Guild Wars: Sea of Sorrows Mass Market Paperback – June 25, 2013

Ree Soesbee is the author of this story, based on the lions arch within Guild wars 2. We follow Coby, the 'founder' and re-builder of lions arch. As the great cataclysm creates total havoc from Zhaitans awakening we follow the destruction and reconstruction of lions arch as the pirate capital.The story is amazing, better than what most would even expect from a story based off a game. However, Ree truly delivers. The story is captivating though short, it is packed with all of the things that make the story something you look forward to reading. While I do have some complaints they are truly little, I would have liked the book to be longer, the 'chapters' of coby's life more exposed. But other than that, the characters are absolutely lovable, reputably and relate-able. I found many times where I laughed at the violent actions of the charr and the norns. This book captures Guild wars 2, the essence of the fight against Zhaitan. Though sometimes predicable, many times I was left struck happy with the events and their order.If you play guild wars 2, I would get this book in a heart beat!!!Make some more Ree! You will see my vote!!!

This is a perfect story about the founding of Lions Arch, and it will tug on all the right strings, the story is fleshed out and written in a way that makes it an excellent read, if you're not a fan of the games it's a great introduction to the history of one of the main cities and the threat that the elder dragons represent, but if you're a fan of the series you'll love the little nods to GW1 players. Simply great.

Sea of Sorrows is the tale of Cobiah Marriner, the founder of Lion's Arch. This book is perfectly serviceable and pretty entertaining. If you like GW2 and want more lore, more Tyria references, and more information on the timeline between GW1 and GW2, you will not be disappointed in this book. There are plenty of interesting characters, quite a few interesting places, and a good story. This book is miles better than Edge of Destiny in basically every category.As someone who reads a lot of fantasy, I do have a few problems with this book. For one, the characters are overall good, but some are very shallow; there's a deliberate effort to get each race and class into the book and I think that was unnecessary and makes some interactions feel forced (perhaps it could have been done in a better way). Some circumstances feel forced - for example, Cobiah's romance.The structure of the book is really a series of interconnected short stories about Cobiah, with some having gaps of years and years. I think this wide lens view of Cobiah causes the book to wind up with "collection of short stories"-like pacing where each sequence will have a classic story arc, but I am not sure I feel the book as a whole having an arc. This made the book easy for me to put down and forget about because in many cases I was going to be starting a new story anyway and there wasn't really anything continuing to pull me forward through the book. This may be a plus for some, however it's just not my preferred cup of tea.The book is a solid effort. To a Guild Wars outsider it's probably a 3 star book because they wouldn't get so many of the references, however for someone who plays GW2 and/or has played GW1 this is an interesting and fun read.

I am not a big reader. I think I have probably read less than 20 books in the English language...(Harry Potter series, Game of Thrones Books 1&2, Guild Wars series). I like simplicity, it bothers me when books take a page to describe a location, a character's looks, the clothes they're wearing using fancy metaphors and big words...to me simply a few sentences describing the setting, noting objects that are essential to the plot/action is sufficient, leaving plenty of room for imagination. Many would consider the former being good writing and latter poor, but to me it's the opposite. Therefore, I can't really rate how well a writer writes in terms of the beautiful language composition, vocabulary useage or whatever, but I like good stories.And Sea of Sorrows has a good story.To those who have read Ghosts of Ascalon and Edge of Destiny, most would say GoA has a better story, and better written. While Edge of Destiny was a fun read, it felt like a summer action flick. SoS is on the same level if not above GoA in terms of story.What I think SoS did better than GoA is the characters. I really didn't care too much for anyone in GOA except for Killeen and Dougal. On the other hand SoS had plenty of likeable and interesting characters. Maybe the character interactions are stronger, or maybe the character development overall is just more obvious due to the timespan it covers. The thin layer of romance and drama really gave this book that extra bit of dimension compared to the other 2 books. Near the end of the book I found myself caring for both the big picture, while also worried about personal issues between certain characters.I think the main reason why I gave this book a 5 star is that...I actually lost hours of sleep trying to finish the 2nd half of the book in 1 sitting. To keep me -who's not an avid reader- up at night READING means this book did something right.To GW2 fans, this book will make you appreciate Lion's Arch more, and hopefully rid of some racial biases within the lore. The independent Lion's Arch is diverse, comprised of immigrants of different races where everyone learn to coexist and respect each other's cultural background, kinda like the country I live in.

If you like GW Lore and nice, detailed action scenes, this is your book. Finally the story behind the foundation of the new Lion's Arch is revealed, and with it we get to enjoy the adventures of Cobiah Marriner. Throughout the novel you get a little bit of everything: Lore, suspense, romance, funny scenes, and best of all, well detailed naval action scenes. The author details every scenes so that you don't have any trouble making up the scenes on your head, which makes every fight much more enjoyable; you just feel like you're right there in the middle of it all.