Magic the Reading

My husband loves the card game Magic the Gathering. I've always genuinely enjoyed the artwork and the flavor text but that has been about the extent of my interest. However, we were visiting our local library and I saw a Magic the Gathering book and decided I'd give it a try. It helped that the cover art was pretty awesome and that by reading it I'd be able to have conversations about the characters with my husband and not have to ask who X person is over and over. 

The book I read was War of the Spark Ravnica by Greg Weisman. At first, the writing in the book wasn't my favorite but it has started growing on me more. It didn't help that a character would be mentioned and I'd spend a good ten minutes looking up all the super cool artwork I could find of said character and go down the rabbit hole of looking at artwork of characters related to the character. That made reading sessions interesting but long. I understand most people reading a Magic the Gathering book would already be familiar with most of the characters and places and not need to look things up. It also didn't help that whenever my husband entered the room I had to spout off all my newly acquired knowledge and my opinion on each Planeswalker. 

What the author had to accomplish was extremely difficult. There was a GIANT cast of characters and the story was told in various perspectives. I can think of easily more than six perspective off the top of my head. It must have been difficult juggling that many characters and doing them justice for their fanbase. I have a book that I'm finishing up edits on that has a lot of perspectives and I learned a lot from Weisman. The book also did great at helping things be understandable even if you weren't completely familiar with MTG lore. It helped I could ask my husband questions but most things felt explained and understood. 

In summary, this book was a fun time. My favorite Planeswalker is Elspeth... who wasn't in this book. My favorite Planeswalker in this book is probably Kaya. I was pleasantly surprised with the number of not just female Planeswalkers but cool female Planeswalkers that didn't just play supporting roles but took center stage. I honestly feel like that's pretty rare when reading books based on already existing fanbases. It was refreshing. 

I'm still trudging through this Diablo III season and playing Shin Megami Tensei V.

Who is your favorite Planeswalker? What are some good books based on fanbases that you like? Do you think having multiple perspectives in a book makes it more enjoyable?

Keep dreaming and daydreaming of those wonderful worlds in your head.