Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: The Road to Neverwinter
The Dungeons and Dragons series
Jaleigh Johnson
Random House Worlds
Fiction, Adventure/Fantasy/Media Tie-In
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Edgin Davis was once a dedicated Harper, his lute and his easy, smiling banter a cover for his work ferreting out evil and danger across the land... until enemies made on the job followed him home. When his wife was murdered, all he has left is his infant daughter Kira and a deep chasm of bitter regret and self-recrimination that no amount of alcohol can fill, hard as he tries. It's not until an encounter with the barbarian woman of few words Holga that he begins to scrape himself off the tavern floor... and it's not until desperation leads him to his first theft, raiding the shop of the local corrupt pawnbroker, that he finds a new calling. Thus the years pass, with a growing Kira joining them on heists (protected somewhat by an invisibility amulet), but it's only after a chance encounter with card sharp and con man Forge Fitzwilliam that their little team begins to aim higher - and later, when they happen across an amateur sorcerer with a hot tip on a big score, their reputation may be truly made... assuming they survive.
This story is a prequel to the 2023 movie Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, based upon the popular fantasy role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons.
REVIEW: I watched and thoroughly enjoyed the 2023 movie Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which was the kind of fun, adventurous romp of a film you don't really see much of anymore. This is one of the prequel novels written to tie in with the budding presumed-franchise, filling in backstory on the Harper-turned-thief Edgin (played by Chris Pine in the film) and the origins of the adventuring band whose reunion forms the core of the movie plot. Sometimes tie-ins like this add interesting twists and can even stand on their own. Unfortunately, this is not one of those tie-ins.
After a prologue, the book starts with exhausted and heartbroken young widower/father Edgin, an inconsolable infant Kira, and a fateful trip to the tavern of their small town where the Davis family's lives will be forever changed by the irascible, potato-obsessed Holga. This is a scenario the movie already covered, a scene that really doesn't need this print expansion to get the point across. Much of the book, actually, feels like it rehashes similar notes that the movie effectively covered, either in the backstory montage Edgin relates during his parole hearing early in the film or in the overall spirit of the movie itself, with characters growing up and coming through for the sake of their found family bond and Edgin crawling out of the pit of self-pity that grief had dropped him into to reclaim some of his former Harper integrity and honor. There is foreshadowing of later events, but that sometimes feels a touch clunky. Kira also comes across as far too much of a plot device, the precocious little scamp who wins over even the most jaded of hearts and seems incapable of comprehending how maybe her putting herself in danger also puts people she loves in danger, that her actions can have tangible and potentially negative consequences. I almost wondered if the story had been intended to be from her point of view as a middle-grade novel, as much of her arc (which isn't really much of an arc, as she doesn't really learn lessons or grow, save in the physical sense of no longer being an infant by the end) reads like wish fulfillment adventure where she gets to show up the adults who underestimate her while experiencing just enough potential peril to make things a little interesting. Edgin, at least, does do some growing and healing through the story, even if he, like more than one other character, has to be whacked by the in-world equivalent of a two-by-four to get some lessons through his skull and the clouded lenses of his grief and self-absorpion.
Things do happen, at least, almost from the first page. Like any good role-playing game campaign, there are plenty of adventurous encounters and improvised escapes (and some decent looting opportunities) and a colorful collection of characters and locales to visit, with some decent little adventure puzzles to tease out. Sometimes the metaphoric dice just aren't the players' friends and things go sideways, but between them they usually manage to get by. Nobody is especially deep and there's a general feeling of emotional immaturity about them, or at least a lack of overall complexity; they ultimately have just enough backstory and personality to them to make for an exciting and adventurous team and campaign, which does indeed occur. This is not unlike the movie that the book ties in to, of course, and on that level I could enjoy it for some stretches, but for some reason what was easily rolled with and enjoyed on screen just doesn't quite play out the same in print. Maybe I'm just conditioned to expect a little more of a book, in a way that ultimately cost it that full fourth star in the ratings. While I can't say I was never entertained or that nothing happened, I just plain enjoyed the movie better, and this book felt too much like a pale shadow retreading emotional beats and character territory that the film covered, making this prequel feel unnecessary.
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