Once Around the Realms

Forgotten Realms - Publication Order

by Brian M. Thomsen

Soon Volo and his erstwhile companion, Passepout, are on a grand tour the likes of which Toril has never seen. From Chult to Kara Tur, from Suzail to the Shining South, even from the Land of the Dead to Maztica, Volo and Passepout make their way around the globe...little suspecting that this simple bet masks a dark conspiracy unlike any other.

Genres: Forgotten Realms, Fantasy, Fiction, Collections, Dungeons and Dragons, Short Stories, Ebooks

297 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1995

About the author

Brian Thomsen was a founding editor of the Questar Science Fiction line of books, and served as managing fiction editor at TSR, Inc.; he also wrote over 30 short stories, and collaborated with Julius Schwartz on Schwartz's autobiography. He also worked as the publisher for TSR's Periodicals Department at one point. He was a consulting editor at Tor Books; as an author he was a Hugo Award nominee.

He died on September 21, 2008, at his home in Brooklyn at the age of 49. He was survived by his wife, Donna.

Reviews

[Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!* · Rating 3 out of 5]

Death by a thousand dad jokes.

It was not unusual in the early years of TSR publishing for the company's editors and creative staff to try their hand at a novel or three in this publishing line. Most of them, though, strived to create a straight fantasy adventure novel. Brian Thomsen's Once Around the Realms is a bizarre departure from the Forgotten Realms books before or since, and I am torn over whether or not it was a welcome aberration.

Extremely light-hearted in tone, plot, and characterization, the literal jaunt-around-the-world is mostly an excuse for terrible gags, twists on classic literature (e.g. Moby-Dick, The Man in the Iron Mask, and of course Around the World in Eighty Days with references both to the novel and to actors in the various film adaptations) and 80's TV classics alike (such as Cheers and Fantasy Island), convoluted stories leading to punchlines like "Geronimo!", fat shaming, and references to extant Forgotten Realms books, characters, and official tabletop adventure modules. It is utterly ridiculous, and thankfully intentionally so.

Is it possible to read this and NOT throw the book across the room at some point? If you're thinking, "I can take it," try this on for size:

Captain Ahib.
Who cursed "the infernal white wail".
Because his son was stolen by....

(are you ready for it?)

an albino banshee



DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN???

Also, the sidekick's name, Passepout (modified from Passepartout), sounds like nothing more than a French fart.

Honestly, I have no memory of any book that made me groan as loudly and as frequently as this did. I waver between giving it 2 or 3 stars, but I am rounding up because in the midst of my ever-increasingly-ill-advised quest to read the Forgotten Realms novels in publication order, it was refreshing for being, A) a standlone book in a sea of trilogies and other series, B) completely unserious, and C) SHORT, really fluffing out the pages to keep it a comparable thickness with the other paperbacks in this line.

Really, I should give this 5 stars in comparison to the overdescriptive, overlong, egotistical, underedited outings by Ed Greenwood that plague this series. So, what's next for me in reading order? ...Oh, crap.

*****************

UPDATE with a whole new framing of the book. Shout-out to https://letsreadtsr.com for highlighting this aspect. (Let's Read TSR is a blog by someone applying literary analysis to the same Forgotten Realms novel publication-order series I've embarked on, with much deeper reviews and about a year's worth of publications ahead of me at the moment.)

I looked more into Brian Thomsen's role, as head of TSR's book-publishing arm at the time that he put out this novel (saying, "Self, can I have my book published? Yes, Self, you certainly can.") See my review of Realms of Magic for some more details. This was prompted by the above blog's inclusion of a quote from TSR's James Lowder, originally posted at this now-defunct link: https://www.enworld.org/threads/im-re...
I could try the Wayback Machine and maybe I will someday but I haven't yet, but this is what was allegedly copied from it:

Once Around the Realms was created at a time when TSR’s book department was struggling with some authors and editors over control of their Realms characters — some legal wrangling, mostly skirmishes for creative control. The book department’s relatively new lead editor, Brian Thomsen, did not get along with all the authors and editors who had been working on the line, and he did not share what had become the department’s philosophy on giving writers as much creative control of their work as possible. There had been a lot of blow-ups with different people, most notably with Bob Salvatore. OAtR was Thomsen’s and TSR’s way of showing the authors who had control of the world. It was written quickly, and by Thomsen because he was a full-time employee, so TSR could make it clear all the characters who appeared were controlled by the company.

Once Around the Realms did indeed include cameo appearances by characters created and popularized by R.A. Salvatore, Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb, James Lowder, Ed Greenwood and others. In essence, this book is a big "Fuck You" to the writers of popular Forgotten Realms books; Thomsen showing that he could do what he wanted with the places and characters that were, legally, TSR property, while also cutting payments to authors. Salvatore, at least, stopped writing for TSR until after it went bankrupt and was bought by Wizards of the Coast who fired Thomsen and started wooing the Realms' popular authors back.

A dark turn on an otherwise simply laughably terrible book.

[Evan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm a big Forgotten Realms fan and I've read many of the novels set there, and this is by far the worst. Granted, a spoof of "Around the World in Eighty Days" set in Toril sounds like a neat idea, but this book just juvenile and lame. It's sparsely written and holds no real imagination. It's as if the writer had little time to put any real effort into it and only wrote what he could in between meetings, which is a shame because this could have been something much cooler. The only saving grace is that the book is very short. Avoid.

[PRJ Greenwell · Rating 1 out of 5]

What an appalling novel. Of the thirty odd Forgotten Realms novels I've read so far, this is by an order of magnitude worse than any other. For starters, the writing itself comes across as a first draft with minimal editing. Lots of repeated words and phrasings, scenes of no consequences, conversations that are irrelevant and don't further the plot in any way.

Sure, it's a parody or a homage to Around the World in 80 Days, but for sanity's sake, read that novel instead. What was probably intended as a lighthearted and happy novel comes across a work of utter amateurism and self-conscious fan service, peppered with none-too-subtle pop culture references.

To quote Captain Haddock - "bilge from stem to stern". Even the cover art looks like two blokes pulled from a fan convention to pose for this execrable and forgettable novel.

[Justin Salisbury · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have read almost all Forgotten Realms novels, and this is by far the worst book of the entire D&D novel line.

[M.A. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Easily one of the worst fantasy books I've read outside of a Piers Anthony book. This novel is a comedic romp through the Forgotten Realms, a tenuous excuse to have Volo visit such far-flung locales as Kara-Tur and Maztica, among other places. The dialogue is stilted, and the plot isn't helped by the not-too-subtle references to dated pop culture icons (e.g., the A-Team). It's interesting in that many famous characters in the Realms appear, but it's as silly and poorly written as any bad piece of fan-fiction.

[Marina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I only got to chapter 10 and gave up on it because the prose was not very good and the plot was lackluster. Just not for me.

[Jaymz · Rating 1 out of 5]

easily one of the worst fantasy novels ive ever read. breathtakingly bad and very interesting as a result. from what ive been able to gather, the author, Brian Thomsen, was employed as the EDITOR of TSR Publishing at the time. you look around at the "Realms of X" collections and its his name on it for that. so, basically, non-professional author, maybe gets it into his head that he too can put a novel into the forgotten realms shared universe, which to be fair, was pumping out content CRAZY fast at the time. so this is his first ever novel, and it shows! we now have this weird fanservice novel where pretty much all the heavy hitter characters from OTHER FR series show up for a page or 2 then go on their way. Thomsen was likely intimately familiar with the Forgotten Realm, since his whole day job was working with the material, and it does make sense that he would uniquely well-suited for a story like this. but, since the author is not a professional, it feels closer to fanfiction.

in theory this is a picaresque romp, but its hampered by pretty much everything. flat characters, plodding plot, awkward and often flat-out bad writing, and a lot of wink nudge references to stuff In Real Life that i just dont appreciate. the wink nudges often also line up with THE WORST JOKES YOU HAVE EVER READ. its actually impressively contrived. minor spoiler to follow - there was a joke about a "khan artist" (pained heh...) within 2 paragraphs followed up by a reference to actress Rita Hayworth that made me, like, come thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to literally throwing the book at a wall. jaw-droppingly corny jokes. maybe thats your thing, sure, but i dont appreciate 90s pop culture references in the magical world of Faerun, where people dont know what a toaster or cars are. fantasy is fantasy - i dont want the icky nasty real world INVADING the imaginary world more than it is necessary to ("common" being written as english, swords and boats existing, etc).

there was also some awkward 90s racism that makes a reader narrow their eyes and frown, but what am i gonna do, go back in time and tell the author off for it? its "of its time" and makes the book suck a smidgen more. Wizards has put a "Oopsies we did a racism" label on a couple of their earlier, culture-based expansions such as Maztica and Al Qadim in the past few years, so if Once Around the Realms were for some reason ever to be republished (it wont be), itd also get the stamp of 2020s disapproval as well. and good riddance for that!

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across the this book while researching which of the 300+ Forgotten Realms books are worth reading. The premise is a telling of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days, but set in the Forgotten Realms. It features Volothamp Geddarm, who is the in-world author of the Volo’s Guide series of books that were published in the 1990s.

The book was written by long time TSR editor Brian Thomsen - his debut novel. When this work was published in 1995, the Forgotten Realms novel canon consisted of about 50 books. You will get more out of this book if you have read at least some of these prior to this one. Check out Salvatore’s D’rizzt series, Cunningham’s Songs & Swords trilogy, Elminster books, Avatar Trilogy, and the Finder’s Stone Trilogy.

It is also worth reading Volo’s Guide to Waterdeep, particularly the entry for the Hanging Lantern. This will give you a feel of Volo’s character. You can find a free PDF of this 1992 out of print book on the Internet.

As tô the writing and story itself. It was entertaining but not the best writing for a Forgotten Realms novel. There are plenty of puns and contemporary references, including the movie Jaws and a particularly bad pun about Rita Hayworth. Overall this book was a light and easy read.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was okay. Not really my cup of tea, but still sorta fun if you are familiar with Forgotten Realms. An obvious homage (rip-off?) to "Around the World in 80 Days." Full of short chapters with short plots; mostly comedic. I'm not sure many would appreciate this...It took me a long time for a pretty short book. I had a hard time getting invested. There is, of course, very little threat and climax if you are familiar with the original story (though the plot was not identical).

I feel like someone that has read 100's of these books (like myself) might find it entertaining. Additionally, maybe someone that is JUST starting reading books from this world would get some good, though abbreviated, information. I could see it maybe being a good bit of base knowledge. I don't know, though. It would still seem like a bit of a waste of time unless you were going to read lots of them....there are just so many better FR books than this one.

Anywho, another Forgotten Realms books in the basket.

[Dimitris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I dont understand why the majority opinion here is that this book is lacking. Its a perfectly pleasant book. It has its flaws ofc, it could do without a character with the sole personality being designated as "fat" and some more pages spend in some of the areas visited and characters met could do with a page or two extra.

But other than that its an interesting travel story spanning a good part of the forgotten realms

[Vanteacher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as bad as the others say.

I enjoyed it. It was an interesting rush through the realm.

I read forgotten realms for the settings and maybe an interesting encounter or to and to teach me something new or unknown about DND. It did both, so I am satisfied with it.

So passable dungeons and dragons themed reading.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review here:

https://jamesgenrebooks.blogspot.com/...

The Boomer TV references aside (seriously, there's a Jaws joke in here), it's actually a fun story with a lot of silliness. Even if you do need a map to figure out where the heck they are half the time.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as bad as the reviews would lead you to believe, but close.

[Diogo · Rating 2 out of 5]

A journey through the Realms of Faerun with Faerun's most famous historian, Volo, with some eye-catching cameos, but overall a rather unexciting story.

[Jesse McClitlock · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is my benchmark for what a 1-star novel reads like. The awful taste it left in my mouth prevented me from engaging with anything Forgotten Realms for a long time.

[Renae · Rating 2 out of 5]

Someone special to me requested that I read this, and although this sort of thing isn't my usual fare, I agreed.

I almost didn't make it. The beginning was nearly intolerably slow. About halfway through the book it picked up speed to the point where I could manage to finish.

The book does have some rather witty banter between the characters, but it also has other problems. I found that the author seemed in favor of speeding up the narrative by simply glossing over action with a "nothing happened, let's move on" approach. In particular, the party's passage through the Fields of the Dead, the site of the Battle of the Bones, and a dangerous section of Zhent-infested mountains--dispensed with in two completely uneventful, nondescriptive TWO pages. I thought, why even MENTION it at all if you're not going to bother describing it? It was a non-event. Granted, if the author HAD bothered to flesh it out, I'm not sure the book would have been any better.

And there was also the matter of some really dreadful puns.

I had a hard time taking it seriously.

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good Forgotten Realms story. I enjoyed it. =)

[John Somers · Rating 1 out of 5]

2/20

[Pennies · Rating 4 out of 5]

love the format and story. the divinity could have been better exposed