Ashes of the Sun

Magic: The Gathering

by Hanovi Braddock

Ayesh knows that danger lurks in the Miritiin Mountains, and danger is just what she wants. With her beloved cities of Neah turned to dust and rubble in the goblin wars, with even their memory fading to legend, what reason does she have to go on living? She's ready to die--as long as she goes down killing goblins.

But the Miritiin minotaurs have plans for Ayesh, plans that don't include her death--yet. And as Ayesh becomes entangled in the inticate web of Miritiin poitics, she realizes that allies can be even deadlier than enemies.

Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

292 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 1996

About the author

Pen name of Bruce Holland Rogers

Reviews

[Parish · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was blown away by the spike in quality compared to the previous books in the Magic catalog. This is a book that I would absolutely recommend to anyone who enjoys older fantasy. The plot is intriguing, the moral is clear and excellently tied from beginning to end, and the epilogue is so satisfying, I wanted to throw up a little when I finished it from just how big the emotions it left me with were.

My only real complaint about this book is that it misses the mark as a Magic: the Gathering book. There is no actual magic in this book, no mention of Magic lore or previously established worldbuilding, and no tie-ins to the game or the previous books in any form. It feels like Braddock had this idea for a novel, took the commission from WotC, then slapped the MTG logo on the cover and called it a day.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ended up really getting into and enjoying this story, quite unexpectedly. In the beginning the characters are pretty bland but about a third of the way in I was hooked. This was a very solid story, surprisingly realistic in the way things play out.

One question though...why is there no magic in this MTG book?

[Jeff Jellets · Rating 3 out of 5]

”Goblins and humans are expendable on the way to your dreams. Your dreams.”

The seventh (supposedly) Magic the Gathering-inspired book, Hanovi Braddock’s Ashes of the Sun, is an odd duck. It continues the series’ tradition of being completely unconnected to any of the other stories in the imprint, and stubbornly refuses to have much to do with anything related to the card game that inspired it. It is, however, better than the previous volumes in the series, but eschews traditional high fantasy adventure. Instead, this is a sociological study as Braddock wrestles with whether three traditionally antagonist cultures -- human, goblin and minotaur – can ever live together peaceably.

And … it kind of works? Braddock’s protagonist Ayesh, the sole survivor of a civilization razed by barbaric goblin marauders, is forced to make amends with the grey-skinned monsters after she is captured by a progressive band of minotaurs. Yeah … read that sentence again … as I said … not really traditional high fantasy adventure! In a Flowers for Algernon sort of way, minotaur scientists have concocted a potion to suppress the goblins’ base urges and find in the monk-like Ayesh the perfect teacher to help civilize the creatures. In opposition to the plan of teaching the goblins martial arts and yoga are several tribes of fundamentalist minotaurs whose taboos are thinly analogous to the ideologies of more extreme, real-life religious faiths.

So an ambitious idea, yes, and Braddock does take risks, cutting a pretty bloody swatch through the novel’s cast of characters. But the flaw is that the effort – especially for a MTG novel -- isn’t exactly fun. There’s quite a bit of moralizing, some philosophy that hits and some that doesn’t, and the whole exercise feels bleak from the moment of Ayesh’s capture by a minotaur tribe who almost to the cow feel like insensitive clods. If any genre allows for good to best evil (or in this case for a repressive status quo to topple), then its fantasy, but a bad end feels (and is) inevitable for nearly all the better-minded characters. It makes for a depressing read to just illustrate the point – and this isn’t all that original – that it’s enough to plant a seed now in hopes that future generations will do better?

If you can find this one – the older MTG books are long out-of-print – it’s a better-than-average curiosity. But if you are hoping for even a mention of mana, spells, planeswalking, or anything other than oblique references to heretic Hurloon culture, the MTG magic is pretty much missing from this one. Three stars may be a bit too harsh, but the lack of a connection to the source material hurts.

[Michael Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An out-of-print gem of a fantasy book. You will find very little Magic the Gathering lore here, aside from a sprinkling of names of classic cards like hill giant and mesa pegasus. But the plot is riveting, there's depth to the characters and the writing is top-notch.

Ayesh, the sole survivor of a great civilization overrun by goblins hordes, wanders the world telling anyone who will listen the stories of her homeland. She does this partly as a kind of atonement, although her reasons change as the story progresses.

On her journey, Ayesh is captured by a band of minotaurs and taken prisoner in their city. The title blurb, "minotaur politics can be subtle -- and deadly," is corny, but the factional intrigue among the minotaurs is an interesting struggle between religious fundamentalism and the embrace of openness and progress. Ayesh herself realizes that casting aside her deepest-held beliefs is the only way for her and her tales to survive.

It's a shame this author did not write more books in this series. The ending left me thirsting for more.

[Sherrey Worley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feared that this book would have a similar plot progression to the Prodigial Sorcerer. However, once the climax was reached, I could clearly see that was not so! This was a delightful edge of your seat tale of how life is not always as simple as it seems. With great effort, kindness can rule over all else. The ending was sweet with good fortune and resolution that was lacking in a number of the other books. I would highly suggest this to anyone who enjoys magic or is just looking for a good fantasy tale!

[Thom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh man, this was a strange one, and I absolutely loved it. It presents itself in a very strange way, with lore you largely have to piece together for yourself and a story that seems to go in every direction at once yet is somehow coherent and striking. One I really enjoyed, but I think I’d only recommend it for people who enjoy somewhat more out there fantasy that you need to piece together for yourself.

[Otto]

A

[Shase Lindell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting in the context of the mtg universe!

[Kaitlyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always hesitate to re-read a book I loved as a kid, out of fear that it won't stand up to an adult's consumption and retroactively diminish my childhood enjoyment. But I remembered a few odd things about the book and wanted to re-visit it.

I still love it. This is, hands down, the best Magic novel. It isn't as blatantly Magic as, say, Arena is. (Not that Arena is bad, it is also the best Magic novel in its own way.) There's maybe one paragraph that references specific cards explicitly (aside from Hurloon minotaur).

A bit of the plot: Ayesh is the last survivor of a country/culture that was destroyed by goblin hordes. Upon realizing that despite her best efforts, time will distort the knowledge of her people, she goes from depressed to suicidal, and goes off into the countryside to die fighting goblins. Instead, she is captured by minotaurs to be used in a scientific and political battle. Conservative minotaurs wish to follow a strict literal interpretation of their scripture and continue warring with the goblins. Liberal minotaurs wish to try to essentially Uplift the goblins to the point where war is no longer inevitable (and thus, violate scripture that pronounces goblins as vermin and infidels). Ayesh's part in this is to help the uplift process by training the goblins in the ways of her people, a mix of meditation and martial arts.

The characterization is solid. There's very few characters I'd peg as having little depth - of the 10 goblins, only 2-4 are really fleshed out, and one minotaur, Betalem is decidedly one-note. Ayesh is fantastic, beginning the novel as a self-hating, nationalistic, obsessed individual with a (at least understandable) hatred of goblins. Her arc is realistic and satisfying, without being some cheesy and unbelievable 180 change in all things. The goblins that are developed have satisfying arcs as well, though not all are necessarily happy. There's a special type of horror to some of them, like Kler's execution, which takes place when she is rational, for a crime that she committed while irrational and essentially a different person.

The action in the novel is well-written, easy to follow, with emotional impact. The temptation with fantasy action, especially fantasy action with martial arts, is to name every single move as if giving it a name like Break Lion or Thousand Leaves makes it understandable, cool, or believable. Instead, we are given actual movements. Its refreshing.

The minotaur culture is well-done, though I would have liked to see it a bit more fleshed out. There's plenty of thoughtful details that emphasize the author actually thought about the physiology of the creatures in a way few fantasy writers seem to do- no, they wouldn't use traditional human-style chairs with that sort of knee articulation. The cast/country does seem a bit sparse - we are given that this is an entire country living in the mountains, but rarely see more than a dozen named characters. This is explained away as the labyrinth is dark (minotaurs require much less light to see than humans) and minotaurs are largely secretive, tucking themselves away in the tunnel equivalent of alleys and backways and peering through secret peepholes.

I can't review the book without noting the mindfulness theme within it. Ayesh could have been a great ACT therapist. The lessons she gives the goblins could have been ripped right from the ACT textbook I'm reading. Goblin mind, diamond mind? Sounds like self-as-content and self-as-context, and the mind labeling exercises. She alludes to the leaves on the stream exercise for clearing thoughts, of the exercise in which a pain or other aversive experience is imagined as a separate physical object, at mindfulness of one's present moment, starting with the sensations from sitting in the chair, at breathing, at acting appropriately towards one's values despite feeling 'negative' emotions. It was so neat to discover this new connection from a childhood love to an adult love.

If you are only going to read one Magic novel, let this be the one.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book was more about nostalgia for me than anything else. I played Magic a lot in the '90s, and this is one of the earliest Magic novels; I'd read many of those (some pretty decent, most pretty bad), but never this one. My coming across this copy is itself is a neat story.

I stumbled upon this book while visiting my hometown and showing my wife around. She's a librarian, so of course we had to see our local library. They were having a book sale (naturally), and this is where I found Ashes of the Sun. "Cool," I thought, "brings back memories." But I wasn't swayed to actually buy it until I saw that the half title page is signed by the author (with a personal message "For Marsha," if you're out there). That made the book neat enough for me to take a real big shine to it.

And so I read it, and it was a pretty decent story--interesting, good action, all of that. It does have some holes, though ... well, maybe just this one copy does, because pages 87 through 118 are replaced with a repeat of pages 55 through 86! This binding error, the signed nature of this copy, and the fact that there are numerous typos but only on the back cover blurb (proper names misspelled, but consistently) all make me wonder if this is in fact an author advance copy. That's the kind of quirk that gives this book a special place in my heart.

Though, if I ever met Marsha, I would gladly return the book to her if she desired. And if I ever meet Hanovi Braddock (pseudonym for Bruce Holland Rogers), I will kindly ask for a summary of chapters 10 through 14.

[Chip Hunter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ashes of the Sun is another quick and fun early MTG novel. Hanovi Braddock's novel takes place in a land of Minotaurs and Goblins and Humans, where each race believes itself superior and none understand the others. The story has a pretty good plot with danger and excitment and (as with nearly every fantasy book) plenty of fighting. The characters in this book are what really stand out though. Not your typical heroes here, but characters with their own unique personalities and flaws. Ayesh is a stubborn human who knows that she is right about everything in the world and will not back down from anyone. Tlik is an educated goblin who sees falt in everyone but himself. Zhanrax is a powerful minotaur who could never accept equality with others races or creatures. Throughout the story, these characters make decisions and act in very believable and realistic ways. By creating these characters, Braddock has made a point about real life human behavior and politics that will make you laugh and cringe.

[Derp · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book legitimately surprised me. When the whole drugging goblins in order to reeducate and civilize them angle was introduced, I thought Braddock just didn't realize how problematically colonial/eugenics-y it was. Then towards the end of the novel, the viewpoint changes so that we are following the perspective of one of the goblins and you realize that the civilizing of the goblins being immoral was exactly the point. Braddock intentionally chose to tell the story primarily from the perspective of Ayesh, someone who thinks she is doing the right thing. Made me think more than a Magic: The Gathering tie-in novel had any right to.
The minotaur politics/society were also surprisingly interesting.
You could even recommend this book to someone who's never played Magic, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the game :)