Treachery's Wake (Dungeons & Dragons) [Mass Market Paperback]

In this tale we have Lidda the halfling thief return, she is changed for the better and has lost her mouth and her modern hip-hop slang from The Savage Caves. Krusk the half-orc barbarian returns in his 3rd, yes his third, incarnation. In City of Fire he was a good, loyal, team-player. In The Bloody Eye he changed as his IQ jumped, he got well spoken and even seemed to be able to read, directly contradicting his iconic statistics as well as becoming a leader. In this book there is no goodness left to Krusk, he seems to have a new backstory, no mention of his time in the forces of the Protector of the Obsidian Throne, his infatuated tavern wench Yddith from The Bloody Eye is mysteriously gone and not mentioned. He is now a cold-blooded killer, no doubts about it and probably well in the evil alignment. Mialee the elven wizard has lost her familiar, her bad eyesight and her bard lover. The new character, Vadania the druid, may as well not be there she is so superfluous.

Malthooz, the half-orc outsider from Krusk's home village(until Krusk changes again next story) was the most interesting of the lot, though his potential of becoming a cleric of Pelor is not pursued.

The triple-cross plot of the book, Thieve's Guild playing off our "heroes" against their wizard customer and the city watch is ok, but the execution is very poor. The collateral damage the characters cause without a twinge of regret is abominable. These incarnations of the adventurers cannot be considered "good" in any sense of the word. Innocent warehouse workers employed as a front are slaughtered by Krusk and Lidda, Mialee fireballs a dock to kill her pursuers resulting in a conflagration that is going to kill many and cost more their livelihood. They look back and say "We did what we had to do."

For the editor of the 10 books to allow such different portrayals of the characters, not to mention backgrounds, shows a complete and utter disdain for the discernment of the reader. Shameful and unforgiveable.

Whoever wrote Treachery's Wake clearly does not have the same grasp of the iconic characters as the "other" T.H. Lains demonstrated in The Living Dead and The Savage Caves, to name two. Gone is rogue thief Lidda's charming, smart-[aleck] banter. Gone are the quirks that made Elf wizard Mialee so appealing in The Living Dead, such as her allergy to alcohol, her raven alter ego and her bad eyesight (all completely forgetten and even contradicted in this book). The other characters are similarly miswritten.

But what I did not like most about this book is it reads more like a blood-thirsty action-adventure novel in the Executioner vein than a Dungeons and Dragons story. The book makes no bones about it: these adventurers are cold-blooded killers. They take life - monster and human - with nary a second thought. Mialee, in particular, reads more like a female Mac Bolan than a cultured Elf wizard who is hesitant to kill (as she is portrayed in other D&D series novels). Lidda spares a momentary thought for a number of innocent bystanders she kills at one point, but that's the extent of it.

Most unappealing is Orc barbarian Krusk, whose whole purpose in the book seems to be to act grumpy and kill people in the goriest manner possible.

The story's villain (who I won't reveal in order to preserve what little surprise this novel provides the reader) starts out interesting, but soon become nothing more than a one-dimensional character who -- once again -- resembles someone from the Executioner books more than D&D.

Maybe the person who used the Lain's name also writes for the Executioner series, because I saw so many similarities it's not even funny. With Mac Bolan, at least, such cold-bloodedness is expected, but in D&D while adventurers do have to kill 9/10 in order to complete a quest, they do so heroically. There is nothing heroic or even D&D-like about the way the iconic characters handle themselves in this novel.

If I had read this book first, before any others in the D&D series, I would have been turned off the whole series. As it is, I look upon Treachery's Wake as some sort of non-canon nightmare dreamt by Lidda or Mialee. If you haven't read a T.H. Lain Dungeons & Dragons novel before, this is NOT the book to start out with; even if you're reading them in order, it might not hurt to skip this one and come back to it only if some future D&D novel refers to the events in this story (as some of the books do have cross-continuity between them).

With any luck, time will show that this was an exception in an otherwise entertaining series of books.