The Brothers' War (The Artifacts Cycle, Book 1) (Part 2 - Plot)

Hello, everyone.

This is Part 2 of the review of The Brothers’ War, focusing on the plot. Please see Part 1 if you’d like to read the general overview and bookkeeping items. Part 3 is coming on Wednesday, and it will discuss the characters and worldbuilding.

Let’s take a ‘walk.

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

Rating: 7/10

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 (MTG) 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

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”.

PLOT (Heavy Spoilers)

The plot of The Brother's War is broken into sections that cover different chronological chunks of Urza’s and Mishra’s lives. My thoughts on this book are split across these sections, so I’m going to break them down here. (As mentioned back in the discussion of this book’s framing device, the years of “Argivian Reckoning” (AR) began the year Urza and Mishra were born.)

Prologue - Opposites Attract (63 AR)

This is a very straightforward prologue. Tawnos, the former apprentice of Urza, and Ashnod, the former apprentice of Mishra, meet on a battlefield the night before the final battle between Urza and Mishra. As they discuss the possibility of peace in the eleventh hour, the audience is informed how deep the rift between the two brothers runs. The prologue ends on the question of whether there was ever a time that the two brothers understood each other.

I like this prologue. While it is not the strongest hook, it does a good job of establishing the tragedy and overwhelming destruction of the War, indirectly introduces Urza and Mishra, and introduces Tawnos and Ashnod. A lot of heavy lifiitng is done here.

Part 1: A Study in Forces (10 AR - 20 AR)

This section describes Urza and Mishra’s childhood apprenticeship under the archeologist Tocasia. It starts the day they arrive at her dig site, continues through their journey to the Caverns of Kolios and the claiming of the Mightstone and Weakstone, and ends with their confrontation over which brother should control both stones.

Overall, I have no major objections with this opening. The time skips that will become an issue in Part 3 are certainly present here, but they make sense in terms of accelerating characters who are introduced as children to an age where they can have meaningful agency in the story being told.

One element that I will criticize is the introduction of Mishra’s dreams. For some unexplained reason, claiming the Weakstone causes Mishra to start dreaming of Phyrexia and the demon Gix. This doesn’t happen to Urza. I’m not saying it’s impossible to rationalize this within the rules of the world, but a lot of what follows in this story hinges on Mishra being the one connected to Phyrexia. The fact he has this connection strips away some of his agency. Yes, his later corruption is the result of his own choices, but those choices are only possible because this arbitrary connection.

Still, since this is part of the inciting incident, this flaw is more tolerable than it would be otherwise. It is introducing conflict to the narrative rather than solving conflict.

Part 2: Objects in Motion (21 AR - 28 AR)

This part describes how Urza and Mishra independently find their way into positions of power, with Urza becoming Chief Artificer of Yotia and Mishra rising to become the court wizard to the qadir of the Fallaji tribesmen, followed by the influence the brothers have upon the outbreak of war between Yotia and Fallaji. It is also during this time that important POV characters like Tawnos, Ashnod, Urza’s wife, and Mishra’s bodyguard enter the story. Grubb does a good job of presenting the brothers’ respective rises to power feel like a natural extension of their characters.

While the narrative here is quite solid, this is where the arbitrary convenience of only Mishra getting the Phyrexia dreams comes into play. The pivotal moment that allows Mishra to claim his position of power is when, in the midst of a dream about Phyrexia, he inadvertently summons a dragon engine to Dominaria and binds it to his will. This then becomes a weapon that allows the Fallaji to become a threat to Yotia. When he realizes he needs more dragon engines, Mishra returns to Kolios and opens the portal to Phyrexia so that he can find and dominate as many of the living war machines as he needs. This allows Gix to follow Mishra back to Dominaria and set into motion the events that lead to Mishra’s compleation. (For those of you not familiar with MTG lore, the spelling of completion as “compleation” refers specifically to the conversion of a non-Phyrexian lifeform or machine into a Phyrexian biomechanical being.)

The reason this bothers me is that Mishra’s decision to embrace Phyrexia is presented as a deliberate choice. The climax of the book is defined by Urza choosing another path. Urza embraces the mystical powers of mana and becomes a godlike Planeswalker, while Mishra embraces the path of the machine and becomes a monster. If Urza had also been tempted by Phyrexia and then turned away from it, that would have been one thing, but he was kept separate from Phyrexia while Mishra was shoved towards it. Agency isn't completely lost here - Mishra didn't have to keep serving the Fallaji or prosecute the war against Yotia once the dragon engine was under his command - but it still feels weak.

Part 3: Converging Trajectories (29 AR - 57 AR)

The bulk of the War is confined to these chapters. A lot of history is skimmed over. The core idea of this section is that the War is gradually swallowing the entire continent of Terisiare, with neither brother showing interest in making peace with the other.

Purely from a plot perspective, I think this is fine. I’m sure a whole series of books could have been written to cover all of the events of this conflict, but that’s not what the book is about. Focus is being kept on the brothers and how they change throughout the war.

However, this is also where the time skips become a problem. Because we are skimming through such vast swathes of time, neither Mishra’s growing megalomania and increasing vulnerability to Phyrexian corruption nor Urza’s openness to mysticism and self-awareness of his role in the devastation of Terisiare feel earned. We are least needed more scenes with them to help us understand their progression over time.

Part 4: Critical Mass (57 AR - 63 AR)

This is the climax of the book, covering the devastation of the island of Argoth and the conclusion of the War. It leads to the final confrontation set up in the Prologue, with the last battle taking place and Urza and Mishra facing off once more. It concludes with Urza setting off the Sylex, which annihilates Mishra and sets off the cataclysm that annihilates Argoth and devastates Terisiare.

The climax of the book is functional as the conclusion for the story being told. I feel like the epiphany that allows Urza to tap into mana and thus detonate the Sylex is rushed, but that’s a symptom of the issues in Part 3, rather than being an issue with Part 4 itself. The setups needed to earn this moment needed to come much earlier. Likewise, Mishra’s compleation unfolds between Parts 3 and 4, so while I’m not satisfied that he’s suddenly a Phyrexian, that’s really an issue of not developing him enough in Part 3.

Epilogue: Diverging Paths (64 AR)

This chapter is from the POV of Tawnos. Having survived the cataclysm, Tawnos is awoken by Urza and tasked with helping people to rebuild. Urza then planeswalks away.

There’s not much to comment on here. This conclusion confirms that Urza is indeed a Planeswalker at the end of the story and, as mentioned above, sets up Dominaria’s descent into the Ice Age.

THE PLAYERS

On Wednesday, we’ll wrap this review up with exploration of the characters and the worldbuilding.

Thank you all for stopping by today. 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.