The Brothers' War (The Artifacts Cycle, Book 1) (Part 1 - Overview)
Hello, everyone.
Back in July 2025, I had temporarily cleaned out my TBR, and I felt a pang of nostalgia for the Magic: the Gathering tie-in novels I read in elementary and middle school, back in the days when every new expansion of the game had a tie-in novel written for it. I decided to see if they had mad the jump to e-book format.
As it turns out, some of them had. Not many. The newer novels are certainly there, along will manga with the bonkers title Destroy All Humans. They Can’t be Regenerated, but at least half of the listings are people selling used copies of the original mass-market paperbacks for markups so absurd that I can only assume there is a strong collector’s market for these things. Only the following series have made the jump to Kindle e-book in full:
Invasion Cycle
Mirrodin Cycle
Kamigawa Cycle
Ravnica Cycle
Time Spiral Cycle
With all the recent news about the death if mass market paperbacks, I feel like shining light on these books is more important than before. It's unlikely that a surge in interest will get the trad-pub industry to, say, do new print runs of these books, but it might be enough to convince Wizards of the Coast (WotC) to release e-books of the rest of their Magic: the Gathering tie-in catalog. It would be a shame for these stories to vanish entirely, especially in an era when literally anyone can self-publish anything with the click of a mouse.
In terms of places to start, I thought I’d begin with the Artifacts Cycle. Out of the series (though not the books) that got an e-book released, it was both the first published and the first one within chronological order.
So, settle in. Check out that interlude on this book’s framing device that I did back in October. It’s time for us to experience the first iteration (more on that later) of The Brothers’ War.
STATS
Title: The Brothers’ War
Series: The Artifacts Cycle (Book 1)
Author(s): Jeff Grubb
Genre: Epic Fantasy
First Printing: May 1998
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast LLC
SPOILER WARNING
Mild, unmarked spoilers for The Brothers’ War will be provided throughout this review. Heavy spoilers will be confined to clearly labeled sections. I will keep the first paragraph of any given section spoiler-free.
Throughout this review, I will also be providing heavy spoilers for later events within the Magic: the Gathering canon. While I will be steering clear of details that would spoil the progression of this book specifically, there is a strong chance that you will figure out certain spoilers if you pay attention to these bits of lore. Most of these will be concentrated to a dedicated section discussing the role of this story within the overall timeline. However, a few other unmarked lore spoilers will be present throughout the review.
TERMINOLOGY
For brevity’s sake, “Magic: the Gathering” will be reduced to its standard “MTG” abbreviation.
While the title of the book is The Brothers’ War, the actual conflict being fought is itself called the Brothers’ War (at least, it is when referred to by later entries in the MTG timeline). I will need to refer to the conflict, rather than the book, at a couple points. Whenever I need to refer to the conflict, I will simply refer to it as “the War”.
STRUCTURE
I had a surprising amount to say about this book. Unfortunately, by the time I got around to breaking it down into more manageable chunks, I’d already filled my usual Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday slots around it. So, in the interest of not stretching this one out, we’re going to make this a 3-part spread across the week as follows:
Part 1 (Today)
Premise
Rating
Timeline
Content Warning
Part 2 (Sunday, March 8th)
Plot
Part 3 (Wednesday, March 11th)
Character
Worldbuilding
PREMISE
Per the Amazon product page for the e-book:
The Myth. The Magic. Dominarian legends speak of a mighty conflict, obscured by the mists of history. Of a conflict between the brothers Urza and Mishra for supremacy on the continent of Terisiare. Of titanic engines that scarred and twisted the very planet. Of a final battle that sank continents and shook the skies. The saga of the Brothers’ War.
Reaction
This is a vague and accurate premise. The story is more focused on the character drama than on the battles themselves, but there are still plenty of battles, so I don’t feel like this is misleading.
RATING: 7/10
Much like The Fall of Reach, this book exists purely as a tie-in novel to cash in on an established IP. The key difference is that this book does go all-in on telling its own narrative.
For the most part, I think it is successful. I would be willing to recommend The Brother’s War to someone looking for a low-magic Fantasy story from the turn of the century. It has a decent plot and engaging characters. For fans of MTG, there’s also plenty of fanservice, with multiple cards from Antiquities getting at least a reference.
If I had to identify one core flaw of this book, it would be that Grubb didn’t seem that interested in telling the story of Urza and Mishra specifically. Much as was the case with Timothy Zahn in Heir to the Empire, it feels like the main characters are only here out of obligation, while the author’s true interest was writing about the secondary characters. This is a bit of an issue when it’s the decisions of Urza and Mishra that dedicate the course of the conflict. Their character development in the latter half of the book starts to feel forced, as they undergo major changes off-screen. Maybe Grubb’s hands were tied by WotC, or maybe he got a little too invested in his framing device. Whatever the reason, it diminished the impact of what could have been a very powerful climax.
TIMELINE (Heavy Spoilers)
A few years ago, this would have been a lot simpler to explain.
The Artifacts Cycle is the story of Urza, who was the most powerful and legendary Planeswalker in all of MTG for several years. Judging by the dates of release for the novels, I think it reasonable to conclude that this series was intended to be the tie-in novels for the Urza block, a series of three expansion sets for the card game that released from the autumn of 1998 through the spring of 1999. These sets are:
Urza’s Saga (the 15th expansion, released October 1998)
Urza’s Legacy (the 16th expansion, released February 1999)
Urza by’s Destiny (the 17th expansion, released June 1999)
There are three sets … but the Artifacts Cycle has four books. This is because the true start of Urza’s story was Antiquities, the second expansion set for MTG, released years earlier in March 1994. The Brother’s War is a retroactive tie-in novel for that set (and also Urza’s Saga) thereby setting up the events of the other three tie-in novels. This is Urza’s origin story, describing his first encounters with the Phyrexians, the corruption of his brother by Phyrexia, the detonation of the Sylex, and Urza’s ascension to the status of Planeswalker. The remaining books of the series will go on to explore his efforts to prepare for the inevitable invasion of his home plane of Dominaria by the Phyrexians.
The reason I need to explain all of this is because The Brothers’ War is also the name of the 94th expansion set of MTG, released in November 2022. The story of that set is a time travel story. The Planeswalker Teferi Akosa (whom we’ll meet in the third Artifacts Cycle novel, Time Streams), travels back to the year 63 AR (when the climax of this book takes place) from the year 4562 AR, seeking information on the spell needed to detonate the Sylex superweapon.
I am not familiar with the story of that expansion, so I can’t comment on whether Teferi changed any events by doing this. (I also don’t understand why he needed time travel to figure out how to detonate the Sylex, since this book makes it clear how absurdly easy it is for a magic-wielding individual to use.) If you are familiar with the story of the expansion, and you notice any discrepancies between that story and the one in this book, that is because this book was the original version.
One bit of timeline lore that is a bit confusing is that the epilogue of the book tries to set up Dominaria’s Ice Age, ending on the note that snow is starting to fall in Terisiare. However, the Ice Age doesn’t properly start for another 400 years. This isn’t necessarily a contradiction, but it does feel a bit odd when one considers that Terisiare’s Dark Age is an established bit of lore that comes between the War and the Ice Age. However, in fairness to Grubb, he would not write The Gathering Dark for another year after this. He might have meant the snowfall to be symbolic rather than a literal herald of the coming ice, not yet realizing that WotC would commission him to write a book set within the intervening time period.
CONTENT WARNING
The Brothers’ War features violence and war prominently, but none of it is particularly graphic or gory. Everything is kept to the minimum needed to tell the story. There are also implications of sex, though nothing shown on the page. I read this book for the first time when I was 12, and looking back, I personally wouldn't see any issue with allowing my own children to read it (assuming they were interested in reading 300+ page novels aimed at an adult reading level, anyway).
HISTORY IN MOTION
Now that the groundwork has been laid, we can get into the meat of the narrative. On Sunday, we’ll take a closer look at the plot. We’ll then return on Wednesday to wrap up this review with an examination of the characters and worldbuilding.
Thanks for stopping by. Please remember to subscribe for the newsletter if you’d like a weekly e-mail update with the latest post links, and share this review with others if you enjoyed it. Until next time, take care, and have a good weekend.
Volume I of my first serialized Romantasy novel, A Chime for These Hallowed Bones, is now premiering over in Tales of the Five Worlds!
Kabarāhira is a city of necromancers, and among these necromancers, none are more honorable or respected than Master Japjot Baig. Yadleen has worked under him since she was a girl, learning how commune with bhūtas and how to bind these ancient spirits into wights. Her orderly world is disrupted, however, when a stranger appears with the skeleton of a dishonored woman, demanding that her master fabricate a wight for him.
To protect her master from scandal, Yadleen must take it upon herself to meet this stranger’s demands. Manipulating the dead is within her power, but can honor survive in the face of a man who has none?
Chapter 7 (Parts 1 and 2) is now available! I hope you’ll join me on this new adventure.
