Though Crown of Fire is ninth in the Harper series, it stands alone as a direct sequel to Spellfire. Greenwood states that Crown of Fire can be enjoyed without having read Spellfire but you would miss so much if you did that.
The story takes place literally right after the events depicted in Spellfire. Shandril and company is on the run from a new group of enemies, namely the Zhentarim. After her run-in with the Cult of the Dragon, the Zhentarim take their turn in capturing Shandril's valued spellfire. Meanwhile, in the shadows, the real villains in this tale, the shapeshifting Malaugrym, make their move as well.
Crown of Fire is a superb improvement over the hurried rush that was Spellfire. Though Greenwood still has a million things going on at one time in the story, the pacing is better and easier to follow. He even has the opportunity to show what was cut out of Spellfire by explaining events that had actually occurred, especially the parts of the story that were supposed to have involved the Malaugrym. The Malaugrym, by the way, are officially introduced in this story and come back to plague Greenwood's heroes in his later novels. According to Crown of Fire, they were the ones responsible for a lot of the behind-the-scenes mischief in Spellfire. The Malaugrym, or Shadowmasters as they like to be called, in Crown of Fire are merely the younger ones and take backstage to the sinister undoings of the Zhentarim. This is, of course, Greenwood's way of saying, "there's more to come."
Once again, we are shown a nicely developed cast of characters. Shandril Shessair especially has been developed as she goes through a gauntlet of pain, misery, and joy. She is no longer the innocent kitchen lass from Spellfire, having become a weapon of destruction tempered only by her love for her husband Narm and her friends in the Harpers. A mainstay of the Realms novella, Mirt the Moneylender, makes a guest appearance and is instrumental in Shandril's continued existence from the vicious hands of Manshoon and his Zhentarim magelings. The character Narm Tamaraith has developed as well, and is not as overshadowed by the more charismatic of the cast as he was in Spellfire. Elminster shows up again, and more secrets are revealed about him and the mysterious group known as the Chosen. More about them are revealed in Greenwood's later novels as well. Once again, intrigue is rife in Crown of Fire and usually the antagonists fight so much amongst themselves that they can barely coordinate their efforts toward their goals. Unfortunately, Shandril has so many enemies she is constantly embattled.
Greenwood's Forgotten Realms novels all have a continuous theme running through them. This meaning that events in the earlier novels are remembered and affect the events in the later ones. This makes for tight complete storytelling and effective characterization. For instance, even though Shandril's tale ends after Crown of Fire, Greenwood picks up the threads of the plots he left dangling in it for use in his next set of novels. Thus, the events in this book are important and make the reading of Greenwood's subsequent novels more meaningful.
The cover by Fred Fields seems a bit plain in contrast to Clyde Caldwell's painting for Spellfire. I do not really care for Fred Field's detailed representations of the Forgotten Realms characters as they never quite look like the way I envision them to look (I shudder as I remember his Liriel Baenre) but his Shandril was not too bad. However, the cover was still too plain for me.
So, how does this book stand out from the rest of the Forgotten Realms novella out there? Well, this novel is one of the better ones. I find it hard to say anything bad about it. The dramatics are high in this story and one can picture many of the encounters and entanglements easily as if in a movie thanks to Greenwood's detailed descriptions. The plot moves at a dizzying speed but as I said it is easier on the eyes than it was in Spellfire. It took Greenwood six years to publish a suitable sequel to Spellfire and I believe it was worth the wait.
And this is merely the setup for the coming of the Malaugrym, some of the baddest bunch of nasties to grace the pages of the Forgotten Realms lore, and a certain upheaval known as the Time of Troubles...