Publisher: Del Rey
Author: Greg Keyes
Release Date: 11/24/2009
MSRP: $14.99
Pages: 304
Recommended Audience: Young Adult
The Good: Great service for Elder Scrolls fans, fast paced and intense, great sense of fantasy, lovable characters
The Bad: Really short with a cliffhanger ending, a bit dry in spots, only for Elder Scrolls fans
The Elder Scrolls is a very misunderstood RPG. For over ten years The Elder Scrolls has given players incredibly deep stories, rich large worlds to explore (The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is the biggest in game world ever made), as well as dozens, if not, hundreds of hours of excellent dungeon crawling and exploration. The Infernal City picks up about 50 or so years after the Oblivion game and stars several characters that you really grow attached to for such a short novel. The Infernal City came out of nowhere (kind of like the Shivering Isles) and is killing every living soul in Tamriel. Two young people (well one is a lizard type Argonian) devise a potion to help them fly to this killer island, but they get stuck and must find a way to destroy the island from the inside out.
The book has great writing and fans of Oblivion, or The Elder Scrolls, in general, will be familiar with mentioned locations such as Black Marsh, Hammerfall, Elsweyr, and even Cyrodiil. Several other characters join the fray when the girl sends her locket, Coo, to the Prince to help her destroy the island. He is constantly held up and delayed trying to rescue her, and his adventures take him through Oblivion itself and back. There is a lot of intense action in the book, and it is very well paced.
The book bounces between characters very well, yet there are occasions when the author’s writing can be a tad dry in spots. There is a cliffhanger ending that leaves the book open for a final sequel (it even says this on the cover). The book is really only for Elder Scrolls since they can really imagine what the author is talking about both stories, and setting wise.
