The bad parts of the book are:
1) A sense of deja vu. In some places in the book, information is repeated. For example, there is a couple pages at the beginning of the book where propensity for magic is laid out for the races. Yet a mere two pages later much of this same information is repeated when the High Sorcery is described. It would have been better if perhaps the magic use by races had concentrated more on general magic use, or the High Sorcery section had described more about what roles various races play in the Wizardly Orders themselves. There is also a lot of repition about how the Orders are governed, since it has its own section and a lot of governmental procedures fill up the descriptions of the Tower of Wayreth itself. However, since this info does not contradict itself, it is not much of a problem.
2) A little short to be so costly. This book is only 160 pages, which wouldn't necessarily be a problem if it hadn't cost me $50 Canadian. 10 more dollars and I can buy a campaign setting book like Eberron, with double the page count. I know Sovereign Press is a small company, and thus a book costs more to make, but any efforts to cut costs would be greatly appreciated.
3) No maps. Even if one didn't want to map the Towers of High Sorcery, some maps of the other locations and buildings would have been welcome.
3) Still some formatting issues. I'm really glad that this is the last book with the large margins. I would also like to go down to an 8 page font, but I realize that Dragonlance fans seem to be terribly nearsighted lot and prefer a larger font. Go with the majority where selling a product is concerned.
4) Adherence to old terms when old retcons cause confusion. I liked the retcon of now calling House Mystic by House Magus because it is a Caste of Wizards rather than Mystics. I don't like continuing to use the term Magius from the old modules for the language of magic when Magius has since come to mean one of the most famous archmages of Krynn.
The good parts of the book:
1) Wizards are wizards again. The dependancy on the gods has been greatly downplayed in this book, and it makes it clear that the power of the wizards is their own power rather than dependant on the whims of the lunar dieties.
2) The art is spectacular.
3) There is a great deal of depth added to the history of the Order and the history of the Towers of High Sorcery.
4) Actually describing the Order of High Sorcery as it exists and functions in the world, rather than just being an incestuous reference to various events in the novels.
Now a chapter by chapter review.
Chapter 1: The first chapter starts off with a description of how a mage is recruited, trained, and a typical path to power. It also describes how various races used and handle magic. Some of the 5th Age fans might be a little upset with this, because aside from the Draconians it seems that most races prefer to be renegade wizards rather than sorcerers. Myself I rather like the widespread renegade wizards because it precludes direct divine interference with a wizard's magic. After all, if the gods of magic could simply shut off magic, there wouldn't be so many renegades. Obviously the secrets of High Sorcery were leaked out and founded many daughter traditions of wizards. I am a little annoyed however on the insistance that there were no wizards of the standard ECL 0 races that were wizards aside from elves, humans and dwarves before the 5th Age. It seems to unecessarily restrict options for players in a WotL game. The attitude that the War of the Lance era belongs to dinos who played 2e and not to the 3e latecomers has got to go.
I'm not a big fan of prestige classes but these are really well done. The Wizard of High Sorcery has been fixed of its specialization clunkiness. The Dark Dwarf Savant and the Sylvan Mage are my favourite new prestige classes, and I've already designed two NPC's to take advantage of them.
Chapter 2: It was good to see some old favourites again, and I especially liked the new spin on the mindspin spell (no pun intended). However, the most interesting part of the chapter was the magical items. I particularly liked seeing the gauntlet of Ventyr again, and the new magical items of the Rose of Sorrow and the Ring of Wispers.
Chapter 3: Here is my favourite part of the book. Like many, I was rather dissapointed in the views of wizards in the book "Wizard's Conclave". It seemed that the wizards were simply reacting with vicious blind fanaticism to wild magic. We see the gods panicking and baying for blood for sorcerers.
However, here we have the gods of magic and the wizards themselves not reacting as religious zealots. Instead they are reacting with suitable caution and dealing with the subject thoughtfully and patiently. It only makes sense after all, what better way to cause a magical cataclysm than to start a magical war?
Solinari advocates peaceful coexistance with the sorcerers, with dialogue to try and convince them of the Wisdom of High Sorcery and the Rules of the Conclave. Lunitari sees no harm in letting the wild sorcerers continue, and is even curious about this new form of magic. Only jealous Nuitari is out for blood, but he recognizes the wisdom of his siblings in being patient. The official position of the conclave is to leave the sorcerers unmolested to practice their craft. That means that renegades are those who practice moon magic without the sanction of the Orders of High Sorcery, not sorcerers. I was very suprised when I read this however, because all the conversation on the lists seems to be continuing to think otherwise and that the war between sorcerers and wizards has already begun. So Red Robes and Sorcerers can belong to the Legion of Steel, and not only does your white robe not have to kill sorcerers, he can suffer alignment penalties for persecuting them.
I would have liked to see a bit more detail on the relationship of the gods of magic with the other dieties. In particular I would like to have seen the relationship between Chemosh and Nuitari cleared up. It is a bit confusing when you have both a god of evil magic and a god of necromancy.
The structure and rules for governing the conclave were very well done except for one respect. I know everything I need to run a wizard's trial, have the conclave discuss a matter of great import, and how to select new officials. However, I still don't know exactly what it means to be a renegade outside of abandoning loyalty to the orders and directly attacking magic itself. How do you get kicked out of the Order? For example things that could have been clarified:
1) Am I allowed to destroy magical items? How about those that are of an opposing alignment (ie. Nuitari's Shroud)
2) Is lichdom illegal? I always thought so because liches would hoard magic items, spells, and positions of power in the conclave. Without your old mages dying, younger mages could not succeed to the magical power of their elders. Plus, we've never seen a undead wizard yet in the halls of High Sorcery, even in the latest book when an undead wizard would certainly have shown up if summoned. Plus, Nuitari might be jealous of Chemosh's "gift".
3) If you refuse a direct order from the Highmage or the Master of your Order, are you a renegade?
Chapter 4: This was also a very well done chapter. We learn the long hidden histories of these various towers and the powers of their groves. It is a little dissapointing that we didn't get maps of these like promised. I've been told that the inside of the towers have subjective reality like Dr. Who's TARDIS (as if I'm old enough to know who and what that is) but I don't buy it. After all, how would you get any work done in such a place if you had to spend half a day looking for the library? I can certainly agree with the testing levels having subjective reality, but not the whole tower. Now, I'm not too dissappointed because of these reasons:
1) Mapping the Towers would have been very difficult. Wayreth would have taken about 5 pages of maps alone to do. Daltigoth and Losarcum would have been slightly easier (perhaps two or three pages). Istar and Palanthas, given that they are 200 stories straight up would have been impossible to map. Even if we just mapped Wayreth, it would have taken 10-15 additional pages describing the rooms inside. 25 pages if we added characters and day to day activities. Mapping all of them would have doubled the page count of the book.
2) I saw the map of Wayreth in "Return to the Inn of the Last Home". It was a very unimpressive sight. I have to wonder if any attempts to map a Tower of High Sorcery would demean it.
3) Towers of High Sorcery make poor dungeons. If they are active you don't just wander around killing stuff. If they are ruined a map doesn't do you much good anyway, since three of them are not intact. The Doom Spire could make a decent dungeon, but it is too central a landmark to invade without going against continuity. It is for a novel or SP module to explore.
However, you better beleive I want to dungeon crawl in the Mount Ulgaard. Lots of magical loot, bound and imprisoned demons, proto-creatures, Allips of old captives, a scrying and teleportation nexus, and you get to annoy Dalamar? I am so there. All I need is Neidar village to start mining.
Chapter 5: The test of High Sorcery. Looks like an update of the useful part of the Saga Product "The Last Tower". Very useful, though it doesn't answer the question of what to do with the rest of the party.
Chapter 6: Creatures - Thank you for fixing the grey alien hruldrefolk. I still don't plan on using them, but I don't feel the need to actively hate this fey version. I can also see how they would have evolved into the various forms of the fey. My favourites of this chapter are the Eldritch Emissaries and Haunts.
Anyway I enjoyed reading this book, and it has given me even more reason to look forward to the War of the Lance next month
EDIT:
YOu should submit your review to ENWorld. Give the product a little more spotlight.