While the idea of drawing power and knowledge from a realm of slumbering or dead mad gods sounds interesting, the way it's presented isn't really that interesting. In fact, the story feels bland and rather unrealistic or believeable. The background story isn't really on par with the previous four books of the series. The spells on the hand, are somewhat useful and explore certain niche spell effects. The spells lean towards the higher levels and are mostly utility spells.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: The first three 8th-level spells of the series are all in here. :)<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Despite the author of the book being a dwarven diviner, the fact that only 2 of the 12 new spells are divination spells (with one of them not even having a school...) just feels strange. The madness flavour of the spells sometimes feel a bit tacked on.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

The background to the tome is well-written and might be worth a look in itself as a source of extra-planar intrigues. The spells are mostly fairly obvious uses of planar traits, the outsider and elemental types and some re-flavoured standard high level magic, though Voice of the Lost is fun. It is worth noting that 9 of the 21 pages are a reprint of Planar Handbook content and not original material.

The Far Realm is not mentioned and tentacles are mostly absent, which may be a good or bad thing depending on your preference.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>