The Infernal City: Elder Scrolls Series #1 Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B008IXLKA0 | Format: PDF
The Infernal City: Elder Scrolls Series #1 Description
Four decades after the Oblivion Crisis, Tamriel is threatened anew by an ancient and all-consuming evil. It is Umbriel, a floating city that casts a terrifying shadow-for wherever it falls, people die and rise again. And it is in Umbriel's shadow that a great adventure begins and a group of unlikely heroes meet. A legendary prince with a secret. A spy on the trail of a vast conspiracy. A mage obsessed with his desire for revenge. And Anna?g, a young girl in whose hands the fate of Tamriel may rest.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 8 hours and 33 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Tantor Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: July 9, 2012
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B008IXLKA0
The Infernal City is a new novel by an accomplished sci-fi/fantasy writer. It is based upon a world from a popular video game and is a well written novel.
This novel is very fantastical in its writing. It is a new and vibrant world and very unique. There are cat people, lizard people, human, orcs, and other forms of life. The most creative portions of the novel are the ? of the book spent in the floating city. This portion is written from the perspective of two protagonists who find a way to "fly" up to the city. This city is completely unlike anything I have read before. It exists in a rigid cast system and this cast system seems to be most highly based on culinary abilities. That's right, the cities structure is based on chefs. There are coups to take over other kitchens, chef assassinations, culinary explorations, ect. The lower casts exist to serve and process the food and the higher casts seem primarily to consume the food and the "souls" which are imparted into the food. This is shallow overview of the city so as to not give spoilers, but it is a completely new and very creative place.
On the downside, this book is very short, around 280 pages. For a novel that exists in a very complex world, this is on the light side. For example, Greg Keyes last series was four novels covered about 2000 pages to explore that world. This series will be 2 novels around 500-600 pages total. From this first book, I would say this world is much more complex than that in the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone. I wish the author had taken more time to explore this new world and further develop the characters. Perhaps the assumption is that many of the readers will have played the video game and therefore have a broader baseline understanding than I had.
Greg Keyes, The Infernal City (Del Rey, 2009)
How on Earth did it not occur to me when I first read the description for this a couple of months ago that "the first of two exhilarating novels" meant this was the first in a series? I try to wait until most, if not all, of a series is out before reading it these days (George R. R. Martin has taught me well). Not that I would probably have listened to my own advice in this case had I read that correctly. Elder Scrolls novels? I'm going to hop on that train from day one. Which I did, actually; I almost never pre-order novels, but the second I had book money, I tossed an order in for this (about a month before its release). So, yeah, there's been "waiting" all around where this sucker is concerned. Including the month between my finishing the book and my typing this. (I lost the first draft of my review for this book in a power outage and have been truculent about recreating the review ever since.) None of this, of course, has anything whatsoever to do with The Infernal City. I'm not usually big on novels adapted from games, but the Elder Scrolls world is something well beyond most game worlds, and I figured if any game world was detailed enough to make its novels worth reading, Tamriel would be it. While Keyes doesn't often stray outside the conventions that annoy me about most game-world books, he's still a good enough writer to make this worth reading, and the second book (whenever it appears) worth waiting for.
The book centers mostly on Annaig and Mere-Glim, a human and Argonian, respectively, from the Black Marsh. (If you don't know what an Argonian is, I cannot encourage you enough to run out and get yourself a copy of Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind or Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as fast as you can.
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