Amber and Ashes – Margaret Weis

Posted by Shaun on July 23rd, 2005 filed in Books
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This contains some spoiler material, but nothing that you can’t learn reading the first few pages and last few pages of the book.

I was a slow reader this week. Usually, I can whip through two books in a week. I’ve been in Java training this week and haven’t spent much time reading. Anyways, I did finish the copy of “Amber and Ashes” that I bought last Saturday. It was the first book in the “Dark Disciple” series. The disciple in this instance is actually Mina, one of the main characters from the War of Souls triology. This book describes what Mina does when her god dies and she starts to worship another, darker god. The next book in the series “Amber and Iron” doesn’t get released until December 2005, and then probably 6 months will pass before it is out in paperback.

The premise of the book is that the gods are vying for control (as usual) of the world and heaven. Sargonnas is trying to take over all of Ansalon, Nuitari is acting secretive, Zeboim is spending her time torturing a death knight for the loss of her son Ariakan and Chemosh is trying to get more followers. Chemosh is definitely the most interesting of the bunch. It is too bad it looks like his new followers won’t last as long as he says.

Overall, the book was a good read. It isn’t something I would buy in hardcover, but definitely worth buying the paperback version. If you read the War of Souls trilogy you should be very familiar with Mina, who is one of the main characters in this series. You also get to know more about Chemosh and Zeboim, the gods that are most prevalent in this part of the story. A couple of new characters are introduced: one is monk of Majere and the other is a Kender. They are respectable characters, but you don’t get to know them very well reading this book. Perhaps we’ll learn more about them in the remaining books.