Despite my considerable lack of enthusiasm for Asian-inspired rpg elements, I personally this book to be excellent nevertheless.
The story is told in three first-person segments (not a first for Dave Gross) which allows for better characterisation; Master of Wolves had good characterisation whilst the other Pathfinder tales, including Winter Witch on which Gross had a byline, have really suffered somewhat from poorly-drawn characters, this multiple first-person device, in addition to the same, familiar characters appearing in their second full novel, makes Master of Devils into a significantly better book.
The plot is interesting, the supporting cast lively and the writing is tight. Once again Gross avoids hewing too slavishly to the rpg rules -- a failing which afflicted a great deal of the TSR/WotC rpg fiction -- instead using broad strokes to evoke the feel of the game without producing a campaign diary.
Gross doesn't waste our time explaining everything in tedious detail, meaning that there's more space for telling the story. Much of that story is a fairly standard "pupil learns at the feet of mentors" tale, but it's well-done and has plenty of Golarion flavour (albeit Tian Xia rather than the Inner Sea).
Overall and in my opinion, the best of the line yet and I'd give it four and a half stars if I were allowed. If I wanted to play in Tian Xia (which I don't) then this book would be doubly valuable for setting a mood and general scenes.
So, the tense. Yes, present tense annoyed me, but after about I was a few chapters in I no longer noticed it, in part because I had become used to it and in part because the book is so interesting. So, whilst I'd rather it wasn't written that way, as an irritation I found that it's significantly outweighed by other elements that more than compensate the reader.
The book is set in Mendev and the Worldwound and manages to be clever, maintain suspense, deal with somewhat icky subject matter without being either cutesy or too grotesque and the characterisation is decent (whilst still not being great; in fact, other than Dave Gross's stuff, I don't think any of the Golarion fiction has hit the mark on characterisation).
On the downside and related to the characterisation, the motivation of the party is rather glossed over, which is a shame as they're potentially an interesting bunch. The heist element of the plot is well-done and, as has been the case with the fiction line so far, it never feels like an attempt to justify the RPG mechanics in novel form (which has been part of the reason that the TSR/WotC fiction tended to be so bad).
I am happy to recommend this book; both it and Prince of Wolves work well as fantasy books aside from the Golarion/RPG links and whilst the present tense writing is a bit jarring at first, the overall quality of the story ameliorates that and pushes it into the background before too long.
After Winter Witch -- which I didn't like as much as Prince of Wolves -- I had some concerns about the direction of Pathfinder Tales, but Plague of Shadows is a good, solid read. A party adventure, it avoids the devotion to the rules set that ruined so many TSR/WotC rpg novels -- also making magical healing rather more rare than it normally is in games, but that aids the drama -- and instead tells a story. It's actually a pretty interesting story, too; it's Swords and Sorcery style -- the characters aren't particularly deep or interesting (the most interesting doesn't really appear directly until over half-way through) and tension isn't really built with any great care -- but it's good fun, quick to read and refreshingly unsentimental.
For Golarion fans, it has an interesting portrayal of Galt, although I'd have liked some more effort put into depicting the oppressive atmosphere. Starting in the fringes of Taldor, alas, we don't see much about the decadence of that kingdom, but we do get a taste of Kyonin and the interaction between Kyonin's elves, the Forlorn and non-elves. The overall plot involves Shadow and whilst I don't know if this is going to feature in any more of the Pathfinder Tales fiction, it could be an interesting topic to investigate in future (and hopefully better than was done in some of the FR books concerning Shadow).
I rather preferred Prince of Wolves -- which was less Swords and Sorcery and more whodunnit with more interesting characterisation and tighter plotting -- but this is a decent rpg-genre book with extra interest for those of us who are playing/DMing in Golarion.
As a final note, I read this on the Kindle and the ebook version, converted to mobi, was very good other than some issues with the last few pages adevertising the other books in the line (but none of which affected my reading of the main story).
In summary: I liked this book, although not as much as Prince of Wolves (so, from my point of view it's worth less than the four stars I gave to PoW) and, whilst an enjoyable read, it could have been better than it was.
The book is well-written and, like PoW, not hung up on the game system (I didn't realise Dave Gross had been involved in writing it but the writing-magic element was there, in common with PoW; I wonder if that, and the "travelling Varisian roadshow", also in PoW, was Dave's idea) and has good Golarion background and flavour. Characters perhaps not that well-developed but they don't ring false, either; I'd have liked to hear more about Declan's rejection of magic and his work as a forger, however, and for that matter why he was into astronomy. Ellasif is perhaps better fleshed-out but her story is also potentially less interesting
The story isn't long on mystery but is a coherent quest tale exploring an interesting part of Golarion (although much of the story actually takes place in the more familiar surrounds of Korvosa and Varisia). It avoids being cutesy or twee, although I think that it would benefit from being darker in tone and perhaps a little grittier; the relationship with the House Dragon didn't become as saccharin as I had feared but neither did we ever really feel the aloneness that the two main characters could have been feeling, nor did the conclusion ever feel in much doubt.
The story is fine and as a DM of Golarion games I enjoy the travelogue aspect -- indeed, I might have liked some more details about the places encountered on the way -- but I just feel that it could have been more than it is. I prefer it to Ms. Cunningham's Forgotten Realms novels, though, so as one datapoint this at least supports the idea that the Paizo editorial and commissioning team can extract better work from its authors than the biggest player in this field.
The book is really rather good. After the first 20 pages it was probably the case that even if the rest of the book was dedicated to furry porn in a mummerset dialect it would still have been above-average for the genre of RPG fantasy fiction, but in fact the book maintains its quality throughout.
The plot involves various intertwined mysteries set against the backdrop of spooky Ustalav, with the main protagonists being Radovan and Varan Jeggare (from the fiction elements of Council Of Thieves, also written by Dave Gross), written in alternating first person chapters. The outcome is only somewhat surprising, in the way that one can generally achieve with a fantastical world full of different monsters, but the writing is good and the characters engaging.
There's relatively little attempt to make the story fit within the rules, which never goes well (and often plagued TSR/WoTC offerings), and the story actually works as a story. It's not great literature, perhaps (and I don't think that it is intended to be), but I'm maintaining my subscription if books remain at this quality. Strongly recommended.
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