Circle of Skulls: Ed Greenwood Presents: Waterdeep [Mass Market Paperback]

Circle of Skulls by James P. Davis- This is the sixth and final book released in the Ed Greenwood Presents Waterdeep series of stand-alone novels. This series contains five other entries, which are all written by different authors. With all stand-alone novel series, any of the other entries can be read out-of-order. The series is set in the Forgotten Realm universe. The other novels in the series includes; Blackstaff Tower by Steven E. Schend,Mistshore by Jaleigh Johnson, Downshadow by Erik Scott de Bie, City of the Dead by Rosemary Jones, and The God Catcher by Erin M. Evans. Circle of Skulls was released in May 2010. This is James P. Davis fourth novel and he has contributed a short story titled "Possessions" to the Realms of the Dragons II anthology. His other full length novels are all set in the Forgotten Realms. These include; Bloodwalk (The Wizards series), The Shield of Weeping Ghosts (The Citadels series), and The Restless Shore (The Wilds series). Circle of Skulls starts off with a brief introduction by Ed Greenwood.

Jinnaoth is looking for revenge. An angel of Asmodeus (a former arch-devil who became an evil god) took Jinn's love, and he wants the angel, Sathariel, dead. The problem is, Jinn hasn't be able to get close enough to the angel. However, when a string of horrendous murders start happening in the city, it seems that Sathariel is connected. Having the angel connected to the murders, Jinn might finally get his chance. Enlisting the help of a night hag, Maranyuss, and an eladrin wizard named Quessahn, Jinn starts to track down the source of the murders and may be able to stop them. But, it seems that the murders are not only connected to Sathariel and Asmodeus, but with a haunted area of Waterdeep referred to as the Circle of Skulls and the nine mysteriously floating skulls. Can the trio find the connection and stop the murders? Does Jinn get his revenge against Sathariel?

Criticisms:
1) Jumping. The scenes seems to jump and it always seemed like some actions where missing. This is a problem that really plagued the book. By 'jumping' I mean when someone is doing a certain thing and in the next instance they are doing something completely different. Here's general example; me sitting in a chair having a conversation and suddenly I appear behind the person I was talking to without having any action explaining that I was getting out of the chair. At first, I thought this may have to do with just the action scenes to add a sense of confusion and 'realism' to them, but it becomes apparent that it's everywhere. The clearest example I have is towards the end of the book when Jinn is talking with Maranyuss about a ritual, and during the whole conversation I don't recall Jinn moving toward the exit. Jinn is just talking with Mara and somehow, someway Jinn is suddenly out of the room and starts talking with Quessahn. This took place between two paragraphs. One paragraph was Jinn and Mara talking, the next he suddenly left the room and is getting ready to leave and starts a conversation with Quess. This wouldn't have been a problem, if there was some description or action mentioning Jinn moving to leave the room where Mara was. It needed something to signify Jinn leaving, but there wasn't anything. This isn't a one time event either. It happens at least three or four times a chapter. It almost seems like these parts could have been lost in the editing process. It made things a little confusing and harder to follow. To top if off, it's the reason behind the next criticism.
2) Slow. The pacing is slow and it made the book a little harder to read. The first reason is the above criticism about jumping. When the story takes a 'jump', it caused me re-read the previous page to see if I missed something. Nine times out of ten, I didn't. It really just bogged the story down. The second reason for this slowness is that there wasn't very many exciting scenes. Sure the fights were pretty good, and I can chalk this reason up to building atmosphere. While the atmosphere was creepy, it just didn't make it an exciting read. The other reason is the next criticism.
3) Little Exposition. There's an unwritten rule of exposition of "show, don't tell". Well, I'm bending the rule. As a casual Forgotten Realms fan and someone who does know quite a few things about the world, I was utterly lost in what most of these things are. Also, aren't stand-alone novels aimed towards casual readers who might be unfamiliar with the world? So where are the explanations? Who is Asmodeus? What are these Orders? After finishing the book I still could not explain these things. I did figure out that Asmodeus is some sort of god, who was an arch-devil, but that's pretty much all. As for the Vigilant Order, I honestly have no idea. Hence why I'm saying you need to bend the rule of "show, don't tell". You need some explanations for things, especially in a novel aimed towards new readers and casual ones.

Praises:
1) Creepy. I do have to give some credit to how creepy the story was. The atmosphere that was developed was frightening. The prologue was disturbing. It really did build up the creepy factor. While the whole story doesn't stay as creepy or disturbing, there were some parts that made my skin crawl. The best scene that sticks out in my mind I can't really tell much about except that there is a lot, and I mean a lot of blood involved. That was disturbing and frightening. Overall, I really did think the story did have a creepy factor.
2) Protagonists. I'm going to start by saying they aren't the best characters I've read. They aren't really well-developed, and they don't go through any major changes as the story goes on. However, something about them really stuck to me. Jinn, Mara, and Quess all possessed something unique that I just found fascinating. For Jinn it was his past. I'm really interested in reading more about his past lives and what happened in them. He is just a mystery, and for some reason, I just like the mysterious characters. Mara is kind of the same way, but that's not why I enjoyed reading about her. She was a fairly good anti-heroine, and her greed really made her stick out. I really don't know how I should feel about her, if I should hate or like her. It makes her different. With Quess it's much more like Jinn, her background intrigues me. I wonder about her magic and her pacts she made. So in reality, the protagonists backgrounds really are interesting and I'm willing to read more about them.
3) Ending. I really did enjoy the ending. I'm not going to give much away, and because of that I can't explain too much. But I will say that the final showdowns (yes, more than one) was worth it. They were very climactic and very satisfying. That's all I'm going to say about it.

Side Notes:
1) Quessahn. Quick question: are eladrin's and moon elf's the same? I was under the impression that they both were elves and that eladrin were 'originals' and moon elves were more 'watered down' (for lack of a better word) versions of the eladrin. So it kind of annoyed me that Quessahn was called an eladrin and a moon elf on the same page, when I was under the impression that they were different.
2) Sathariel. Another question: I thought evil gods used demons and devils as minions, so is it 'normal' to have an angel do its bidding? Maybe I'm just ignorant and can only think of angels as being holy and good, but I'm honestly curious.
3) Cover Art. I really like it. It's creepy and really catches your eye. The problem is that it's too small. I'm starting to really not like how these stand-alone novels have such small artwork and have huge titles and borders. I would rather have a full cover of art and not some small space that only take up half the cover. But I do like it, just I want it bigger.

Overall: 4/5
Final Thoughts:
Circle of Skulls is really a 3.5, but I don't care for using decimals. It's not a terrible story by any means, yet it has to many problems to be a good one. While the story's atmosphere is creepy, it bogs down the pacing. The pacing also suffers from sudden jumps. The protagonists have something that makes them interesting and I would to read more about them, but they are just okay overall. It was missing some needed exposition (especially since it is a stand-alone novel). I really enjoyed the ending, it was climactic and exciting. For a new or casual reader, I can't really recommend it. If you're a fan and know a lot about the Forgotten Realms, pick it up. If you like creepy stories, it's worth a read.

I should begin this by saying that I bought this for the teaser Elminster novel preview in the back, as horror fiction isn't something that I normally buy. I'm also not a fan of 4E Realms, where this is set, as I much preferred the earlier editions of the setting.

That said, I do think this was written well, better than many Forgotten Realms novels of the past, and it had a compelling story. It is very dark, and the author is very effective in writing creepy scenes with evil magic. I agree with reviewer Travis who commented that there was less exposition than I would also like, although nearly all of the concepts should be familiar to those who know the Realms. I don't think you have to know that much about the new Realms to get into this novel. I did feel that some of the "reveals" might have been spaced a little better throughout the novel, rather than coming in big expository chunks with few clues along the way (the book Mara obtains really felt this way). The only problem that I had with the pacing, though, is that it seemed to build up toward the middle of the novel, slowed dramatically until the end, and the conclusion didn't seem to carry quite as much "punch" as the middle. It was good, though.

I also agree that the main characters were hard to relate to, with the exception of Quess who I quite liked (and I would've liked more of her). Jinn and Mara were unique, and yet somewhat distant because of what they were. Davis absolutely nailed the Waterdeep officers (i.e. policemen of sorts), both on the honorable and the corrupt side, although being a horror novel it tended to focus far more on the darker side (as it should). The depths of evil, with the undead and soulless servants of Asmodeus, the corrupt family of worshippers, and particularly the dark angel, were perfectly creepy and there were many scenes showing the bloody ends of people, evil rituals, and depraved magic. And Briarbones, what an unique and intriguing protagonist/ally to have in any book! About the end, very good conclusion, but I felt that the final reveal about Jinn's sword was unnecessary and maybe a little too over the top; it would have been stronger to leave a little mystery there rather than hit us over the head with its "epicness" for lack of a better word.

However, if you go to the author's amazon page, he provides a link to an extended ending. Not a revision or alteration, it's an additional chapter that answers a lot of questions and gives a bit more background on the sword and serves well as a lead-up for a possible follow-up novel. Reading it, I felt a lot better about the "epic" quality of the sword. It's worth checking out.

Circle of Skulls is certainly not for everyone, but as a non-horror reader I thought it was a good romp through the dark new Realms (I'd give it 3.5 stars, if we could give half-stars).

I read all of Davis' previous Realms novels, and based on reviews i seem to like his "horrorish" style more then an average Realms fan. So i picked up this book with pretty high expectations.

Everything i expected was there, and even more than that. Great plot, strong protagonists, even stronger antagonists, tragedy, believable drives and motivations, pretty cliche-free, tragedy, and atmosphere. However, the presentation is very very poor. As someone already commented, the scene sequence is terribly disjointed, and even sequence of paragraphs inside a singe scene seems jumbled. Every 3 pages i would have to stop and track back to see if my mind went elsewhere and i skipped something important, but that most often wasnt the case. The flow was just plain wrong. Isnt it one of editor's jobs to point out flaws in flow? It almost seems like there are missing paragraphs in the book.

I would certainly like to read more about Jinn and others, but just presented in a more reader-friendly manner. Just to get it straight, i like to use my brain while reading, i dont want everything laid out for me, but this was far from good.

I was torn here between 3 stars and 4, but went for 4 in the end, because i liked the author's previous works.

Pick it up, but expect some frustrations as you will certainly feel like you skipped something at times.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 5 reviews  3.4 out of 5 stars