The Crystal Mountain

Last Friday, I read the last part of The Empyrean Odyssey trilogy. Trilogy, which I like to call the getting-Forgotten-Realms-from-the-3rd-to-the-4th-edition-of-D&D trilogy, and which means that gods will die. The Empyrean Odyssey isn't the only recent FR trilogy to include gods dying, though. The Lady Penitent has also deities falling but those novels focus on eliminating the drow pantheon, until only Lolth is left. The Empyrean Odyssey's story reveals the events of the main pantheon instead, yet is still bit too vague to be actually called the main story - The Forgotten Realms never had one.

The Crystal Mountain's (and rest of the trilogy's) author is Thomas M. Reid, who also wrote Insurrection, the second installment in R.A. Salvatore's epic six part series, War of the Spider Queen. Each part of the series is great, and clearly, all its six authors are aswell - the reason I initially picked Lisa Smedman's Lady Penitent, and Reid's Empyrean Odyssey, which both are, by the way, spinoffs from the War of the Spider Queen.

Reid's trilogy follows the doings of the cambion, Kaanyr Vhok (former Leader of the Scoured Legion and Master of Hellgate Keep), and his consort, alu-fiend Aliisza. The whole Empyrean Odyssey starts from Vhok's attempt to take over the dwarven city of Sundabar, and from some reason I can't remember anymore, everyone ends up travelling the Planes.

(There's going to be spoilers.)

The Crystal Mountain continues where the previous book, The Fractured Sky, left. Everyone is having some level of wtf feeling (including me for it'd been quite a while since I read The Fractured Sky) - who is who and what has happened. Slowly, stuff starts to clear up and the characters are on their way once again. Being in Dweomerheart happens to be bit perilous, though, as in the last book, Cyric and Shar managed to assassinate Mystra, the goddess of magic, whose divine realm Dweomerheart is, or rather, was, and thus Vhok, Aliisza and handful of other creatures are thrown into a struggle of survival right from the beginning.

Apparently, Cyric (now imprisoned in his own plane for 1000 years by Sune, Tyr and Lathander (who reveals to be ancient Amaunator)) wasn't satisfied with only murdering Mystra and (probably) deviced some evil scheme after which Tyr and Helm ended up in a duel, and in which Helm was slain, and of course, things in the Triad of Tyr, Ilmater and Torm went more than little addled from such a thing.

The demons of Abyss decide that it's good time to attack, and all the Hells pour into the Heavens. Even Orcus is mentioned (yes, this is definitely the 4th edition of D&D). Amidst all this, Vhok and the others journey, and then the thing, I had waited since Resurrection (the sixth part of War of the Spider Queen), happens: Pharaun the drow wizard, easily the best character of the WotSQ series, returns!

Pharaun was killed by a mass of spiders in the Demonweb Pits, iirc. Only one of his fingers survived, and which Aliisza picked up. One finger is enough for a true resurrection spell (thus my hopeful wait) like many know, although, that's not quite what happened. Still, Pharaun is back again to cast his spells and stuff is cool. However... Thomas M. Reid manages to gather everything into a one huge freaking

epic fail,

which is the end of the book. It's an epic fail because:

Everybody fucking dies.

Everybody dies! Well, except for one new character but that comforts so much. Yeah... Great job, Reid! I read through the trilogy only to see each of the damn awesome characters get killed. This must have been one of the lamest endings ever. I congratulate you, Thomas M. Reid!

I guess I won't buy the last two parts of The Scions of Arrabar. I already know how it ends; everybody dies.