Spellfire

We're about to finish reading Spellfire by Ed Greenwood. This will be Jen's second and my at-least-fourth reading of it. It's a very good book.



Originally released in 1988 as a paperback (382 pages), I bought a copy soon after it was released and enjoyed it a lot. The original cover is above. I've read it a few times, as I said before, and I always enjoy it. It looks like I read it about every 5 years, and somehow I tend to forget the ending, so I'm always surprised. I do that with books - I can always remember whether I've read a particular book or not and whether I liked it, but I think I purposely forget the ending so that I can read them again. It goes with my whole "getting the most miles" out of things that I buy I guess. :)

When I started researching the info to write this entry, I was ever-so-pleased to learn that Greenwood had turned this great book into a trilogy!!! 14 years after the original release, he added a second and third book to complete the story.



Here's the new cover of #1, which I like, but I don't think it is really true to the Shandril in Clyde Caldwell's original cover art. You can see a large version of that here or by clicking the book cover at the top of this post.

Here are links to the info on each book at Amazon.

Spellfire (Shandril's Saga, Book 1)
*http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786918748/

Crown of Fire (Shandril's Saga, Book 2)
*http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786927496/

Hand of Fire (Shandril's Saga, Book 3)
*http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786927607/

Yahoo!!! Since we're just about finished with the first book, I have to go out and get 2 and 3. I hope they're good! I've never read any Greenwood that was not excellent, so I have high expectations. I fear that the prices are a bit steep for new copies though, so I'm going to head out to my local Half-Price Books and see if I can find them there.

I found two interesting things on Wizards of the Coast's website while I was searching for info:

An interview with Ed Greenwood (local mirror).
&
Narm and Shandril's stats for campaign/informational
use (local mirror). [!Spoilers!]

[I also want to look more at http://www.clydecaldwell.com/. He is a prolific painter, and I recognize many of the prints in his gallery as D&D novel covers.]