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Forgotten Realms: Elminster #1-3
The Annotated Elminster: Collector's Edition
A look inside the mysterious mind of Ed Greenwood!
The Annotated Elminster collects the first three of Ed Greenwood's classic Elminster The Making of a Mage , Elminster in Myth Drannor , and The Temptation of Elminster for the first time in a deluxe omnibus edition. Extensive annotations by the author will provide fascinating insight into not only the books themselves but the process of creation that made the Forgotten Realms (R) world this generation's greatest fantasy setting.
These three books chronicle the early years of the Realms' most powerful and most colorful wizard, the Sage of Shadowdale, Elminster. Follow Elminster from his humble beginnings as a traveling mage to the tragic collapse of an elven empire, and on to a personal turning point that could have sent him down a path to corruption and darkness.
The Annotated Elminster collects the first three of Ed Greenwood's classic Elminster The Making of a Mage , Elminster in Myth Drannor , and The Temptation of Elminster for the first time in a deluxe omnibus edition. Extensive annotations by the author will provide fascinating insight into not only the books themselves but the process of creation that made the Forgotten Realms (R) world this generation's greatest fantasy setting.
These three books chronicle the early years of the Realms' most powerful and most colorful wizard, the Sage of Shadowdale, Elminster. Follow Elminster from his humble beginnings as a traveling mage to the tragic collapse of an elven empire, and on to a personal turning point that could have sent him down a path to corruption and darkness.
880 pages, Hardcover
First published December 4, 2007
13 people are currently reading
212 people want to read
About the author
Ed Greenwood
364 books875 followersEd Greenwood is the creator of the Forgotten Realms fantasy world, which became the setting for his home D&D game in 1975. Play still continues in this long-running campaign, and Ed also keeps busy producing Realmslore for various TSR publications.
Ed has published over two hundred articles in Dragon magazine and Polyhedron newszine, is a lifetime charter member of the Role Playing Game Associaton (RPGA) network, has written over thirty books and modules for TSR, and been Gen Con Game Fair guest of honor several times.
In addition to all these activities, Ed works as a library clerk and has edited over a dozen small press magazines.
Invented the character Elminster from the popular Forgotten Realms RPG series. Currently resides in an old farmhouse in the countryside of Ontario, Canada.
Ed has published over two hundred articles in Dragon magazine and Polyhedron newszine, is a lifetime charter member of the Role Playing Game Associaton (RPGA) network, has written over thirty books and modules for TSR, and been Gen Con Game Fair guest of honor several times.
In addition to all these activities, Ed works as a library clerk and has edited over a dozen small press magazines.
Invented the character Elminster from the popular Forgotten Realms RPG series. Currently resides in an old farmhouse in the countryside of Ontario, Canada.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 1, 2025
This collection of the first 3 Elminster novels felt like taking a step back in time. I first got into reading fantasy through Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels back in the '90s. But upon reading this I realized that they are not mature novels, but rather simple adventure stories with little time for character growth or depth, which are important for making the reader sympathize with the characters. These novels tell much of the lore or origin stories that made Elminster into the character he is (or was, I don't know if he's still around). I am not knowledgeable enough in the lore of the Forgotten Realms but that didn't stop me from enjoying the stories when I was younger, but I feel like these relied a lot on the reader recognizing the famous places, people, and battles that were discussed in the modern timeline. These novels are basically adventure stories, almost like shonen manga, where the character would move from one battle to the next, so it became a bit of a slog to get through, but it was kind of nice to have a bit of "lighter" reading, but I would not re-read this tome.
June 6, 2016
This is again one of those volumes that contains multiple titles previously published separately. Elminster: The Making of a Mage was first printed in 1994, Elminster in Myth Drannor in 1997, and The Temptation of Elminster in 1998; the three were collected in this one volume and "annotated" in 2007.
I read this at my wife's recommendation--not that she had read it, but that she saw me reading Bob Woodward's book and insisted I needed something lighter. Maybe this was it, I cannot say. I have almost no background in The Forgotten Realms, which appear to be this author's creation; I think that there must be a hardcover OAD&D rulebook on them which I must have read more than a decade ago but never really incorporated into my campaign in any way and never rated terribly important for a Dungeon Master who created his own world and campaigns. Thus I did not come to this as having much knowledge of the setting or characters, and do not know whether that would have made a difference. At first I mostly noticed the problems.
First problem: there is a map right in the front of the book. Not a single thing on that map is mentioned anywhere in the first novel. I gave up checking it. I think perhaps some of the places are mentioned in the second novel, but I had so despaired of finding anything useful on it that I had ceased to check. It probably would have helped to have some comment explaining how the map related to the dates of the stories before the stories (and I read every word of the preliminary pages, so I know there is not one).
The stories are uneven.
The first novel was actually rather good, an exciting adventure in which a lot happened but in which the character, and the reader, had to think. Were it not for the unrelated worries I would probably have enjoyed it more. The first of those, of course, was the map; the second was the title "Annotated", which started to bother me.
I've read The Annotated Alice, or parts of it, and probably some other annotated works, and one expects there to be extensive footnotes, connections alongside the text explaining what things are, where they originated, what else is known about them. I had long despaired of finding anything helpful in this book before I'd finished the first novel. It turns out that the "annotations" are short sections of background reflections--nothing wrong with that, but not really much of interest particularly since a good portion of it was about how this material was the history of things in a world with which I was completely unfamiliar. It was also relatively short.
The second novel was interesting, but a bit meandering and disjointed, to my recollection. I probably write like that sometimes, so I shouldn't criticize, but I at times wondered where it was going. In the notes to both of these he mentioned having to stay within a word count, and rushing some passages to do so, which I think is probably a poor way to create good literature but a good way to create pulp. This was close to that, I think.
The third novel was much longer and terribly episodic. The author's notes talk about how it was all concerned with the temptation to power, but it seemed to wander from place to place, character to character. There was one point where I thought it was getting really interesting, as a couple of wizards realized that one of Mystra's Chosen--our title character--had just passed through their room, and they began following him not knowing that someone else was also following him, and I anticipated an interesting confrontation. However, by the time it came I couldn't help wondering what those three characters had been doing for several years. It had its moments, and probably some good ideas for games (although I'm not sure whether they could actually be executed under the OAD&D rules with which I am familiar), but it was a very disjointed story. Then when I was reading the annotations and the author explained what had happened in the book, I was completely surprised--I got almost none of that from reading it. I don't think the story was the one the author remembered writing.
[Edited to add:]
There were two other little problems that were annoying enough to make themselves seem big.
First, there was a problem with the font. When it was italicized, the difference between the lower case h and b was so slight that I often had to remove my glasses and get my nose down to the page, to see whether there was a ball on the end of the curved raised tail with a sliver of uninked page before the upright, or a thickening of the curved line connecting to the upright. This would have been less of a problem were it not that so many names of people and places were invented, and pronunciations were already a challenge of many of them.
On the pronunciations, I was annoyed by what I took to be a little vulgar joke. We are introduced to two characters named Tabarast and Beldrune. I would have pronounced them "TAA-bah-rast" and "BELL-droon", but I noticed that the first called the second "Droone", which suggested that his name was "bell-DROON", and likewise the second omitted the first syllable of the name of the first, suggesting that the name is properly "ta-BAR-ast"; but the spelling of the shortened form was "Baerast", for which the pronunciation must have been intended to be "Bare-assed", an unnecessary crudity that added nothing to the story but a persistent distraction.
The other annoying problem was the frequent misuse of archaic pronouns--ye, thy. Even people raised on the King James Version of the Bible get these gratingly wrong at times, and the author seemed to have no clue regarding the rules of grammar for sixteenth century English. If you're going to use them, learn the proper use. Otherwise, don't.
[End edit]
I won't say it was disappointing, because frankly I did not have high expectations going into it, but then, it did not ever grab me. Not a bad book; not a good one.
I read this at my wife's recommendation--not that she had read it, but that she saw me reading Bob Woodward's book and insisted I needed something lighter. Maybe this was it, I cannot say. I have almost no background in The Forgotten Realms, which appear to be this author's creation; I think that there must be a hardcover OAD&D rulebook on them which I must have read more than a decade ago but never really incorporated into my campaign in any way and never rated terribly important for a Dungeon Master who created his own world and campaigns. Thus I did not come to this as having much knowledge of the setting or characters, and do not know whether that would have made a difference. At first I mostly noticed the problems.
First problem: there is a map right in the front of the book. Not a single thing on that map is mentioned anywhere in the first novel. I gave up checking it. I think perhaps some of the places are mentioned in the second novel, but I had so despaired of finding anything useful on it that I had ceased to check. It probably would have helped to have some comment explaining how the map related to the dates of the stories before the stories (and I read every word of the preliminary pages, so I know there is not one).
The stories are uneven.
The first novel was actually rather good, an exciting adventure in which a lot happened but in which the character, and the reader, had to think. Were it not for the unrelated worries I would probably have enjoyed it more. The first of those, of course, was the map; the second was the title "Annotated", which started to bother me.
I've read The Annotated Alice, or parts of it, and probably some other annotated works, and one expects there to be extensive footnotes, connections alongside the text explaining what things are, where they originated, what else is known about them. I had long despaired of finding anything helpful in this book before I'd finished the first novel. It turns out that the "annotations" are short sections of background reflections--nothing wrong with that, but not really much of interest particularly since a good portion of it was about how this material was the history of things in a world with which I was completely unfamiliar. It was also relatively short.
The second novel was interesting, but a bit meandering and disjointed, to my recollection. I probably write like that sometimes, so I shouldn't criticize, but I at times wondered where it was going. In the notes to both of these he mentioned having to stay within a word count, and rushing some passages to do so, which I think is probably a poor way to create good literature but a good way to create pulp. This was close to that, I think.
The third novel was much longer and terribly episodic. The author's notes talk about how it was all concerned with the temptation to power, but it seemed to wander from place to place, character to character. There was one point where I thought it was getting really interesting, as a couple of wizards realized that one of Mystra's Chosen--our title character--had just passed through their room, and they began following him not knowing that someone else was also following him, and I anticipated an interesting confrontation. However, by the time it came I couldn't help wondering what those three characters had been doing for several years. It had its moments, and probably some good ideas for games (although I'm not sure whether they could actually be executed under the OAD&D rules with which I am familiar), but it was a very disjointed story. Then when I was reading the annotations and the author explained what had happened in the book, I was completely surprised--I got almost none of that from reading it. I don't think the story was the one the author remembered writing.
[Edited to add:]
There were two other little problems that were annoying enough to make themselves seem big.
First, there was a problem with the font. When it was italicized, the difference between the lower case h and b was so slight that I often had to remove my glasses and get my nose down to the page, to see whether there was a ball on the end of the curved raised tail with a sliver of uninked page before the upright, or a thickening of the curved line connecting to the upright. This would have been less of a problem were it not that so many names of people and places were invented, and pronunciations were already a challenge of many of them.
On the pronunciations, I was annoyed by what I took to be a little vulgar joke. We are introduced to two characters named Tabarast and Beldrune. I would have pronounced them "TAA-bah-rast" and "BELL-droon", but I noticed that the first called the second "Droone", which suggested that his name was "bell-DROON", and likewise the second omitted the first syllable of the name of the first, suggesting that the name is properly "ta-BAR-ast"; but the spelling of the shortened form was "Baerast", for which the pronunciation must have been intended to be "Bare-assed", an unnecessary crudity that added nothing to the story but a persistent distraction.
The other annoying problem was the frequent misuse of archaic pronouns--ye, thy. Even people raised on the King James Version of the Bible get these gratingly wrong at times, and the author seemed to have no clue regarding the rules of grammar for sixteenth century English. If you're going to use them, learn the proper use. Otherwise, don't.
[End edit]
I won't say it was disappointing, because frankly I did not have high expectations going into it, but then, it did not ever grab me. Not a bad book; not a good one.
November 10, 2018
This three book in one is very good. Even if you've never read any of his previous works, Ed Greenwood does a wonderful job of drawing you in. My one complaint is that it focused way to much on sexual relationships vs trying to be the legendary figure you're supposed to become.
July 24, 2012
Meh.
Imagine if you had an amazing fantasy world with millions of loyal devotees. And you set out to write prequels of one of the most important characters in that world, and then botched it worse than George Lucas did in Star Wars Phantom menace.
How does an immortal and wise wizard get caught bumbling around so much? I can see one book, when he is young, and stupid, and makes horrendous mistakes, but a whole series? How does the most powerful mage in the world go from taking down three of the most powerful monsters known in the D&D world get beaten up by bunch of elves? Its ridiculous. This dude, over hundreds of years, doesn't even have more than one or two girlfriends. I mean, come on, even the most hard-core geek has had more girlfriends than that in 20 years.
This series of books has so many problems. Continuity problems leave the reader gasping for straws, trying to figure out whats going on. An ever changing cast of characters with 5 syllable names and changing nicknames make the stories hard to read.
Greenwood is on my permanent shit list unless I see that reviewers really love a book by him.
Edit: On re-read, I appreciated the book a lot more. Perhaps my standards have gotten lower? I'm not sure. But I definitely liked it my second time around.
Imagine if you had an amazing fantasy world with millions of loyal devotees. And you set out to write prequels of one of the most important characters in that world, and then botched it worse than George Lucas did in Star Wars Phantom menace.
How does an immortal and wise wizard get caught bumbling around so much? I can see one book, when he is young, and stupid, and makes horrendous mistakes, but a whole series? How does the most powerful mage in the world go from taking down three of the most powerful monsters known in the D&D world get beaten up by bunch of elves? Its ridiculous. This dude, over hundreds of years, doesn't even have more than one or two girlfriends. I mean, come on, even the most hard-core geek has had more girlfriends than that in 20 years.
This series of books has so many problems. Continuity problems leave the reader gasping for straws, trying to figure out whats going on. An ever changing cast of characters with 5 syllable names and changing nicknames make the stories hard to read.
Greenwood is on my permanent shit list unless I see that reviewers really love a book by him.
Edit: On re-read, I appreciated the book a lot more. Perhaps my standards have gotten lower? I'm not sure. But I definitely liked it my second time around.
February 6, 2008
This book contains the first three Elminster Novels written by Ed Greenwood. The book also contains a commentary be Ed Greenwood after each story. The commentaries go over how and why he wrote each story along with how each story builds upon the Forgotten Realms Setting (both the role playing and books aspect the forgotten Realms). All three stories are good solid fantasy novels with each doing something different.
November 27, 2013
Just finished the first of the 3 collected novels herein. Great work, especially considering how early in Ed Greenwood's writing career it was. The annotations provide fascinating insight into Ed's creative process. The first story itself is well constructed, a story in four acts, tracking Elminster's early years, and growth through the four original Dungeons and Dragons classes. Each act feels very different, and yet part of a cohesive whole. Looking forward to continuing the journey.
August 4, 2010
Currently in my reread of this book. I tend to reread most of the books I enjoy. Elminster is a great character. There are a few sections where the book starts to drag on but overall the flow is very good.
July 31, 2010
I only read book one. I enjoyed it but I didn't feel like going on with the story. I skimmed through the next two books, more fighting, more battles...I lost interest, but I did enjoy reading the first one.
February 18, 2013
Entertaining and easy to read, this book gives you nothing but fun fantasy. It's like birthday cake - you know what to expect but it's tasty none the less.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews