avatar at a time, and it takes them a full year to make a new one, Tiamat was therefore unable to have an avatar personally take up control of Unther like she'd planned, leaving the Faerunian and Mulhorandi pantheons to divide it up between them (though she managed to claw her way back up to lesser deity later).
So yeah, the entire premise of this particular novel is wrong. I mean, I suppose that's not too big of an issue overall, but it lost me right from the beginning on the technicality. Likewise, the idea of using the eponymous rod to bring Gilgeam('s avatar?) back as an undead creature was somewhat interesting, if only because it seemed like he might have been a hunefer, but the book certainly didn't make it sound that way, which was something of a missed opportunity to my mind.
Beyond that...I can't really recall much else about this particular book. Around the time this came out I was losing interest in Forgotten Realms novels altogether; nothing they were doing appealed to me much, and so I grew tired of hoping that the next one would be the one that drew me back in. Given the lackluster review above, I was apparently right to do so, which is a pity.
Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.
I mean, if I'm remembering correctly, it has Tiamat just up and killing him during the Time of Troubles, but that's not what happened. Powers & Pantheons is very clear in that, when Tiamat challenged Gilgeam during the Time of Troubles, he literally tore her to pieces. But her divine essence was spread among three dragons who were driven to kill and devour each other in order to reconstitute her (the winner being the infamous Tchazzar).
By the time Tiamat had pulled herself together, the Time of Troubles was over, and Gilgeam had been busted down from an intermediate deity to a demigod, since his descent into despotism over the centuries had left very few people who actually worshiped him. Since Tiamat was a lesser deity, her avatar went for a rematch with his avatar, and this time she won. In a rage, Gilgeam himself (i.e. not his avatar) left his planar realm to attack Tiamat in her planar realm, which resulted in his being truly slain. But Tiamat lost enough power in the fight to be busted down to a demigoddess herself...which is when Bahamut sent a team of high-level mortals to slay her sole remaining avatar (i.e. the end of H4 Throne of Bloodstone). Since demigods can only have one avatar at a time, and it takes them a full year to make a new one, Tiamat was therefore unable to have an avatar personally take up control of Unther like she'd planned, leaving the Faerunian and Mulhorandi pantheons to divide it up between them (though she managed to claw her way back up to lesser deity later).
So yeah, the entire premise of this particular novel is wrong. I mean, I suppose that's not too big of an issue overall, but it lost me right from the beginning on the technicality. Likewise, the idea of using the eponymous rod to bring Gilgeam('s avatar?) back as an undead creature was somewhat interesting, if only because it seemed like he might have been a hunefer, but the book certainly didn't make it sound that way, which was something of a missed opportunity to my mind.
Beyond that...I can't really recall much else about this particular book. Around the time this came out I was losing interest in Forgotten Realms novels altogether; nothing they were doing appealed to me much, and so I grew tired of hoping that the next one would be the one that drew me back in. Given the lackluster review above, I was apparently right to do so, which is a pity.
Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.