The curse began when a severed foot was found in the court.
Rising Tides (The Threat from the Sea, Book 1) by Mel Odom:
Her face took on a more somber look. "Know too, that there are those who would stop you in your journey," she said. "They fear you, fear what you will become, and with good cause because your life will touch the lives of many. There is a darkness out there, greater than any darkness you've known. Should you live, understanding and more will be yours."
"And should I die, lady?"
She looked at him, gave him a small smile and said simply, "Don't."
Synopsis: The fish people get pissed and get magic and go whup on some land-dwellers, finding them crunchy and good with ketchup. Also there's a subplot about the world's wieniest secret pirate.
The sahuagin are kind of sea goblins, and one of their princesses gets it into her head to track down a mysterious and forgotten manuscript. Because that always goes so well. And indeed she follows the manuscripts directions to the undersea tomb of a dessicated naked dude, which a) is reason number one never to go on forgotten manuscript adventures and b) results in two fellow princesses getting immediately eaten, because the dessicated naked dude is secretly a great white shark. And boy is he annoyed.
Of course he wasn't a good great white shark, he was an evil one, and that's how he got imprisoned in an underwater tomb without any trousers. I guess whoever stuck him there thought a lack of pants would totally stop this dude. Who's a shark. Anyway, Iakhovas the Sharkshifter decides to wreak his revenge on basically everyone he can get his hand-fins on, including the sea goblins. He launches an amphibious attack on Waterdeep and uses the full kitchen sink: water dragons, giant turtles, sea serpents, bloodworms, were-rats, aboleths (which I had to go look up in the sourcebooks), sahuagins, marine scrags (which I'm still kind of unclear on), more sahuagins, jellyfish, just everything he could lay his hands on. And yet, all of them pale in significance before the scariest monster in the book, and indeed in any Forgotten Realms book I've read, the raggamoffyn.
The raggamoffyn are a race of sentient scraps of cloth. Cloth. Apparently there are good raggamoffyns and evil ones, but the one in this book was supposed to be good and it full-on mummified a nine-year-old boy:
Before anyone could react, the raggamoffyn exploded into hundreds of wet fabric pieces that flew through the air. They hovered around the boy like a bee swarm, twisting and turning like gulls gliding through storm weather. The fabric pieces covered every inch of the boy's body, including his eyes, nose and mouth, slamming into place with wet splashes ... The raggamoffyn held fast, following every movement with its shape. The boy clawed at the fabric pieces, trying to rip them free.
...BAD DEADLY BLANKET! Bad bad blanket!
Its name is Skeins, btw.
Also, pro-tip: if you watch Venture Brothers, then go back and read 90s swords and sorcery books, you WILL wind up picturing Brock Sampson as the dude who rolls up on horseback all, "Let's do this." And saves the city. With help from the city mage. As played by Dr Orpheus. And when that city mage is described as being in a hissy bitchfight with the other city mage you'll wind up picturing Dr Orpheus' monk friend.
"I am Piergeiron!" he roared in a loud voice that echoed from the buildings and over the water. "Called Paladinson and Known Lord of Waterdeep." He drew his great sword Halcyon and held it aloft so it gleamed. "As long as I can fight, this city will remain standing and be free!" He lifted the sword, and as if in answer, a salvo of flaming rock seared across the sky from Castle Waterdeep's catapults. They splashed down in the harbor around the bloodworms and dragon turtles.
Take your pick from the smorgasbord of awesomeness. Do you want the sharkshifter, the rat shifters, the city mage slapfight, the 70-foot-long sea serpents or the DEADLY BLANKET?
There's also a subplot about the world's wieniest secret pirate (Who's not a pirate! Honest! He's just terrified of his father! Who IS a pirate! And his pirate tattoo won't come off! And he gets kicked out of the house! And people see his tattoo and realize he's a pirate even though he worked so hard not to be a pirate! Life is so UNFAIR.) who is basically milquetoast in a leather apron (Yes, that's all he wears. It gets so hot working on ships! And running away from girls! And being a secret pirate!).
Anyway, his subplot has like, zero bloodworms or firedrakes. It has pirates, but they're mainly just him hiding in a crow's nest reading romance novels (not making this up) and being sad about being a secret pirate.
But back to Waterdeep and the live-action Iron Maiden album unfolding there:
Maskar Wands [city mage numero uno] stood in a flying chariot drawn by a pair of red firedrakes whose claws struck sparks from the sky as they ran. The wizard's hairline had receded over the years to reveal his broad forehead, but silver hair still flowed in the wind. He wore the robes of a wizard. ...Maskar gestured at the chariot and firedrakes and they disappeared. The wizard gazed blackly at the snake hanging from the huge hand he'd conjured. "Now," he said sternly, "now we show these invaders that Waterdeep will never bend, much less break."
Oh yeah. The city mage saves Waterdeep from the 70-foot-long sea serpent by wizarding up a giant hand that chokes the snake. And there is exactly zero irony present in any of the snake-choking scene. None.
IT'S. AWESOME.
The prose is, in case you have not guessed, a little stilted, like how someone feels a rabid mouse "coiling in his guts" when he gets scared (three guesses who) and that thing with the severed foot in the title never really gets explained, but takes four full pages to not be explained in. And you either love this kind of epic nonsense or you already knew, like three paragraphs into this review, that's it not really your kind of thing.
But really, how can you say no to a book where the SHARKSHIFTER is one of the least notable things about it?
Her face took on a more somber look. "Know too, that there are those who would stop you in your journey," she said. "They fear you, fear what you will become, and with good cause because your life will touch the lives of many. There is a darkness out there, greater than any darkness you've known. Should you live, understanding and more will be yours."
"And should I die, lady?"
She looked at him, gave him a small smile and said simply, "Don't."
Synopsis: The fish people get pissed and get magic and go whup on some land-dwellers, finding them crunchy and good with ketchup. Also there's a subplot about the world's wieniest secret pirate.
The sahuagin are kind of sea goblins, and one of their princesses gets it into her head to track down a mysterious and forgotten manuscript. Because that always goes so well. And indeed she follows the manuscripts directions to the undersea tomb of a dessicated naked dude, which a) is reason number one never to go on forgotten manuscript adventures and b) results in two fellow princesses getting immediately eaten, because the dessicated naked dude is secretly a great white shark. And boy is he annoyed.
Of course he wasn't a good great white shark, he was an evil one, and that's how he got imprisoned in an underwater tomb without any trousers. I guess whoever stuck him there thought a lack of pants would totally stop this dude. Who's a shark. Anyway, Iakhovas the Sharkshifter decides to wreak his revenge on basically everyone he can get his hand-fins on, including the sea goblins. He launches an amphibious attack on Waterdeep and uses the full kitchen sink: water dragons, giant turtles, sea serpents, bloodworms, were-rats, aboleths (which I had to go look up in the sourcebooks), sahuagins, marine scrags (which I'm still kind of unclear on), more sahuagins, jellyfish, just everything he could lay his hands on. And yet, all of them pale in significance before the scariest monster in the book, and indeed in any Forgotten Realms book I've read, the raggamoffyn.
The raggamoffyn are a race of sentient scraps of cloth. Cloth. Apparently there are good raggamoffyns and evil ones, but the one in this book was supposed to be good and it full-on mummified a nine-year-old boy:
Before anyone could react, the raggamoffyn exploded into hundreds of wet fabric pieces that flew through the air. They hovered around the boy like a bee swarm, twisting and turning like gulls gliding through storm weather. The fabric pieces covered every inch of the boy's body, including his eyes, nose and mouth, slamming into place with wet splashes ... The raggamoffyn held fast, following every movement with its shape. The boy clawed at the fabric pieces, trying to rip them free.
...BAD DEADLY BLANKET! Bad bad blanket!
Its name is Skeins, btw.
Also, pro-tip: if you watch Venture Brothers, then go back and read 90s swords and sorcery books, you WILL wind up picturing Brock Sampson as the dude who rolls up on horseback all, "Let's do this." And saves the city. With help from the city mage. As played by Dr Orpheus. And when that city mage is described as being in a hissy bitchfight with the other city mage you'll wind up picturing Dr Orpheus' monk friend.
"I am Piergeiron!" he roared in a loud voice that echoed from the buildings and over the water. "Called Paladinson and Known Lord of Waterdeep." He drew his great sword Halcyon and held it aloft so it gleamed. "As long as I can fight, this city will remain standing and be free!" He lifted the sword, and as if in answer, a salvo of flaming rock seared across the sky from Castle Waterdeep's catapults. They splashed down in the harbor around the bloodworms and dragon turtles.
Take your pick from the smorgasbord of awesomeness. Do you want the sharkshifter, the rat shifters, the city mage slapfight, the 70-foot-long sea serpents or the DEADLY BLANKET?
There's also a subplot about the world's wieniest secret pirate (Who's not a pirate! Honest! He's just terrified of his father! Who IS a pirate! And his pirate tattoo won't come off! And he gets kicked out of the house! And people see his tattoo and realize he's a pirate even though he worked so hard not to be a pirate! Life is so UNFAIR.) who is basically milquetoast in a leather apron (Yes, that's all he wears. It gets so hot working on ships! And running away from girls! And being a secret pirate!).
Anyway, his subplot has like, zero bloodworms or firedrakes. It has pirates, but they're mainly just him hiding in a crow's nest reading romance novels (not making this up) and being sad about being a secret pirate.
But back to Waterdeep and the live-action Iron Maiden album unfolding there:
Maskar Wands [city mage numero uno] stood in a flying chariot drawn by a pair of red firedrakes whose claws struck sparks from the sky as they ran. The wizard's hairline had receded over the years to reveal his broad forehead, but silver hair still flowed in the wind. He wore the robes of a wizard. ...Maskar gestured at the chariot and firedrakes and they disappeared. The wizard gazed blackly at the snake hanging from the huge hand he'd conjured. "Now," he said sternly, "now we show these invaders that Waterdeep will never bend, much less break."
Oh yeah. The city mage saves Waterdeep from the 70-foot-long sea serpent by wizarding up a giant hand that chokes the snake. And there is exactly zero irony present in any of the snake-choking scene. None.
IT'S. AWESOME.
The prose is, in case you have not guessed, a little stilted, like how someone feels a rabid mouse "coiling in his guts" when he gets scared (three guesses who) and that thing with the severed foot in the title never really gets explained, but takes four full pages to not be explained in. And you either love this kind of epic nonsense or you already knew, like three paragraphs into this review, that's it not really your kind of thing.
But really, how can you say no to a book where the SHARKSHIFTER is one of the least notable things about it?