Pathfinder Tales: Prince of Wolves

Prince of Wolves was an amazing novel due to it's presentation, characters, presentation of setting and plot. I enjoyed the story and feel inspired to run not only an Ustalavic campaign but campaigns with less traditional party structure for story purposes.

I enjoyed the split perspective between the two characters. I found it a bit confusing at first, as I read further it added anticipation and engagement to the character's point of view. I also found it added a bit of mystery to the story through discovery of what early events meant later in the book.

I felt the character's were unique and felt that they were presented thoroughly. I became so engaged with them that I shouted out loud for joy when I found out that there is web fiction including them and Master of Devils will be based around the same characters.

The setting of Ustalav was well represented and I feel a lot more comfortable running a campaign based there. Reading prince of Wolves cemented my purchase of Carrion Crown, Rule of Fear, and anything else based in Ustalav. I look forward to more books from Dave and am now hooked on the Pathfinder tales novels.

This was a good book. I liked the characters a lot and the story was very engaging. Dave Gross is also a really good guy and I can't wait for his next book.

(I ripped into another book in the line and so thought I ought to share my positive thoughts on other Tales entries).

This easily is my favorite Pathfinder Tales book so far. Varian and Radovan and almost all the supporting characters are richly drawn. The author has a firm grasp on the setting - Gross seems to "get" Ustalav, adeptly and respectfully building on the canon information. Of all the fiction authors, I think he has the best understanding of the Pathfinder world.

Alternating viewpoints between Varian and Radovan works well, as did the gradual "filling in the gaps" nature of Varian's stay at the manor - it could have come off as a contrived murder-mystery if not for such adept handling.

I also was impressed by the way Gross managed to create a story in which the underlying game mechanics were both subtle and transparent. Prince of Wolves is quite obviously RPG-inspired (and RPG-consistent) but doesn't feel like it was based on a home game or constrained by game rules. That's tough to do, but Gross makes it look easy.

I love pathfinder, the rules and rulebooks are awesome and amazing, but so far the fiction has fallen a little flat to me. This first in the line of books was to me a poor choice to start the fiction line, as it took the most boring characters from the pathfinder's journals from the Adventure paths to base a novel on.
But to me the absolute worst part was the flipflopping first person perspective. It is really annoying to have to reorient to a different first person at the beginning of every chapter.

Great start to the Pathfinder fiction line, and I'll be subscribing to the line based on this book. I just hope the future books are comparable. The characters come alive and you can really get in tune with them. They aren't "epic" level, they have their little quirks and personality traits, bringing them alive; you know the actions they take are the right ones for them after taking a little time to invest in the characters. And you want to invest in the characters. You can tell Dave Gross put a lot into each of the characters, making these fantasy creations real. I can't wait for future stories with them.