Once upon a time, the plane of Alara was shattered into five planes, each distinctly populated with relative mono-magical culture that reflects each of the five colors. Now, the planes are beginning to realign and merge once more.
As nefarious forces work to hasten the cataclysmic realignment for their own gain, the populations of once ordered planes struggle to come to terms with a new planar order in which long separated struggles between opposite clash once more; martyrs face executioners, fire and water, earth and air, growth and decay, the innate versus the artificial.
Amid this chaos, Ajani, a fierce leonin planeswalker, struggles to bring justice and resolution to his brother's death. Noble warrior Rafiq searches for the source of the of this evil that has invaded his world. And Sarkhan Vol, planeswalker and dragon hunter, taps into a power so pure and ancient, it threatens to consume him even as he revels in its unadulterated totality.
An action packed story from the mind of one of the creators, Doug Beyer opens up the Shards of Alara(TM) set like no one else can. |
|
 Great images created |
| Review Date: June 15, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Jayhawk, KC area |
| Well done. While making a few notes about the attributes of the characters may be reqired for those of us who can squeeze in reading in small increments, it is well worth it and only a small issue. Great character develement, great descriptions, lots of plots and sub themes, dilemmas, challenges and surprises to keep you involved. |
Excellent novel for Magic players
|
| Review Date: May 30, 2009 |
| Reviewer: The Homunculus, |
| Overall, this was an exciting, fast-paced book based on the Shards of Alara storyline. The book is separated into three sections, based roughly on each of the Magic expansions: "Shards of Alara", "Conflux", and "Alara Reborn". From a Magic player's perspective, much of the entertainment of reading the book comes from noticing the planeswalkers or legends using the abilities from the actual cards. Unlike some of the other Magic novels, Doug Beyer creates strong ties between the characters and the cards. I highly recommend the book to anyone familiar with the Shards of Alara block of cards, but not particularly for non-Magic players. |
Marvellous.
|
| Review Date: February 28, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Locke, |
| I'm not much of a speaker, and I don't have much time either, but this book is awesome. And thats a grave understatement. |
Good but not the Best
|
| Review Date: February 18, 2010 |
| Reviewer: G. Castle, |
I'm a newer magic player and started just after shards block finished, which has been my favorite block I have been around for (of the 2 XD). I liked the book, but it was lacking a bit. Esper and the humans on Grixis weren't really mentioned much until midway towards the end. I loved how the sections where small and it jumped between the shards often. I could read 3 pages of bant, then 4 of naya. It made it helpful for reading while doing other things (like reading a bit while my computer starts up =p). The story was good, but Rafiq and rest of bant never really deal with Bolas as cover may suggest. The thing I dislike the most would be that you never really find out what became of Nicol Bolas in the end, but the worldwake player's guide said he went Sarkhan Vol to Zendikar, who just left Alara at the end (so bit too vague for me). I did find a few spelling error, but only about 3 noticeable ones in the whole book so it wasn't bad.
Overall, I think the story could have been presented better so it's not the best book. But it is still good and I would recommend to anyone who likes the Alara block. |
So much to say, so little book.
|
| Review Date: May 9, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Novel Enthusiast, Midwestern U.S. |
Magic the Gathering is something that I have been interested for around ten years; I have all of the books and I play the card game. That being said I had pretty high expectations for the Alara Unbroken book after reading Agents of Artifice (which I recommend). I had these I expectations because of the great cards found in the Alara sets and the exceptional characters that were rumored to make an appearance in this book.
The book itself is about the inhabitants of a world that was split into five different shards (think dimensions) that each represent different mixtures of the five colors of the Magic the Gathering Universe. What they are dealing with in this novel is the convergence of their world(s). I also can't help but mention that the main antagonist of the story is the big grand daddy of all of Magic's villains: Nicol Bolas, the dragon planeswalker.
Now, as for my review. I have to say that this book wasn't bad. It was exciting in many places, and the dialogue was well written. There are a lot of "Oh now that was just cool!" moments as well. So why did I give it three stars? My first reason is that while some moments of the story are exciting, the majority of it is horrendously predictable. I was also mixed because the book had what I consider an anticlimactic and rushed ending. And finally, while there are characters from each of the five shards appearing in this book, only three shards are represented by main characters and the other two shards seem to be just staging areas for characters originating in the other three. All in all, I feel this should have been a much longer book. There was just too much story and too much creativity left out in order to minimize page number. Because so much was skipped an awesome idea was lowered to mediocre status in my opinion.
|
|
No video reviews found for this product.
