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Forgotten Realms: The Nobles #5
The Council of Blades
War cares little for the troubles of the aristocracy. As a terrible new weapon obliterates the age of courtly battle, an intelligent but plain princess and her companions--an addled young inventor and a kleptomaniac firebird--find themselves forced into a battle for survival in a suddenly very deadly world.
320 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published November 4, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 1, 2026
I have a theory about the particular period of TSR Forgotten Realms novels this one came out in, a time when the head of books, Brian M. Thomsen had alienated most of their regular writers and was paying a pittance, and the company was rapidly spiralling towards bankruptcy. This book fits into it. My theory is that Thomsen would buy unsold previoulsy-written fantasy manuscripts that could be shoehorned into the Realms setting with the slimmest of details added.
This doesn't feel at all like a Realms novel. I felt this way about Sword Play and Dangerous Games but even more so this time. It reads like some random fantasy novel that would only serve genre-starved readers of past decades. This was Kidd's second novel with TSR and her first, Mus of Kerbridge, had no connection to any D&D setting either. Again, I think it may have been a book no other publisher had wanted to buy.
It's not at all the worst novel in this line, and if it were presented with different expectations, it could have been a slightly better reading experience. Like, if there was any indication that it was a comedy. Look at the cover art: it's particularly awful even for a low-budget IP fantasy cover, but it certainly doesn't hint at any amusement to be had. Neither does the book description. Neither does the publishing line it's placed it; aside from Thomsen's own execrable attempts at humour with Once Around the Realms and The Mage in the Iron Mask, that's not what these books have been for. And yet, this book attempts to be comical at every turn. Early on, the scenes were cartoonish; then, particularly with the introduction of this stupid bird, it became literal Looney Tunes material. Did the book perform its comedy well, at least? Yeah, I guess so. The scenes' pacing and structure were spot on for the bits they were going for. Were they funny? Nah. I don't think I even chuckled or huffed once. If fatphobic humour is your thing, there might be something in here for you.
Kidd's plotting was top notch. The content of that plot, not so much, stuffed with idiot characters scampering around with no meaningful stakes, in a setting that has no bearing on the Realms. The prose itself is stuffed with excessive, nonsensical similes, silly dialogue, and plot holes so bad they're not worth mentioning.
I think the book succeeded in its intentions, unadvertised as they were.
One positive note: I have now completed 1996's Forgotten Realms novels! Doing the math with my tolerable rate of consumption and the number of books remaining until the year 2000's output to complete my reading plan, I will hopefully be done with all this nonsense by 2031.
This doesn't feel at all like a Realms novel. I felt this way about Sword Play and Dangerous Games but even more so this time. It reads like some random fantasy novel that would only serve genre-starved readers of past decades. This was Kidd's second novel with TSR and her first, Mus of Kerbridge, had no connection to any D&D setting either. Again, I think it may have been a book no other publisher had wanted to buy.
It's not at all the worst novel in this line, and if it were presented with different expectations, it could have been a slightly better reading experience. Like, if there was any indication that it was a comedy. Look at the cover art: it's particularly awful even for a low-budget IP fantasy cover, but it certainly doesn't hint at any amusement to be had. Neither does the book description. Neither does the publishing line it's placed it; aside from Thomsen's own execrable attempts at humour with Once Around the Realms and The Mage in the Iron Mask, that's not what these books have been for. And yet, this book attempts to be comical at every turn. Early on, the scenes were cartoonish; then, particularly with the introduction of this stupid bird, it became literal Looney Tunes material. Did the book perform its comedy well, at least? Yeah, I guess so. The scenes' pacing and structure were spot on for the bits they were going for. Were they funny? Nah. I don't think I even chuckled or huffed once. If fatphobic humour is your thing, there might be something in here for you.
Kidd's plotting was top notch. The content of that plot, not so much, stuffed with idiot characters scampering around with no meaningful stakes, in a setting that has no bearing on the Realms. The prose itself is stuffed with excessive, nonsensical similes, silly dialogue, and plot holes so bad they're not worth mentioning.
I think the book succeeded in its intentions, unadvertised as they were.
One positive note: I have now completed 1996's Forgotten Realms novels! Doing the math with my tolerable rate of consumption and the number of books remaining until the year 2000's output to complete my reading plan, I will hopefully be done with all this nonsense by 2031.
March 1, 2009
This one was pretty bad.
I think that maybe it's sposs to take place so long ago that it's okay that it's out of place. But this story has no bering on rest of the books that I have read. Besides the fact that it takes a place on the shores of Akanamere, there was nothing else to connect it to the Forgotten Realms stuff.
Once again, I had high hopes that this would be wrot with history of a certain corner of Farun. I thought that there would be all kinds of war and battles and stuff; but it really wasn't like that at all. There were a few minor battles, but the rest was really about a brainy princess who wants to be a magic user, an artist inventor, and a weird theiving bird (that I've never heard of). The women were decked out in pointy pastel hats and the men were in tights...it was way to much like the nickoloden fantasy from when I was 6. I guess it was amusing, but not what I wanted.
I don't think this author wrote anything else for TSR, but it will be too bad if he did....
I think that maybe it's sposs to take place so long ago that it's okay that it's out of place. But this story has no bering on rest of the books that I have read. Besides the fact that it takes a place on the shores of Akanamere, there was nothing else to connect it to the Forgotten Realms stuff.
Once again, I had high hopes that this would be wrot with history of a certain corner of Farun. I thought that there would be all kinds of war and battles and stuff; but it really wasn't like that at all. There were a few minor battles, but the rest was really about a brainy princess who wants to be a magic user, an artist inventor, and a weird theiving bird (that I've never heard of). The women were decked out in pointy pastel hats and the men were in tights...it was way to much like the nickoloden fantasy from when I was 6. I guess it was amusing, but not what I wanted.
I don't think this author wrote anything else for TSR, but it will be too bad if he did....
November 13, 2017
Worst of this year for me. A waste of time apart from getting to #6 in the series. I was hoping the hippogryph would eat the bad guy and spare me the last hundred pages, but was not meant to be. I read it fast just to say I read it in full.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 2, 2025
This is a complicated one to review.
First of all, the author is trans, and her name is Pauli Kidd.
Council of Blades is about a princess of a minor principality who is secretly studying to be a wizard, but is struggling against repressive gender roles, her stepmother, and an arranged marriage. There’s also a series of jewel thefts by a magical bird, a backdrop of political intrigue and war against rival states, and a romance with a scatterbrained inventor who eventually turns out to be the guy she’s arranged to marry.
The protagonist, Princess Miliana, is freckled, bespectacled, and flat-chested, and struggles with not fitting into the mold of a blonde and buxom “proper princess.” The male love interest, Lorenzo, is an excitable genius inventor full of wild ideas, fleeting attention span, and no social skills.
The part where Lorenzo invents a periscope, peeps through Miliana’s bathroom window, and paints a nude portrait without her knowledge is played as a funny and innocent misunderstanding on his part.
Here’s the most flattering light I’m willing to cast on that: This is a fantasy about being pursued, chosen, and validated, without having to try. A fantasy of someone breaking through your shell to prove that you are lovable, and loved. A fantasy about being completely insulated against rejection by rejecting everybody, yet still being chosen. Miliana is extremely snappish and aloof, so Lorenzo has to be extremely pushy in order to get close to her to make the romance plot happen. And to keep the pushiness from being aggressive, he’s written as completely clueless and innocent. It’s a farce.
And then there’s the drunken confession. Miliana desperately wants to learn magic in order to get power and control over her own life. But also, it’s an allegory for being trans.
This was published in 1996, when the queerest you could get in D&D was a comical gender swap mishap with a cursed Girdle of Femininity. This passage isn’t a joke; it’s a genuine, heartbreaking struggle. Pauli Kidd knew in her heart that she was trans, even if she hadn’t found the path towards it yet.
So… this complicates the stalker romance plot. I still don’t like it, and I would have murdered Lorenzo with my bare hands, but I have to acknowledge what it actually meant to the author – a hope that someone would be capable of seeing her as a woman, and beautiful, and worthy of love. I’m not going to be too harsh on a baby trans fantasy of being desired.
The rest of the book is a charming comedy of errors, full of plot twists, heists, and funny moments. Not very closely related to D&D, though – the magic spells don’t really follow the rules of D&D, the characters pursue separate plots for most of the book instead of working as an adventuring party, the fights involve more back-of-the-envelope science tricks than anything else, the battles range well into wargaming scale, and there’s no real sense of the mechanics of D&D impacting the story, or any of the echoes of the dynamics of playing around a table.
First of all, the author is trans, and her name is Pauli Kidd.
Council of Blades is about a princess of a minor principality who is secretly studying to be a wizard, but is struggling against repressive gender roles, her stepmother, and an arranged marriage. There’s also a series of jewel thefts by a magical bird, a backdrop of political intrigue and war against rival states, and a romance with a scatterbrained inventor who eventually turns out to be the guy she’s arranged to marry.
The protagonist, Princess Miliana, is freckled, bespectacled, and flat-chested, and struggles with not fitting into the mold of a blonde and buxom “proper princess.” The male love interest, Lorenzo, is an excitable genius inventor full of wild ideas, fleeting attention span, and no social skills.
The part where Lorenzo invents a periscope, peeps through Miliana’s bathroom window, and paints a nude portrait without her knowledge is played as a funny and innocent misunderstanding on his part.
Here’s the most flattering light I’m willing to cast on that: This is a fantasy about being pursued, chosen, and validated, without having to try. A fantasy of someone breaking through your shell to prove that you are lovable, and loved. A fantasy about being completely insulated against rejection by rejecting everybody, yet still being chosen. Miliana is extremely snappish and aloof, so Lorenzo has to be extremely pushy in order to get close to her to make the romance plot happen. And to keep the pushiness from being aggressive, he’s written as completely clueless and innocent. It’s a farce.
And then there’s the drunken confession. Miliana desperately wants to learn magic in order to get power and control over her own life. But also, it’s an allegory for being trans.
“If I were magical – really magical. Then maybe I might get a wish.”
[…]
Miliana emerged – small, brown, and crushed by one inarguable misery.
“If I had a wish, then maybe I could be pretty. Really pretty. […] Someone beautiful. Just – just not Miliana. Just for one single day…”
[Lorenzo said,] “Princess Miliana is beautiful. And I’ll prove you wrong. Tomorrow I’ll show you just exactly what I see. I’ll show you. I’ll make you open your eyes.”
[…]
“I’m just so frightened. So frightened… […] I wanted to be like my father. I wanted to be… to be… proud. But I’m just so scared of the… futility. The dances and the husbands.”
Miliana swallowed back another surge of nausea.
“Don’t let them put me in the finishing school. I’d rather die… I’d rather die… I’d rather die…”
Crying herself to sleep, Miliana hung like a rag doll in Lorenzo’s arms.
This was published in 1996, when the queerest you could get in D&D was a comical gender swap mishap with a cursed Girdle of Femininity. This passage isn’t a joke; it’s a genuine, heartbreaking struggle. Pauli Kidd knew in her heart that she was trans, even if she hadn’t found the path towards it yet.
So… this complicates the stalker romance plot. I still don’t like it, and I would have murdered Lorenzo with my bare hands, but I have to acknowledge what it actually meant to the author – a hope that someone would be capable of seeing her as a woman, and beautiful, and worthy of love. I’m not going to be too harsh on a baby trans fantasy of being desired.
The rest of the book is a charming comedy of errors, full of plot twists, heists, and funny moments. Not very closely related to D&D, though – the magic spells don’t really follow the rules of D&D, the characters pursue separate plots for most of the book instead of working as an adventuring party, the fights involve more back-of-the-envelope science tricks than anything else, the battles range well into wargaming scale, and there’s no real sense of the mechanics of D&D impacting the story, or any of the echoes of the dynamics of playing around a table.
October 23, 2019
A Princess and A Kingdom. Now this was a Nobel story with Battles, Magic, Prince's, Battle Captain's, War Machines and so much more. I enjoyed it and recommend it.
December 26, 2024
Really really goofy book, I personally enjoyed how silly it was but its definitely not for everyone.
February 19, 2016
Council of Blades is a novel aimed at devotees of the Dungeons and Dragon fantasy role-playing game and the story is set in one of the game’s shared worlds – the Forgotten Realms.
Sumbria is a city state, one of the Blade Kingdom’s many city states, a military society modelled on early renaissance Italy. So is Colletro. The book opens with Sumbria and Colletro facing off against each other, ready to wage bloody war over the Valley of Umbricci but before they come to blows the two sides manage to negotiate a truce which sees Sumbria emerge with the better deal much to Colletro’s chagrin.
Miliana Mannicci is an intelligent but plain princess (the book’s blurb, not mine) of Sumbria. She’s our feisty heroine, a budding wizard with a sharp temper and desire for adventure.
Prince Ugo Svarezi, a Colletran knight and the villain of the piece, comes to Sumbria to celebrate the truce. During his visit he meets Blade Captain Gilberto Ilego, a Sumbrian nobleman who schemes to increase his power and social standing. Naturally, the two team up to bring about the downfall of Sumbria and realise their ambitions. Svarezi also meets young Lorenzo Utrelli, a prince from Lomatra, another of the Blade Kingdom’s city states.
Lorenzo is an artist, scientist and inventor and his most accomplished creation is a giant laser which he developed for use in mining. Unable to find a sponsor for his devices, in his native Lomatra, Lorenzo tries to find a benefactor in Sumbria and is feted by Ilego and Svarezi who manipulate him and use his machine to help the Colletran army invade Sumbria. Outraged, Lorenzo joins forces with Miliana and Tekoriikii, a kleptomaniac firebird (a cross between a phoenix and a large parrot), to thwart Svarezi’s invasion.
The verdict
Overall, The Council of blades was an enjoyable romp but there were a couple of major issues with the book. First, is the over importance of science and technology in the story and the implication that this is a world against technological innovation and therefore progressive thinking. This is Dungeons and Dragons; it’s not that the world is technophobic, it’s just that technology plays second fiddle to magic given its prevalence in this setting. Yet the message coming across in CoB is the opposite and this would no doubt have grated with Dungeons and Dragons fans.
And then there’s the humour. There was too much and the story quickly degenerated from humour to parody and slapstick. It’s fair to say, fantasy which takes itself too seriously becomes dull and heavy but, where this book is concerned, Kidd has certainly done himself no favours with Dungeons and Dragons fans. The attention given to science and humour in the book was far too heavy handed and parody of a much loved shared world setting is, by association, insulting to the fans and they will, quite rightly, be turned off by the book. Kidd should have paid more respect the setting and fan base.
Council of Blades was an enjoyable read. Unfortunately, it was horribly over seasoned with humour and science which ultimately spoiled the dish.
Sumbria is a city state, one of the Blade Kingdom’s many city states, a military society modelled on early renaissance Italy. So is Colletro. The book opens with Sumbria and Colletro facing off against each other, ready to wage bloody war over the Valley of Umbricci but before they come to blows the two sides manage to negotiate a truce which sees Sumbria emerge with the better deal much to Colletro’s chagrin.
Miliana Mannicci is an intelligent but plain princess (the book’s blurb, not mine) of Sumbria. She’s our feisty heroine, a budding wizard with a sharp temper and desire for adventure.
Prince Ugo Svarezi, a Colletran knight and the villain of the piece, comes to Sumbria to celebrate the truce. During his visit he meets Blade Captain Gilberto Ilego, a Sumbrian nobleman who schemes to increase his power and social standing. Naturally, the two team up to bring about the downfall of Sumbria and realise their ambitions. Svarezi also meets young Lorenzo Utrelli, a prince from Lomatra, another of the Blade Kingdom’s city states.
Lorenzo is an artist, scientist and inventor and his most accomplished creation is a giant laser which he developed for use in mining. Unable to find a sponsor for his devices, in his native Lomatra, Lorenzo tries to find a benefactor in Sumbria and is feted by Ilego and Svarezi who manipulate him and use his machine to help the Colletran army invade Sumbria. Outraged, Lorenzo joins forces with Miliana and Tekoriikii, a kleptomaniac firebird (a cross between a phoenix and a large parrot), to thwart Svarezi’s invasion.
The verdict
Overall, The Council of blades was an enjoyable romp but there were a couple of major issues with the book. First, is the over importance of science and technology in the story and the implication that this is a world against technological innovation and therefore progressive thinking. This is Dungeons and Dragons; it’s not that the world is technophobic, it’s just that technology plays second fiddle to magic given its prevalence in this setting. Yet the message coming across in CoB is the opposite and this would no doubt have grated with Dungeons and Dragons fans.
And then there’s the humour. There was too much and the story quickly degenerated from humour to parody and slapstick. It’s fair to say, fantasy which takes itself too seriously becomes dull and heavy but, where this book is concerned, Kidd has certainly done himself no favours with Dungeons and Dragons fans. The attention given to science and humour in the book was far too heavy handed and parody of a much loved shared world setting is, by association, insulting to the fans and they will, quite rightly, be turned off by the book. Kidd should have paid more respect the setting and fan base.
Council of Blades was an enjoyable read. Unfortunately, it was horribly over seasoned with humour and science which ultimately spoiled the dish.
October 14, 2007
A fun, but easy to overlook book. Essentially written in a month, it shows its hurried nature with a plot that doesn't start moving until halfway through. However, the scenery along the way is fun, as is the satire of renaissance northern Italy.
sold
February 23, 2012Sold to Lewis White on eBay on 7-Jun-11:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI....
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May 15, 2011
The Nobles Book #5
November 8, 2015
The writing is quite skilled, the story a little sillier than I prefer.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews