Spellfire Books

Spellfire is an intersting supplement to the Forgotten Realms, but it is much too powerful for the usual Player. If you're interested, this book is a good accessory, but limited use in any usual campaign

This is not a review but rather a synopsis of the book since non was given and the one other review of this title is a bit misleading as to the contents of the book. Spellfire is a card game similar to Magic the Gathering. This book is a comprehensive guide to the cards themselves, as well as the rulebook for the game. It is 400+ pages long and contains a complete index for all the game cards as well as full-color photos and descriptions of over 1000 of them. As far as a reference book for the game is concerned, this title is unsurpassed in it's completeness.

If you can locate any of these card they are well worth the price. The chasers in this expansion greatly extend the lifetime of the spellfire game system.

This book is a must for spellfire players. List of cards, descriptions of cards and tactics, make this book a great asset to any spellfire card collector or player.

This book starts out like another trilogy I can remember. It reads like a page by page record of a Dungeons and Dragons game with a little story peppered in here and there, which is not all that bad really. Ed Greenwood has a literary style that is quite different from most other authors I can think of. It's strangely different, but it holds my attention and keeps me reading more. I can't really explain it any better. He's a storyteller, a bard, and he has the gift that draws me in and holds me there. Oh, and that other trilogy was the Dragonlance series: Dragons of Autumn Twilight or something...

I thought the fighting, action and magic (spellfire) were all well-done. Some of the kissy-kissy sequences between Narm and Shandril were a little annoying, but this book really evoked scenes of another world, filled with magic and creatures and all sorts of items, and I felt like I could actually see the things Ed Greenwood was writing about. It was colorfully written, with plenty of amusing dialogue between the characters, as well as lots of magic (spellfire) and swordplay.

Definitely worth rereading, and I will someday.

This book starts out like another trilogy I can remember. It reads like a page by page record of a Dungeons and Dragons game with a little story peppered in here and there, which is not all that bad really. Ed Greenwood has a literary style that is quite different from most other authors I can think of. It's strangely different, but it holds my attention and keeps me reading more. I can't really explain it any better. He's a storyteller, a bard, and he has the gift that draws me in and holds me there. Oh, and that other trilogy was the Dragonlance series: Dragons of Autumn Twilight or something...

I thought the fighting, action and magic (spellfire) were all well-done. Some of the kissy-kissy sequences between Narm and Shandril were a little annoying, but this book really evoked scenes of another world, filled with magic and creatures and all sorts of items, and I felt like I could actually see the things Ed Greenwood was writing about. It was colorfully written, with plenty of amusing dialogue between the characters, as well as lots of magic (spellfire) and swordplay.

Definitely worth rereading, and I will someday.

I have read most of the reviews of this novel written by others and though I agree with most of them - I felt I had to add my own opinion as well.
I gave the book 4 stars becauase as an avid fan of the Forgotten Realms - this book made me feel at home there. I will admit that Mr. Greenwood is no Tolkien but then again who is? The book flows nice and if you are familiar with the Realms the excess of characters should not bother you too much.
All in all a good book (and I think Mr. Greenwood's first if am not mistaken) and a great start for the author. He gets better believe me!

I read this book when it was first published in the late 1980's. Just coming down from Dragonlance, I was ready for more of that greatness. Mr.Greenwood created the setting so this has to be good, right? It proved to be different as it should be. It had its moments, however, especially with the dracolich and Shandril's awesome power.

As far as characters are concerned, Shandril is good, but not great. It almost could be read as a feminist novel, if it were not so sexist. Yes, sexist. As in "Elminster is a dirty old man" sexist. And did I mention homophobia-"man-lover" indeed.
So far, the only gay references I found the Forgotten Realms was in Netheril. That is a whole other story.

Ok, so Mr. greenwood is not PC. That does not make the story bad. In fact from that, its quite good. I liked his writing style. He is not a literary genius, but he has a voice that I might read again. Then, as far as closure of the story, it just ends. Many years would pass before I would get to the sequel. Maybe that is what this series is about. A long chain of sequels...Long live Manshoon!

The Forgotten Realms may have been conceived in part by Ed Greenwood, but his literary contributions and I use the word in its loosest possible sense do it no favours. Every other writer who's added to the mythos has been considerably better, with a superior grasp of prose, literary form and plot construction.
Spellfire has stupid characters straight from a dungeons and dragons game and for the first half of the book, they do nothing but fight one monster after another, each more powerful than its predecessor. It's like reading Quake instead of playing it. The scenario would probably make a good RPG, but while I wouldn't mind playing it, I found reading it unremittingly tedious.
This is a really bad fantasy fiction book, finding a better one will be easy, a worse may be impossible.

Ed Greenwood may have created the Forgotten Realms setting, and I offer my respectful thanks for it. But Ed Greenwood is not an author, however much he pretends to be.
This book is exactly the sort of thing I would expect from some random amateur with no talent, training, or experience in the field of writing (which, depending on when this was written, Greenwood might in fact have been!). Reading this story is like reading user created fiction posted on fan sites. I can't shake the overwhelming feeling that this simply isn't a real novel. The characters aren't real characters, the "plot" is not worthy of the name, and every other mistake, from Shandril crying all the time to the 73 characters to the idiotic Gandalf style Elminster... the list goes on!
My twelve year old sister thinks this book is childish!