You mean Sul, right? I'm reasonably sure Vuhon is single.

All in all, I thought the novel was okay. I enjoyed it when Sul slaughtered Attrebus' captors. I also enjoyed the conversation with Psijic at the docks.

Yes, sorry. The scene with Sul.

Good to see you, B.

Yeah, looks like Luagar was right. Vuhon said that he did want to set it down eventually. He had already sealed the rift between Mundus and Vile's realm, and it seems he plans to "peel," for lack of a better term, Vile's realm off Umbriel and make it a part of Mundus, then set it down somewhere and probably rule over it as a king. I wonder if he'll succeed, and what that could mean for both Umbriel and everyone else?

I get the feeling in the second book, Vuhon will be stopped. He's caused too much death and destruction to be allowed to succeed; not just Morrowind but all the beings he killed on the way to the Imperial City. Or maybe Vuhon will be killed but Umbriel will remain on the ground as an inhabited city.

I think the ideal ending would be the latter, at least in-world. Sul gets his revenge, the indigenous people of Umbriel (who are for the most part decent and have done nothing wrong, at least down below in the sump and middens) are not killed, however, what becomes of the Imperial City itself? And of course, Cheydinhal is right in Umbriel's path, if I've mapped it correctly.

Also, I wonder, what if the plan backfires on Vuhon? "Leave Umbriel, lose substance." By removing Umbriel the Flying Rock from Umbriel the Oblivion Pocket, is he sure that everyone on it won't lose substance, including Annaig and Glim? I'm very excited to see how this all goes.

I want him to land the city right on top of white gold. Not only does this flatten an eyesore, but it is the wildest possibility.

Also in your "Talos Undone" thread, but I figured I would say it here. If Vuhon lands it "on" the city, and the Tower, and the Dragon Statue, then everything will be undone, and Dagon's Xanatos Gambit to save Mundus will have failed.

I felt the book moved to fast. Seriously? Moving from Cyrodiil to Elyswer; then into Oblivion, then Morrowind? I wish the book had a smaller scope, taking place in only one or two provinces. I could see the land hopping if the book were longer, but sadly it falls short.

Other than that, I felt the overall content of the book matched my expectations. I came away happy, ready to play more TES, and dying for a sequel.

The only thing stopping us from doing that in Oblivion within minutes was the invisible borders.

It did have a few pacing issues, but overall I agree. It's kind of like moving from one game to another, where the shift seems to have cost some stuff but given a bit back as well, and it's up to each one of us to figure out if we think each new thing is worth whatever old things we lost.

The pacing may have been a bit off, and the characters perhaps a bit flat, but the thing that really got me was Keyes' prose. It really veered back and forth between banol and pretentious. And good lord, his metaphors...

After a while she left the arteries for the veins, and then the capillaries...

BLOOD VESSELS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY, GOODNIGHT!

Gets me confused too. Was she going to or away from the heart?

SPOILERS

For me it was no good as a novel, or an expansion of the world's story, but I could care less about the lore aspects (we could bicker about those forever), more about the story and characters themselves. I guess I just didn't 'buy it' especially around the time Annaig and Glim get onto Umbriel it felt like an episode of the original Dr. Who, that is to say shoddy, silly and all-around nonsense.

It also tried to cover too much ground at once, leaving it feeling unfocused and rushed. Frankly, the author is a bit of a hack and it's sad that they hired him to write it. Some of the lore information was interesting, the dissolution of the Mage's Guild into two separate factions was cool and I'd be interested to see this expanded even more. However, I suppose I didn't care much about the main characters, (for similar reasons to why I think a movie wouldn't work: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1083821-elder-scrolls-movie/page__st__40) and some of the little flourishes were nice, Coo was a good touch regardless of whether it was believable or not, I kinda chalked it up to an homage to Athena's mechanical owl in Clash of the Titans (Harryhausen's).

That said, I found the actual prose to be very high-school level, and I've seen better stuff written in the fan-fiction forum on this site...It got very grating and annoying and there were a few things that were simply wrong in so many ways. It didn't grab you or excite you it just kind of plodded along and laid out the information for your brain to do with it what it would. My brain responded with a resounding 'MEH' at almost every dramatic turn.

Finally, the actual main dramatic problem, Umbriel itself, was so very silly to me. Leading up to discovering what Umbriel was doing and why, there was a good deal of tension, but the reveal was a disaster of epic proportions. It felt like the author had watched "War of the Worlds," "Krull" and "Delicatessen" all in the same weekend and decided to combine them for this plot.

Really...REALLY...KITCHENS!? And Annaig just HAPPENS to be an alchemist and budding chef?! The aristocrats like to eat souls? REEEEEEAAAAAAAAALLYYYYYYYYY?! And if they leave the place they go all "Ghost Dad" on us? Too much cheese and too much contrivance that it just ends up looking like they wanted so badly to have something 'weird and original' that they forgot what world this was taking place in. It just didn't 'fit.' Not to mention the whole "Devil Wears Prada" relationship between Annaig and the Chef lady (whose name escapes me) was so vapid and pointless. "Time Bandits" was another film that kept coming to mind when I was reading it, just from the silly, campy tone of the whole thing (while it's a pretty good, fun movie for what it is, does not compute with TES in my opinion). Even the atrocities that Umbriel was 'committing' were just kinda bland and silly in the way they were depicted.

Then of course from there we branch out and travel over half of Tamriel because it has to do fan-service and hit all these major familiar landmarks, making it feel far too rushed and ensembled for a book just over 200 pages. I say again...really?

I was annoyed, it felt shoddy and I normally ignore off-shoots like this of any game or movie franchise but I'm actually sad that I took the time to read this thing as it gives me a harrowing look at what the next TES game might be like in tone...

AFAIK Daedric prince's are refered to as prince weather they are Male or Female. I want this Novel Bad!

It was my understanding that Azura's gender was different depending on the person's upbringing/culture, Argonians referring always to it as male and humans viewing it (and building statues of it) as female. It's down to interpretation so this doesn't bother me at all, it's just all the other STUPID CRAP that bothered me like the ENTIRE STORY.

Well, Azura has been called a "Daedric Prince" at least since Daggerfall:

http://www.imperial-library.info/dfbooks/b080_azura.shtml.

Clearly the "Prince" title coexists happily with "Mother" and "Queen". Plus, "Daedric Prince" sounds cool, while "Daedric Princess" would just be silly.

Some stuff about the book bothered me, but (at least pending the sequel) I rather liked it overall.

I can't even fathom trying to read this svcker: the cliche counter was pretty much dinging nonstop while I was reading the UESP summery and notes, not to mention that gigantic middle finger of an ending - ugh.

Your instincts are pretty much right on :cryvaultboy:

From the Battlespire Readme, because it bears repeating.

Seriously? Am I the only one who enjoyed the book?

I enjoyed it. I'm as much of a critic of bad writing as the next guy but I read it for the lore and to learn what would happen in TESV, not as a serious piece of literature to complain about online. And as a source of new lore, it was a great book. As a story, it wasn't all that bad. Sure it had it's flaws but I wasn't reading it just to critique it. And I wasn't expecting some epic novel that would floor me with it's sheer brilliance. I think people were expecting WAY too much of this book.

I enjoyed it :shrug: . I wasn't expecting Ernest Hemingway, which one shouldn't try to look for when reading this.

No one would expect Hemingway except from Hemingway...

But this was below par even for a video game book, ha!

I will say however that, except for the idea of Umbriel itself (which is nothing short of retarded), if the world of the next TES game is in turmoil like it was portrayed in the book, and they can properly portray the unrest then it'll be a lot of fun and really hard.

I enjoyed reading this novel, and am especially pleased to see how such a random element in TES Lore, Umbra, can be drawn into a story like this and used in such a way. I personally was planning to do such a concept with the Ice Blade of the Monarch, but merely on a fan basis.