Shadowstorm by Paul S. Kemp is the second book in the Twilight War Trilogy. The first book is titled Shadowbred. Both of these book feature familiar characters from Mr. Kemp’s Erevis Cale trilogy. Fans on Mr. Kemp’s work will most assuredly find Shadowstorm to be of the high caliber of writing that we have come to expect from him.

Being that Shadowstorm is the bridge novel of this trilogy, I had mixed hopes on just what to expect from it. It seems all too common now-a-days that bridge novels in trilogies do little to further the story. Some seem to be just filler until the next book. That is not the case with this book. This book has many elements most fantasy fans will enjoy; large scale battles, magic use, political intrigue, and a great deal of character development.

The plot of this novel continues right where Shadowbred left off. As with the first book in this trilogy, the plot of this book is actually several sub-plots interwoven to create the complete story. Upon completion of this book, it is rather evident that the final book in this trilogy, Shadowrealm, will be a stunning climax as all the events of the first two books collide. Some of the sub-plots that readers can expect to read about are; Cale’s promise to his god and how he attempts to fulfill that promise, Mag’s dealing with events that seem to spiral out of control for him, the Overmistress’s quest to lay siege to Selgaunt, the Nightseer’s yet to be revealed plot, the Hulorn’s further development, and more. If that list seems like a lot, it is. Mr. Kemp successfully crams as much as he possibly can into the pages of this novel. Mr. Kemp also succeeds in inviting the reader to make assumptions about what will happen later in the book, only to wrench those assumptions away in very memorable scenes.

As with past Kemp novels, that characters in this book are second to none. Mr. Kemp has clearly proven time and time again his ability to make each and every character in his books special. Mr. Kemp balances his characters well, there are characters that readers will love, there are characters that readers will hate, but there are also characters that are in the middle of the spectrum as well – some will like them and others will hate them. Yet, each character elicits a response. There is also a great deal of character development for multiple characters in this novel. The characters that seem to really develop the most are; Mags, Cale, Rivalen, Tamlin, Abelar, and Elyril. Much like the plot, if that list seems large, it is. However, at no point in the story does anything suffer because of the multiple plot points or the multiple characters. Quite contrary, in that the book seems to move along at a fast pace because of all the various things going on. Mr. Kemp does a fantastic job of giving us just enough information to advance the story (and characters, but not so much where the reader knows everything, or becomes bored with a character.

The pace of this book makes the reader feel like they are running a marathon at sprint speed. I do not mean that in a negative way though. The pacing is fantastic and challenges the reader to put the book aside, even for a little bit. Mr. Kemp’s prose also lends itself to easy reading. There are no parts of this novel that get bogged down due to explanations or excessive dialog. Every word in this novel is chosen for a reason and clearly conveys the vision Mr. Kemp had for this particular book.

In my review of Shadowbred, I commented on how there are first person scenes that took away from the book for me. I realize this is purely a self-bias , as I have never been able to read first person stories. The first person scenes are again present in this book, however, they are not as ‘disruptive’ as they were (for me) in the first book. They are more subdued and to the point. I am assuming that the third novel will also have first person scenes, but if they are like the ones in this book I won’t have a problem with it. It does add more depth to the character and allows the reader to see more ‘inside’ of Mags and what he is thinking.

The one criticism I have of this book is, at times, it felt like a couple of the characters were becoming too powerful for the scope of the story. This mostly applied to Cale and Rivalen. There are a couple scenes in particular that Cale and Rivalen dominated and I had no doubt they were going to come out of it unscathed, when I think it would have been better served to give a little sense of vulnerability. There was one scene in particular where I felt like it was just ‘showing off’ of different powers and new ways to kill people.

Other than that, I felt this was a fantastic novel. It is grittier and darker than most Forgotten Realms books on the market today. There are at least three scenes that I was surprised to read just based on the graphic nature of them. Don’t get me wrong, they fit superbly with the story, but they also certainly pushed the envelope of the PG-13 rating that Wizards of the Coast strives for.

As with every other Kemp book I have read, I would not hesitate to recommend this book to fantasy fans. While 2007 is only half over, this novel may well end up on my top 5 books of the year list.