Drew Karpyshyn, CHILDREN OF FIRE

A few promising elements can't save tie-in novelist Drew Karpyshyn's unfocused and occasionally overwrought first original novel, but they do suggest that the remaining two volumes of this epic fantasy trilogy might be more worthwhile. The plot is standard-- four children born with the power to defeat the imprisoned, soon-to-escape Dark Lord-- but the novel is darker and at least somewhat less morally simplistic than that description might suggest. The characters aren't terribly well-rounded (neither, for that matter, is the world-building), but except for the Dark Lord no important figure is sneeringly evil or impossibly good, and the nature of the magic system leaves even the noble-hearted susceptible to terrible error. The novel's chief flaw is structural: it starts when the four protagonists are born, and the first half is full of redundant scenes in which tertiary characters who will soon disappear from the narrative discover the gifts of these children of fire. It's eventful and fast-paced on its own terms, but doesn't build much momentum. By the second half the overall arc of the story is clearer, though the arrival of several of the Dark Lord's demonic underlings brings out an unfortunate pulpy quality in the prose ("Cracks of thunder drowned out their foul words of evil sorcery"). Despite an action-packed final sequence the novel stops rather than reaching a real ending; one storyline in particular is awkwardly parked, separate from the main action, with a hundred pages to go. But various conflicts among the protagonists and their allies will leave many readers eager for next year's sequels, and if the urgency of the last hundred pages is maintained, the trilogy may yet recover from the awkwardness of this opening installment.