Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel
Written by Greg Keyes
Narrated by Michael Page
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
Greg Keyes
Born in Meridian, Mississippi, Greg Keyes has published more than thirty books, including The Basilisk Throne, The Age of Unreason, and The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, also writing books for Babylon 5, Star Wars, Planet of the Apes, The Avengers, and Pacific Rim, and novelizing Interstellar and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. He lives, writes, fences and cooks in Savannah, Georgia. He is found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/greg.keyes1.
More audiobooks from Greg Keyes
The Basilisk Throne Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Lord of Souls
Titles in the series (2)
The Infernal City: An Elder Scrolls Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for Lord of Souls
20 ratings10 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5While I'll admit this was an interesting read, I had some trouble following the story and characters, because it's pretty clearly a later part in an ongoing series. The writer doesn't do much introduction of the characters or their situations because it's expected that the reader has read other books, and already knows what's going on to some extent. Beyond that, it makes for an excellent fantasy romp.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I've loved "The Elder Scrolls" games and as a novel set in that world, it's a good read. I think Mr. Keyes does assume here and there he's writing for TES fans which makes the world and narrative a bit tougher to follow for non-gamers, but I wouldn't deem it inaccessible. Any fan used to reading fantasy could probably manage to understand the worldbuilding with a bit of effort. It's not weighty epic fantasy but as a lighter read with adventure, intrigue, action scenes, it's pretty good. I was unaware this was the second book in a series and would advise readers to check out the first book, since "Lord of Souls" made references to characters and events from that book that I was unfamiliar with.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Despite the fact that I haven't read the first book, nor have I played the game, I had no problem picking up on what was going on. It took a little bit, and I'm sure some of the finer details of the world were lost on me, but during no point in the book was I thinking, "What is going on?!" So I appreciate the fact that Greg Keyes did an awesome job in making this read like a stand-alone novel.Besides that, it's a really interesting story. As is usual with fantasy, there are multiple viewpoints, and I enjoyed most of the characters and their personal involvement with the larger problem at hand. There was one character I didn't care for (Mazgar), just because I didn't think her story was as developed as the others'. I thought that Annaig and Glim's stories were by far the most interesting and entertaining. They had a stronger connection, and I think they were the characters that had the most to lose if things didn't turn out well.I enjoyed the intrigues and the suspense. There were a few times that I was completely surprised by the turn of events (and a few plot twists that were predictable, but that's okay). If you're a fan of fantasy, I think you'd enjoy this story. Some have complained about it being too difficult to follow along without reading the first book, though. But it may not be a bad thing to read more of this series, since the plots and the characters are so well-constructed.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5When I was younger, before I knew good literature from bad, I was enthralled by the so-called Extended Universe of Star Wars. If someone had written a novel set in the Star Wars universe, and it featured characters or settings familiar to me, I read it, and, to some degree, enjoyed it.I never was a fan of “fan fiction,” having read a short story here or there (back in the days in which reading a novel on a computer screen was about as comfortable as reading a novel printed on a light bulb), and for the most part thought down on people who wrote fan fiction. And then it struck me, the concepts juxtaposing in my mind: These novels I read were the exact same thing!I came to this realization when I tried reading some non-Star Wars stories written by some of these authors. By an odd coincidence, many of the authors of the EU books had more books set in other people’s playgrounds than their owns. The CVs of these EU authors were mostly novelizations, media tie-ins, and licensed novels, or, in some cases, noncanonical sequels to long-Public Domain works. When this epiphany came to me, I felt a level of disgust at all the time I wasted, reading relatively uninspired books, set upon the backs of successful franchises like a crutch alleviating the author of having to actually paint an eloquent description of the world in which the story was set, assuming the reader is familiar enough with the setting so that the author could focus on a story that wasn’t really that good to begin with.I had a flashback to those days while reading Lord of Souls, based on the popular video game franchise, Elder Scrolls. The author, Greg Keyes, surprisingly enough, has several Star Wars books under his belt, as well as a series of books set in the Babylon 5 setting.I’m not sure which aspect soured my reading of this book: the author filling that “Professional Fan Fic Writer” role, the author’s corpus being less than original, the book in question being part of an “extended universe,” or the quality of the writing material itself.The story felt dead in my hands, as if I was unable to draw life from this story. The characters seemed flat, and while they suffered and succeeded, I found myself not caring. In the end, I thought the story was something that would satiate someone who didn’t like reading anything unless it had the name of a popular science fiction or fantasy franchise emblazoned across its side. But for people who crave sustenance in literature, this book would leave one bloated with filler, but sick, longing for something more substantial, like something that comes with a side of soup or salad, and not French fries.I’ll admit, I was not familiar with Elder Scrolls prior to this. Back in college, I watched a friend walk around in Morrowind, but never really yearned to play the game myself (or, if I was, such desires were hindered by a slow computer with a pitiful graphics card). So, maybe I was soured by having to learn everything I ever wanted to know about Elder Scrolls (but was too afraid to ask) from the actual material.To Keyes’ credit, the characters were so one-dimensional that getting a grasp on their personalities was complete cake. But that’s not really a strong point in writing, now is it?My final recommendation is this: If you love such media tie-ins, and you’ll know if you do, and are familiar with Elder Scrolls, then you’ll probably enjoy this book and wonder why I was bitching so much about it. However, if you’re like me, and like original ideas, and elaborate worldbuilding, and dynamic characters, and all those other marks of “good” literature, then you may wish to give this one a pass. Try a book from the bookstore that’s categorized by Author’s last name, and not by the franchise slapped on the spine. That recommendation goes for the former reader as well. You may just find that you got the sufficient jolt to get yourself out of the EU rut.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I have played many of the Elder Scrolls games and enjoy the world of Tamriel and its inhabitants. I found this book to be a good addition to the lore behind the Elder Scrolls series.In this book I most enjoyed the parts that took place in Umbriel, the world building in there was interesting and the characters played well together. The concept of cooking using otherworldly ingredients and emotions as spice was really neat!I found myself less interested in the other characters, and thought that the part with the female orc who was guarding the mage felt somewhat tacked on. I did not realize that this book was a follow up to another, I will have to go back and read it when I have time.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I received this book as an Early Review through LibraryThing.com. I really should have done a bit more research about it before I requested it. I loved Greg Keyes Kingdom of Throne and Bone series so I was expecting something more along those lines. Not only did I not realize that Lord of Souls was a sequel, I also didn't know that it was related to Morrowind and Oblivion. I think in order to really enjoy this book, one would have to have read the first one and have some knowledge of the game(s) that it is based on. Keyes (understandably) refers to races, events, characters and settings that will lose an uninformed reader quickly. While I do believe it is well-written and I like the style of it, I couldn't get past the first 50 pages because I felt I had no clue what was going on.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Although this book is obviously a tie in book with the immensely popular Elder Scrolls video game, I did not realize that was the case when requesting it Having played several iterations of this game it is always nice to see a good/great video game crawl into different mediums. Unfortunately these cross overs never approach the level of quality their video game versions possess. This is another one of these underachievers. With that said this book is still better than most cross over books, and is decently entertaining. If your a fan or way into fantasy you might enjoy it, if not pass it up.The book follows the story's of several characters as their world is invaded. If you have never played an Elder Scrolls game the story will probably make no sense to you, and sadly never really is filled in (because the back story is huge and could fill several other books). As is the trend with these multiple character narratives, they all have interweaving story lines, and eventually effect each other in some way throughout the book. Anyway I enjoyed the book as a fan of the games, but if I was someone picking it up randomly it would not hold as much value.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls NovelGreg KeyesDel Rey (2011), Paperback, 336 pagesI may have approached this book differently than some reviewers; while I know of the video game universe in which this is set, I have never played it and only barely seen it. Instead of reading it as a tie-in I took the book to see how it stands on it's own two feet, as it were.Without knowing any of the backstory I found myself rather scattered early in the book, but as the characters and intrigues (and it's FULL of intrigues) developed it generated a personality of it's own. Watching the threads twist together the book has quite enough cohesiveness to stand on it's own. It has richly detailed scenes that would allow you to place yourself in the midst of many of them.I expect it will be more fully appreciated by players of the game (or people who've read the previous novel) but it clearly isn't dependent on the game tie-in to be an engaging read.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was one ER book that I probably shouldn't have requested. It's a direct sequel to another book, which I haven't read, and it's set in the world of a video game franchise that I haven't played. This made in very hard for me to get into the book.The prologue is basically a recap of the events of the previous book, so I wasn't too lost. The main problem came with all the Elder Scrolls terminology that I didn't know. I know what elves and orcs are, but I did not know what any of the other races were and could only infer some of them from the text. Despite it being rather important to the plot, I still have no idea what Oblivion actually is except that that's where the bad guys came from. This leads me to believe that this is the sort of book that is primarily designed to appeal to fans of the video game franchise.This made it rather difficult for me to get into the story. Once I did get into it, it was a fairly exciting tale, but really, unless your a fan of the Elder Scrolls games, you probably shouldn't bother with this book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lord of Souls is the second elder scrolls novel, second in that it comes after the first, but the reality is it's not really a second book per se. There's no background as to what happened in the first installment so if you are to start here with Lord of Souls you're going to feel like you just opened a book and started in the middle - which is precisely what you will have done. These two books should have really been just a single 660 page volume yet it seems like the publisher saw dollar signs in dividing it up into two separate parts. I'd be annoyed if I'd purchased it as a book thankfully I got them both effectively free with a second hand copy of Skyrim Deluxe. The story itself here seems a bit more purposeful and enjoyable than in the Infernal City which seems a bit, almost aimless. Here at least everyone has specific goals and objectives to which they are working, although to be fair I did read the first installment almost seven years ago so my memory of it may not be entirely accurate. All in all, I'd say this book is average, it's an okay game world extension but it's nowhere near on the level that Bioshock: Rapture was on which portrayed a vivid and detailed world that was enthralling. This is just merely a time passer that's kind of interesting due to its source material.