Spellstorm is an Ed Greenwood novel
where the creator of the Forgotten Realms himself gets to enjoy
sitting down with some of his most beloved characters and craft tales
from his own, older, lore. The main character is Elminster, of
course, but Greenwood brings out several archmages and locks them up
in an old mansion, where they conspire and act out a story that
almost reminds me of Agatha Christie's “And then there were none”.
As such, the new installment in the Elminster saga differs quite a
lot from the previous adventures and is a welcome addition to the Realms library.
I was quite late to Greenwood's
literature, apart from RPG components, as the first novel I read by
him was The Herald, the finishing part of the Sundering series. In
that book, Greenwood describes the huge changes to the way magic
works and feels in the now healed world. The magical confusion
continues in Spellstorm, when the owner of the previous mentioned
mansion claims that he has found the Lost Spell (I gather that this
is a piece of old Realms lore), but that a magical Spellstorm has
appeared, surrounding said estate. The storm threatens to rinse the
mind of any wizard who enters it, but, of course, the cunning
archmages find ways to get inside, only to be greeted by Elminster
himself. The grand old wizard of the Forgotten Realms acts as a
butler and adviser to the mansion lord and, since magic behaves
wildly inside the Spellstorm, the archmages will have to convince the
lord and Elminster who should have the rights to the Lost Spell. At
least until they start murdering each other and the high fantasy
novel turns into a mystery novel. Elminster's old retinue turns up,
of course, and helps him on his new quest to find the murderer inside
the mansion.
