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Well the move has set me behind, but I'm catching up.  Hopefully I'll be back to commenting in this section.  As some others have noted, this book definitely has a different flavor than the last one.  It's great how much variety we've seen in the Book Club selections.

This forum will cover Chapters 4-7, pages 51-105.

Looking forward to your thoughts, as always.

I am also really enjoying this book--even if I don't agree with all of you on the Cover!

I am still struck with the differences from our last book--that was a really good plan to read a low level Forgotten Realms book and then this one which is much more of a traditional realms tale in terms of Magic, Heroics, etc.

I am not struggling to identify with Jinn all that much--he is a man on a mission and the mission comes first. I am certain that once we clarify the current crisis, we will get the details of what drives that mission & I have faith that those details will be awesome and suprising. So far all of the characters have been very well written, in my opinion.

I do agree that Tallus is awesome--in fact the bad guys in this tale are great all the way around. I really hope we spend some time in Sathariel's head--which I am sure is a very scary place--but with the amount of scheming & manipulation he is involved in I am sure it would be very rewarding.

This section also opened up the female factor of the story a lot--which I thought was handled in a very mature & intelligent fashion. I have been reading a lot of people concerned with female representation in  WotC products, and again here I find it handled very very well.

My primary interest, right now, is the "stolen sword"--we are constantly reminded in the text that the sword is stolen, not rightfully his, etc. I really am interested in that back story. I think Heroic Blade is a fantasy element I used to read about a lot--like the Elric books and stuff, where the sword is as much of a character as the characters themselves--and I would love to see this blade take on those levels of importance. I think that the Realms could ALWAYS use another mystical, magical, super weapon [if you know what I mean (and I know that you do!)].

In any event, a great book that moves the story smoothly along in this section--more character, more location, more twisting plot--all good!

Whoops - falling behind a little here. I guess my lasting impression so far is that the book is really quite densely plotted; a surprising amount takes place in these four chapters. By the end of them, I'm still not too much clearer on the nature of what's going on, but there are a few more relationships to consider (we have the Jinn-Quessahn-Mara group and the rather more complicated story threads involving Tallus, Sathariel, the Circle of Skulls, the Marson family, and Lucian Dregg).

I, too, have yet to understand why Jinn is driven in the way he is, but I suspect that's linked to his patchwork memory. I'm interested in the nature of his relationships with Mara and Quessahn, and how those might become important later in the story (they seem to have the potential of a 'human vs. inhuman' tug of war). And, yes, the 'stolen sword' did attract my attention.

It's interesting that the Circle of Skulls have personalities and characters of their own; earlier in the story, I simply assumed that they were a magical tool or spell effect; the fact that they have their own motives and that Tallus appears to be double-crossing them adds another dimension.

I was a little disappointed that Allek fell so easily (and pretty much off-camera), but I guess the weight of the plot was stacked against him . I'd formed the idea that Allek was going to be a reasonably significant character in the book, so his demise came as something of a shock. Of course, Tallus's conversations later on point to the Marson family having a hidden significance.

I'll be interested to see whether any significant puzzle pieces appear in the next section - and also how long Sathariel's patience will last with Tallus, or whether Tallus has some hidden power or allegiance up his sleeve that Sathariel isn't aware of.