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A review by speculativeshelves
The Calling by David Gaider
3.0
I put off reading this for years because the Deep Roads are by far my least favorite part of Dragon Age: Origins and now after reading this I...still hate the Deep Roads and think it's a slog to both play through AND read about but overall I had a better time with this story than I expected. Similar to how I feel about the first Dragon Age book, The Stolen Throne, this story is nothing groundbreaking but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The connections to both that first book as well as the games are great and I liked delving deeper into the Blight/Darkspawn/Grey Warden lore.
The real highlight of this book is the characters and their relationships - again, nothing groundbreaking and I do wish they had more depth than what is here, but it feels very much like a Dragon Age quest which is really all I need to enjoy these books. Fiona and Duncan were standouts as they're both characters we meet in game but don't learn a lot about. I really enjoyed their backstory and characterizations. Maric is...quite frustrating but somehow also endearing (I also felt this way about him in The Stolen Throne. In terms of completely new characters, I also really loved Kell (and Hafter) and Genevieve a lot too.
As mentioned above the Deep Roads are still a bit of a slog and my favorite parts were the few parts that happened elsewhere both in the Fade (my unpopular Dragon Age: Origins opinion is that I loved that section and I loved it here too) and at the end of the novel (which was a section that had some unexpected plot twists).
Looking forward to finally reading the other Dragon Age novels.
The real highlight of this book is the characters and their relationships - again, nothing groundbreaking and I do wish they had more depth than what is here, but it feels very much like a Dragon Age quest which is really all I need to enjoy these books. Fiona and Duncan were standouts as they're both characters we meet in game but don't learn a lot about. I really enjoyed their backstory and characterizations. Maric is...quite frustrating but somehow also endearing (I also felt this way about him in The Stolen Throne. In terms of completely new characters, I also really loved Kell (and Hafter) and Genevieve a lot too.
As mentioned above the Deep Roads are still a bit of a slog and my favorite parts were the few parts that happened elsewhere both in the Fade (my unpopular Dragon Age: Origins opinion is that I loved that section and I loved it here too) and at the end of the novel (which was a section that had some unexpected plot twists).
Looking forward to finally reading the other Dragon Age novels.