Book Review: 'Magic The Gathering: War Of The Spark - Ravnica' by Greg Weisman

Cover art by Magali Villeneuve

The Magic: The Gathering's Nicol Bolas epic storyline enters the endgame with Greg Weisman's 'War Of The Spark: Ravnica'.

Self appointed God-Dragon, Nicol Bolas, and his army of undead Eternals, have taken over the world of Ravnica and is luring every Planeswalker to the plane so he can harvest their sparks, the special essence inside every Planeswalker that makes them what they are, so he can become all powerful and regain his immortality and rule the multiverse. It's up to the Gatewatch - led by Gideon Jura, Jace Beleren and Chandra Nalaar - to unite the ten Guilds of Ravnica, fight the hordes of the undead army, Liliana Vess (formerly of the Gatewatch) and stop Bolas to save Ravnica and the Multiverse.

I don't play the game, but I really love the stories and card art of Magic The Gathering, and I've been following the Gatewatch / Bolas storyline since the Magic Origins story block in 2015 (which is an excellent jumping on point and you can read my reviews here), so I was already heavily invested in the characters and world building before starting this book. It is supposedly a self contained story, and it is in parts, but there didn't seem much of an introduction to established characters or the continued narrative for those who might be new to the storyline, although it does allude to some of the previous stories (Kaladesh, Amonkhet and Ixalan blocks mostly). After the story brings in two new characters - Teyo Verada and Rat (both of whom I really enjoyed) - it pretty much jumps into the action, and is enjoyably relentless all the way until the end! I would definitely recommend reading some of the previous storylines, especially those I mentioned, which are available to read on the Magic The Gathering website, to get a better understanding of who's who and of what's been going on to lead up to the finale if you're getting into these stories for the first time. There is also be a prequel novel written by Django Wrexler, that was originally planned to be released BEFORE the launch of the book, but has now been delayed and will be released AFTER this book (which you can only get by signing up to the Random House Publishing newsletter here), so that might hopefully add more details to events that happened 'off screen' that are only briefly spoken about in this book.

With 'War Of The Spark' having so many Planeswalkers in-game (37!), I'd wondered how the narrative would work. Each of the 69 chapters features a POV from a handful of the main characters, bringing their very distinctive personalities and giving the battle for Ravnica a different perspective, and to me, it works really well. Seeing them struggle to cope with the overwhelming nature of what's going on around them at times, reading what they're thinking when they see the devastation inflicted by Bolas and the actions they put into motion to combat it all in the push to topple the Elder Dragon, I became immersed in that character's viewpoint each time we joined them.

It's a mostly satisfying end to an epic story, that also comes across like a Marvel movie (which also recently had their own Endgame, and is definitely no bad thing), wrapping up most things, but also leaving a few things open, which I presume will lead into the next book in this two book series - 'War Of The Spark: Forsaken' - which will also be one I'll be looking forward to reading.

Available from: