War of the Spark: Ravnica (Magic: The Gathering)

At first a lot of fans of Magic: The Gathering’s story were miffed that the main beats of War of the Spark were revealed from the card set’s preview season before any of the literature was released itself. Dack Fayden got his spark ripped out? Wait, Niv-Mizzet died in the first place? Gideon sacrificed himself to save Liliana, the only one who can turn the tide (a la The Last Hope during Eldritch Moon)?However, now I’m glad I was able to see the framework built by Wizard’s in-house design and creative teams before I read Wiesman’s take. I avoided leaks and discussions of the novel because I wanted to be surprised and mystified by twists and unforeseen happenings. However, I needn’t have bothered, as the book offered… none of these.The story was, simply, conveyed better between the set trailers, art, and flavor-text. War of the Spark’s premise is rife with stakes and emotion, and the animation and cards wonderfully illustrated Nicol Bolas’s cruel mechanizations, the darkness and destruction befalling local Ravnica, Liliana’s inner conflict and decisive resolve, Gideon’s emotional sacrifice and well deserved rest, and many more struggles, plans, and tragedies. Even Ral and Tomik’s relationship got an endearing nod with Dawn Murin’s art direction via the inclusion of wrist cloths in their card arts.The frame and setup of the story was all there, and it was solid. While fans were waiting for the novel’s release, we were welcome to fill in the narrative gaps with our speculation and imaginations.Regardless, Wiesman’s own imagination didn’t do anything particularly good or interesting with what it was given. He covered all the key events and all of the characters, but that’s pretty much it. Cleverness, surprises, emotional tracking, the book had none of these. Things that should have been grandiose and exciting fell flat. The Gatewatch, which by all means should have been ready with a crafted plan a la the endings of the Ixalan and Dominaria blocks, ran around with their heads cut off for over half the book.There was no good reason for Jace and Vraska’s plan to not come to fruition, and no reason why the rest of the Gatewatch to be caught so unaware. This was the finale, and most characters were set back character-development wise for it, when they should have been forged and triumphant from their previous successes and failures. The book suffered from character overload, and it wasted time covering relatively inconsequential moments of low-stakes battles with the Eternals (who seemed to also be powered-down from how we knew them).Teyo and Rat were meant to act as a lens for readers new to MTG story, but I don’t think this intention was achieved. The sheer amount of names and locations were probably inconceivable to follow from someone not familiar with MTG’s dense lore.I much prefer the looser canon of War of the Spark’s set art and trailers over Wiesman’s novelization of it. I have to wonder if leaving the novel to some of the writers of the web fiction such as Alison Luhrs, Kate Elliot, Doug Beyer, Nicky Drayden, etcetera, would have resulted in a War of the Spark novel with a little more passion and heart.

If you're a big enough Magic fan to ignore the sloppy writing and weird characterizations, this book is fine. If not, stay far away from this mess.

Let me get this out in front: do not make this your first entry into Magic's lore. On their website there is a "story" section that contains a lot of free reading, which is really necessary because without it this book loses a lot of its oomph. If you just want to read enough to catch up with what's going on in this book, I recommend reading the following story blocks on the website:Battle for Zendikar/Oath of the Gatewatch (details the formation of the Gatewatch, the main heroes of the novel)Shadows of Innistrad/Eldritch Moon (not super necessary for the novel but bridges the Gatewatch story and brings another main character into fold)Kaladesh/Aether Revolt, Amonkhet/Hour of Devastation, Ixalan/Rivals of Ixalan, and Dominaria (more Gatewatch adventures and starts directly laying the groundwork for the novel)There's other lore interspersed there that is interesting and will add some context to the novel but is not strictly necessary. But without this primer, you're going to be underwhelmed when characters like Ugin or Nissa show up on the page without introduction and start doing their thing.As for the novel itself, as a Magic fan I found it to be an enjoyable read. Nicol Bolas has been laying the groundwork for his master plan over the past several years of story and it's really neat to finally see all the pieces interlock. There is a satisfying conclusion to this particular story arc (if you're up to date on the lore anyway, otherwise it feels out of left field), and you see a couple seeds planted for where the story can go from here. Don't expect The Next Great Novel, but if you've been enjoying the lore posted on the website, you'll enjoy War of the Spark because it's written in the same style.A lot of characters get name-dropped to the point where you're keenly aware they're being named-dropped and, perhaps more infuriatingly, the Sorin/Nahiri feud, one of the great conflicts in the current lore, is explicitly pointed out and then is promptly forgotten about. We're introduced to several new characters, some of whom are only in a couple paragraphs (like The Wanderer) and some who are central characters in the story (Teyo).The novel also glosses over a huge lore point between Jace and Vraska that had been built up as a key to the Gatewatch's plans, only to have it hand-waved away here. I found that happening a little more than I would have liked in that it feels like there was a lot of threads were left basically unused. The core story is pretty good, but I can't help that if a few of those threads had been tugged a bit more it would have been excellent.Overall, if you're an existing fan of Magic lore, this won't rock your world but it's a satisfying continuation to the story and the conclusion of an arc that's been set up over the past several years. But as the first novel to come out in quite some time, it doesn't make a good entry point.

A poor excuse for a novel (which calling it a novel is a stretch, it is more like fanfiction you would find on the internet. Scratch that, you can find better written fanfiction than this tripe). Characters are one-dimensional stereotypes, there is little to no description and the plot barely makes sense. As a huge fan of both the game of Magic the Gathering and the stories and lore behind it, you would have thought that Wizards of the Coast would have hired an actual professional to write what is quite possibly their most story driven set yet. Chapters are about 1 to 2 pages long, mostly due to lack of any description, and the phrasing, punctuation and wording is terrible. Exclamation points are used liberally and in regular sentences such as "and then he exploded!". This made it feel like I was reading a child's story, and yes while this may have been aimed at a younger market to boost sales, it is no excuse for poor writing. The word "literally" is used so frequently I thought that if I took a drink every time I saw it I would be catatonic by page 50.If you are a fan of Magic the Gathering content, avoid this book at all costs. You can get more character depth and stronger plot points from the 15 word flavour text found on the cards themselves from this set.

I'm four chapters into this book and it doesn't make any sense.I'm well up on my MTG story but the immediate events leading up to this book aren't available anywhere.The book is a finale to a year's in the making build up of storyline but the part of the story just before the events of this book don't exist.It's like if you were to tell a large scale story over the course of 10 books but then neglect to write book 9 and skip straight to 10 expecting readers to know what's going on.I'm a massive fan of the MTG storyline but I'm very disappointed with trying to figure out what's going on and having to go searching online to make sense of the gaping holes in storyline.I'm far from excited to continue reading this book knowing that the whole thing could hinge on an element of story that has never been released.

The "War of the spark" has an epic story and lausy writing. It seems that the writer needed to tick the boxes and every planeswalker from the set needed to be there for a brief moment. There were nice moments in the story like Rat's and Teo's parts or Dack Fayden's story. But the main story Jace, Gideon, Liliana, Bolas is so simple and uninspiring. My honest feeling is Wedge from the Mana Source described Gideon's sacrafice better than in the book. When it happened that supposed to be epic moment in the book. It is plain and flat. To add insult to injury sometimes you do not understand why things happening especially if you did not read every Magic short story from the net. If you are a really big fan read it as an ebook. It is not as good as the paper it printed.

At first wasn't thrilled by certain things in the book but I've discovered that's because the prequel to this book was delayed. So basically the bits that it seems to skip over should have already been explained in that book. Thought the characters lost some of the depth they had been developing in the most recent online stories. Jace, for example, seems to go backwards to his more indecisive self and loses some of the back bone he gained from his time on Ixalan. Enjoyed the book enough to read it quickly but other than the Kytheon chapter it lacked punch. There were no truly exciting moments. Maybe a good book to chill out reading if you only have time for a few chapters at a time and don't want to dwell on it while doing other things.

The book was meant to be the culmination of stories from battle for zendikar until now, and even a climactic end of the Nicol Bolas God Arc, but it was poorly written. I felt very spoon fed the entire time, lots of "then this happens, and then this happens, and then this happens" no stakes or tension. The end few chapters were nice which stopped me from giving a one star review, but this should have been broken into at least two books. All in all, I would read it if you like the lore, but just wait for the pdf online or you can have my copy haha