The Infernal City: An Elder Scrolls Novel

Greg Keyes

Nov 2009 · The Elder Scrolls Book 1 · Sold by Del Rey

About this ebook

Based on the award-winning The Elder Scrolls, The Infernal City is the first of two exhilarating novels following events that continue the story from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, named 2006 Game of the Year.

Four decades after the Oblivion Crisis, Tamriel is threatened anew by an ancient and all-consuming evil. It is Umbriel, a floating city that casts a terrifying shadow—for wherever it falls, people die and rise again.

And it is in Umbriel’s shadow that a great adventure begins, and a group of unlikely heroes meet. A legendary prince with a secret. A spy on the trail of a vast conspiracy. A mage obsessed with his desire for revenge. And Annaig, a young girl in whose hands the fate of Tamriel may rest . . . .

Ratings and reviews

While I believe that it is good to warn potential readers that they may not understand this book without having first played any of the Elder Scrolls games, to give this book a low rating simply based on that fact is simply not rational. If you are not familiar with the series of video games that this book is based upon, then do not read it. If you are familiar with The Elder Scrolls universe, there is probably nothing in this book that will confuse you. That said, I will rate and review this book with the perspective I just described. That said, I found the book fairly entertaining. The only serious flaws I see in it are 1) that it is not quite long enough, and 2) that it is strictly a two-part book. In other words, do not plan on buying a copy of this book if you don't want to buy the sequel as well. A few other minor flaws with the book are as follows: the characters (besides Prince Attrebus) are all a bit shallow, the plot can be a bit difficult to follow at times with the constantly changing narrative, and occasionally the lack of description can leave the reader with a rather vague picture of the action at hand. On top of these flaws, the story takes a quite a long time to build up into something interesting; in other words, the bigger picture will only start presenting itself about 200 pages into the story, and there are only 291 pages in the entire book. Nonetheless, there is quite a bit of fun to be had in the reading of this book. Fans of the series will appreciate the opportunity to witness new insights into some of the larger mysteries of The Elder Scrolls universe, such as the inner-workings of the kingdoms of Black Marsh and Elsweyr. In addition, the novel helps to provide an understanding of what happened during the 200 year time lapse between the latest game in the series, Skyrim, and the game before it; the character dialogue is entertaining at times; it is fun to watch Prince Attrebus develop as a character; and the plot, once it begins revealing itself, is pretty well detailed and rather intriguing to boot. In closing, I would like to restate the argument that you should not give this book a lower rating than normal simply because it is based on some pre-established video game lore. If you are a fan of the series, you will enjoy this book. If not, then there is nothing here that you would care to miss.

I loved this book. The only issue I have with it is, why is there an island that floats? I didn't read the whole book on account of I didn't buy it all. Is this island from oblivion? If so, then why is it there... Oblivion gates can't open anymore. The only way to perminantly summon them is if you had a great oblivion gate, which need I remind you, only appeared in kvatch, outside bruma, and the interior of the imperial city. I dearly love this book but please just review and correct your own book next time

The first of these two is much better and to me it was in my mind just as you would see it on screen. So much depth that i could tell it was great from beginning. Just wish it didn',t jump around so much.

About the author

Born in Meridian, MS, in 1963, Greg Keyes spent his early years roaming the forests of his native state and the red rock cliffs of the Navajo Indian reservation in Arizona. He earned his B.A. in anthropology from Mississippi State University and a master's degree from the University of Georgia, where he did course work for a Ph.D. He lives in Savannah, GA, where, in addition to full-time writing, he enjoys cooking, fencing, the company of his family and friends and lazy Savannah nights. Greg is the author of The Waterborn, The Blackgod, the Babylon 5 Psi Corps trilogy, the Age of Unreason tetrology (for which he won the prestigious "Le Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire" award), and three New York Times bestselling Star Wars novels in the New Jedi Order series.