What did you think of the War of the Spark novel?
First, I should point out that I had VERY HIGH EXPECTATIONS for War of the Spark.
I was excited that the book was going to be written the man responsible for creating my absolute favorite animated series growing up, Disney’s Gargoyles. I had high hopes for him.
I also really wanted to see a satisfying conclusion to a storyline with elements reaching back more than a decade, and a cast of characters I had become incredibly invested in. So many plot points had been dangled in front of us. So many narrative payoffs had been set up beautifully, just waiting for the slam dunk.
At the same time, I was still very disappointed in the decision by @wizardsmagic leadership to shift away from episodic web-based story content that was freely available to all (not to mention cut off opportunity for all the awesome people working on the @voiceofallmtg story podcast) and instead shift to full novels that people would have to pay for, and would be illegal for fans to adapt into other languages or audio formats. I was unhappy about the decision, to say the least, but I was willing to keep an open mind and see if the quality of the story produced could convince me otherwise.
I say all of this because I think with all that build up, all that hype, all the expectations, and ALL THAT pressure to succeed… I honestly don’t know if success was even reasonably attainable, to be honest. Even if they had delivered a story that was truly amazing and well-written in a vacuum, it might not have been able to live up to all those expectations.
Having said that, I’m sorry to say that it wasn’t even close to being that great. I went in prepared to cut it a lot of slack and be reasonable with the inevitable shortcomings and slip-ups, but I wasn’t prepared for… whatever that was.
I mean, I think the story had some highlights and enjoyable parts. I really liked the character of Rat, and thought the way she was used as a narrative device was clever and well-executed. I also liked… uh… the interesting geometry force fields?
OK look, I’m trying really hard to be positive and fair here, but the reality is that the book was kind of a disaster.
There were too many scenes that dragged on without really moving the plot forward. The scenes that DID move the plot forward were so rushed that it felt like I was reading a summary of the story instead of the actual story.
So many conversations and exposition relied on the expectation that the audience was aware of the backstory. And while SOME of that is understandable, it’s a real problem when even the people who HAVE been reading all of the web stories for the last six years are like, “Wait, did I miss something? Was there story content that came out that would have made all of this make sense?” But no, it just had to allude to past plot points that weren’t actually written in any previous stories, because there wasn’t enough space in the novel to actually show them happening.
At the same time, there were really BIG plot points that HAD been written in the prior stories and were READY FOR THE SLAM DUNK… and then totally dropped. The most frustrating of these for me was Vraska’s erased memories, which were a major thread leading out of Ixalan, but then just kind of shrugged off and smudged out off-camera.
Even the cameos felt less like cameos and more like name-dropping. When we saw characters from past sets that we’ve missed and looked forward to seeing, we didn’t get a sense that they were doing what makes them cool, and instead got a kind of checklist of, “And THIS planeswalker was there, and THIS planeswalker was there, and THIS…”
The story points spotlighted on the cards in War of the Spark told a terrific story. The art, card names, flavor text, and even the card mechanics really delivered a compelling narrative. So did the official trailer. I was really looking forward to seeing how the book would add depth and insight to those plot points. But honestly, the cards did a much better job on their own.
By the second half of the book, I finished reading it not because I was enjoying it, but because I just wanted to get through it.
It’s probably also worth noting that within the same month, Avengers Endgame came out. So I had just witnessed a decade-spanning storyline get wrapped up in an absolutely wonderful and satisfying conclusion. In other words, I had just seen a prime example of what a satisfying conclusion looks like, and in contrast, War of the Spark most definitely WAS NOT.
Now is it fair to compare War of the Spark with Avengers Endgame? Almost certainly not. The last two Avengers movies had a combined budget of over a billion dollars. Even if a lot of that was spent on production and marketing costs, those movies clearly had WAY more resources available to help it succeed.
But this isn’t about comparing the two of them. It’s about the fact that Avengers Endgame is evidence that even when the expectations are astronomically high, success is still possible.
If you’re somebody who really enjoyed reading War of the Spark, that is excellent. I’m not trying to diminish your joy or fondness for it. I’m just saying that in terms of MY feelings about War of the Spark?
…it performed far below expectations.
