Scream Trilogy Books

Beginning with the magnificent original oil painting by the author, ECHO OF A SCREAM by Hyacinthe Baron, the reader takes a journey into a fantasy world of love, danger, and adventure, created by the author's vivid imagery and imagination. Against a backdrop of rugged terrain, with all the stark beauty of untamed nature around them, lives a society bound by ancient traditiions.
The sanctity of the Taiowa rites of passage far outweigh all individual needs. Sharing this world of Cassandra that is both brutal and ecstatic, the reader rides the tides of passion, in a world filled with challenges. Here is true insight into the female mystique. To share this experience with Cassandra is to be part of all that is woman.

Ive got to completely disagree with the usual reviews for this book.
2 stars? are they nuts?
Yes, this is not a book for the stupid, it is not a book for people who are simply lookign for action.
b ut the watercourse trilogy is one of the best books IVe ever read. a hefty some.
the characters may seem bland to some but their actually flushed out VERY well. you just need to pay attention and above all else trust me
READ THIS SERIES IN ORDER!!

I read both Whisper of Waves (Forgotten Realms: Watercourse Trilogy Book 1) and Lies of Light: The Watercourse Trilogy, Book II (The Watercourse Trilogy) the days they came out. I was originally very excited about this trilogy because of the mentioned "world shattering" event (completion of the canal) and thought this would be a very interesting trilogy because the "world shattering" event was not a huge war or the magical artifact changing the world; but rather a politically motivated, blood and sweat event.

This being the final series in the Watercourse Trilogy I was expecting great things from this book. I really enjoyed the first book and somewhat disappointed in the second book. The chapters are extremely short and the storyline jumps all over the place. Not only this, but the books span several years and unless you are very knowledgable about the Faerun calendar system or pay close attention the months and dates at the beginning of every chapter it can be difficult to follow how much time has passed between chapters. This book did a better job of verbally explaining how long someone had been in jail or exiled compared to the book's predecessors; but, it was still slightly difficult to gauge the time. There is a helpful calendar explanation as an appendix, and this would have been more helpful in the first two books, as well.

The one shining part of this trilogy was one of the main characters: Ivar Devorast. I thought he was an intriguing character and I thoroughly enjoyed his attitude and demeanor. Some of the other characters I could have done without as their story lines were hardly engaging and I didn't care what really happened to them.

Overall, a very disappointing trilogy with so much potential. I would only recommend this book to those that have already read the first two books in the Watercourse Trilogy and die-hard Forgotten Realms fans.

Scream of Stone by Philip Athans is the final book in the Watercourse Trilogy. The first book in this trilogy is titled Whisper of Waves (Forgotten Realms: Watercourse Trilogy Book 1) and the second is titled Lies of Light: The Watercourse Trilogy, Book II (The Watercourse Trilogy). For fans of the Forgotten Realms this book, and series for that matter, this book is unlike most other Forgotten Realms books. It is written in very short chapters, most about 2-5 pages. It goes without saying, but if you have not read the first two books in this trilogy than you really do need to before reading this one. There are events that occur in this book that would make very little sense to someone who is not up to speed with the rest of the story.

The plot of this novel carries on with the plot from the first two books fairly well. There are also a couple sub-plots that are brought to conclusions from the previous books. The main plot line is of a character attempting to make a canal to connect the Lake of Steam and the Nagaflow. However, there are some that don't want this to happen, and of course some that do want it to come to fruition. One of the sub-plots is a Thayan envoy attempting to play the senators against each other to get what he wants. Another sub-plot involves a character from the first two books and something that happened to him and what he is set to do now. Overall, this book, for the most part, continues the overall plot lines of the first two books.

The characters in this novel are largely the same as from the previous two books. In my reviews of the first two books I commented that largely the characters seemed flat and uninteresting. Not much has really changed with this book. I still enjoyed the character Ivar, and I found myself more interested in Pristoleph other than those two though, the characters seemed flat and uninteresting. They seem to be cast in clichéd roles and were two-dimensional. There was very little true character development in this book, and really in this trilogy, aside from a few small instances. From the start of this book, it is fairly obvious what is going to happen in terms of how the characters will act and what, in the end, will occur.

This book, as a whole, is really nothing but average. The clichéd characters could have been salvaged. However, how the book was written, jumping from piece to piece via these ultra short chapters makes for a book that feels disjointed and it was extremely difficult for me to focus on something. It seemed every time the story was picking up steam, there was a new chapter and a dramatic shift in events.

Aside from the clichéd characters and flow, my main criticism of this book is that this trilogy has always been billed as a `Realms Shaking Event'. Something that would change the landscape of Faerun forever. However, at the conclusion of this book and trilogy, very little (if anything) has been changed. In fact, once I finished the book I felt as though I was merely back at square one where the firs novel picked up. I felt distinctively cheated by this fact. I invested the time and effort to read three novels, only to be back where I started.

Phil Athan is a wonderful author, and I have enjoyed many of his previous works. However, this trilogy is not one of them. I feel let down by the conclusion, I feel let down by the flatness of the characters. All in all it was just a blah reading experience for me. While there are some decent moments in this novel, they do not save this book (or trilogy) from mediocrity. This will not be a book, or trilogy, that I will be recommending to people.