Voyage of the Mourning Dawn

Voyage of the Mourning Dawn was a good read. The characters are interesting, although I didn't really get to know any of them really well. The story moves along at a good pace, and it keeps you interested in plot elements like "What is the Legacy?" "Is this guy a good guy or a bad guy?" and so forth. It was entertaining enough that I'm going to read the rest of the series, but it's not going to make my top five favorite novels. I don't know that I'll want to reread it, so you might get by with borrowing it from the library or a friend.

I don't like changlings. I don't like them as characters and I don't like the way authors use them to side step the challenge of creating a formidable spy, informant, or antagonist. Changling are always bad. ALWAYS. Their methods are always deceptive, underhanded, and extremely cowardly. I've never read an Eberron novel where I enjoyed the use of a changling. Not even one with as solid of a back story as Marth. For all the rage and hatred has over the way people see and judge the changling race, he makes absolutely no attempt to redeem himself or his race in any way. Marth is cold, spineless, and absolutely evil. He kills even Kiris who is responsible for nearly all of the progress he has made towards the Legacy, not to mention the restoration of the Seventh Moon and saving his life. Marth makes monologue after monologue about how wrong it is for people to judge him just because he's a changling then he goes about giving us more reasons to hate him and his race. Ugh! Marth's only saving grace is that he does not prance around the entire novel disguised as someone else and that Wulf actually gave him a reasonable back story. At least that's slightly more original than the rest *glares at James Wyatt*. Changling aside, I did enjoy the book and the rest of it's characters. Tristam Xain especially was a character I empathized with and routed for. I hope to see more development into his character in the future. At the beginning of the book I didn't like Seren at all, but she grew on me. I was pleasantly surprised to find out she was much more than just a thief. She was surprisingly trustworthy, loyal, and brave throughout the remainder of the book, which was a breath of fresh air from you typical female rogue character.

I've read many books published by WotC. I've been pleased with some, but disappointed by most. So, I was hesitant to try this one by a relatively new author. (of novels, that is) I have to say I was quite pleased. Mr. Wulf brings his characters to life in such a way as to draw you into who they are and gets you to invest time and energy into their story. He brought way more main characters into a story than I usually find safe, but did so without distracting the reader from the overall story. Each of them has a background and personality very unique, but all fall beautifully into the main story and are brought to bear in the same general direction. The dialogue comes across flowing and reasonable. No ridiculous statements that make no sense or seem totally out of character. The rhythm of the tale itself is also expertly pulled off. Most fantasy books nowadays seem to drag on for the first 3/4 with nothing happening and then cram excitement and essential scenes into the last 1/4. Not this one. Mr Wulf keeps the story unrolling throughout the book, with little peeks into characters, motivations and mysteries all along the way. This leads us to an ending that leaves us wanting more answers and wanting to know the rest of the tale. All in all, I was quite pleased with this book. Now that I just finished it, I intend to go out and pick up the next in the series. This was definitely what the Eberron setting needed--an actually well written book. Too bad there aren't more in the setting that live up to this level.

Voyage of the Mourning Dawn by Rich Wulf is the first book of the Heirs of Ash Trilogy set in the world of Eberron. The second and third books, Flight of the Dying Sun and Rise of the seventh Moon will be released in 2007. Reading every Eberron novel thus far, I can say some have been good and some have been not so good. So far the authors they have writing in this world have been hit and miss. I have never heard of Mr. Wulf before, but I am always willing to give authors a chance so I picked this book up. I was not disappointed in the least. While some authors, most notably Keith Baker, feel a need to include all the `technology' they can in their novels, in this novel the technology is not what makes the story - it's merely a supporting element. The plot of this book is rather linear, but it is also very well laid out and all the characters actions have a purpose behind them. They don't simply do something to be doing it. The plot also follows a logical line of thought that makes it not only believable, but fun as well. There is very little in terms of subplots in this book, but that works here. Some books need those subplots to continue the story - but this book has a pace where I think subplots would have detracted from the overall story and slowed it down. The characters of this book are what truly make this one special. The vast majority of the characters are well thought out and very memorable. A great deal of thought went into not only where the characters came from, how they got where we find them, but also a simple thing like dialog. Each character holds true to how one would expect them to talk. I don't mean that there is cheesy dialog in this novel, rather each character has a unique was of talking that adds to that characters appeal. Even the villains are well thought out and have some character development; they are not simply this figure that appears once and a while to battle the heroes. Being that this is the first book of a trilogy you can expect this book to mostly set up the over all plot arc as well as introduce the characters. This book does that very well. There is also a very good ending to this book that I would go into because I don't want to spoil anything, but it `fits' with how the book was written. The author also does a very good job at answering a couple simple questions that arise during the book only to replace them with large all encompassing questions that the reader has to wait for the answer until 2007. Overall, I must say that this is one of my favorite books in the Eberron world. It was a fun read, a definite page turner that kept me interested throughout the entire book. If you are a fan of the Eberron world have no qualms about picking this up, you will enjoy it. If you are thinking about getting started reading Eberron books, I would recommend this one to give you a good idea of what Eberron has to offer. I am eagerly awaiting the next installment of this trilogy, although it will be hard for Mr. Wu

This book was suggested to me by a friend, on the merit of the authors work on the "Lengends of the 5 Rings" ( L5R ) roleplaying game and several books about that setting. I am moderately familiar with that setting and was interested to see some of Mr. Wulfs work in another setting. I was completely unfamiliar with the Ebberon setting but I find myself very interested after reading this book. Without getting to indepth into the plot, a thief get herself involved in a quest. The book is the story of her journey from the city streets to amazing adventures on an airship. It's great stuff, highly reccomended.