Gaming Fiction Review - Gauntlgrym

I started this one, set it aside for a few months, then picked it up again last week and read it fairly quickly. As of this volume there are about 20 books in the Drizzt saga depending on how you want to count the "Sellswords" trilogy where he only appears in the first book. There are 3 more in this particular series with 1 more (as part of "The Sundering") on the way so we're up to about 25 or so altogether. If you want to throw the Cleric Quintet into that (some characters show up in the Drizzt books) then we're up to about 30 novels in "Bob Salvatore's travels around the Realms". In my opinion, they're pretty good, around the top of "gaming fiction" as a genre. No, your kids aren't likely to be studying them in English or a Literature class but there are good stories and interesting characters here.

With all of those Dark Elf & Friends books out you're likely already either on board with them or not and I doubt this book will change your mind. If you don't like any of the earlier ones, you probably won't like this one and I wouldn't recommend starting with it anyway. If you do you probably read it a couple of years ago and are wondering why someone is just now posting a review. I'd label myself a casual fan - I get the books but not the day - or even the year - they come out. So I'm reviewing them at a casual pace and as that casual fan.

As an overview, this book continues the story of Drizzt and company though his companions are finally being thinned out by the passage of time. To me this is one of the great potential themes that the author has resisted until now: when you have an effectively immortal character who has non-immortal friends, what happens when time passes? How does it impact the character, a heroic figure in the setting, as his friends and family die off? There are a lot of interesting elements that could be layered on top of the original misfit/wanderer/outsider looking in themes of the early books. In the previous book in the series, The Ghost King, we finally started exploring these ideas and in this book it becomes a major theme and that's is 100% a good thing.

I won't get into spoilers too much here in case someone has not read the book but here are 3 things that stood out to me:

• There is a lot of time passing quickly in this book. Decades pass between the beginning and the end and the timing of most of this story is just a few years before the 4E era of the Forgotten Realms. Timeline jumps are much easier when you're dealing with Elven and Dwarven lifespans.
• The expected threat-of-the-book (pictured on the cover up there) takes a somewhat unexpected turn and despite the author's continuing preference for unique, signature weapons for many of his characters (see Drizzt, Athrogate, Cadderly, Jarlaxle, Artemis, Pwent, and others for examples) he manages to not bring it down to a simple confrontation between Drizzt and the expected signature villain. I thought the whole story was well done and the climax of the story was especially well handled.
• There is a lot of dungeoneering in this book and it's a pleasant change from some of the cross-country stuff in earlier books. If you like dwarves they are a focus of this book, along with Thay and cultists of Asmodeus. The opposing forces in the book are an interesting and unusual mix of creatures too. The party Drizzt joins is an interesting mix as well and the pages fly by.

One thing I realized as I was wrapping up the read was that none of the main characters in this entire saga have children: Drizzt, Bruenor, Catti-Brie, Wulfgar, Regis, Jarlaxle, Artemis - none of them. In a lot of other settings and stories one way to handle the passage of time and mitigate the loss of favorite characters is to have their children grow to adulthood and begin having similar adventures. That's really not an option here. Why is that? I am not sure. Mr. Salvatore has children, so I know he's not against them in general. It's just odd that with all of the emphasis on home and family and friends and long term relationships that have their ups and downs that none of these characters appears to have produced offspring nor are they engaged in raising them beyond Bruenor's adopted humans in the first few books.I wonder if that will change down the road.

None of that changes the epic quality of the story - this is a tale that sets the stage for Neverwinter and the North in the 4E timeframe and it's a really good read, even moreso if you've read all of the others leading up to it.

40K Friday: Red Fury

So ... another 40K novel ... what's remarkable about this one? Well...

Quick Note: this is the third Blood Angels novel (review of book 1 here and book 2 here). Now I try to find something worthwhile about the things I discuss on the blog and I really did not like the first Blood Angels novel, but reading the second one redeemed it in a big way - they should have just been one longer book. So with 1 & 2 averaging out to a reasonably decent story what do we get with #3?

Red Fury is a new arc, so while reading the first two will give you more understanding of what has happened, it's no more necessary then reading all previous issues of a comic book to understand the start of a new arc - helpful, but not required. It's also a much stronger story, with a nicely done beginning, middle and end, ensuring that THIS one is complete in one volume. It continues with many of the same characters from the previous arc and sets up the next book nicely but is a complete story on its own.

The book begins soon after the events of the previous novels and largely concerns itself with the aftermath of those events. The chapter is in a tough spot and is trying to work out a solution. One development is that a conclave of all of the BA Successor Chapters is called on the BA homeworld, giving us a look at a variety of other chapters as well. In particular the Flesh Tearers are major players in the novel so if you have an attachment to them then this is a book worth reading. There is less unity between chapters than you might expect and with the Tearers representing the more barbaric aspects of the primarch and the Angels representing the more refined and cultured aspects, there are some strong differences between those two in particular.

The beginning of the book deals with these issues and then new complications arise which stir things up and then even more complications arise which lead to some nasty combat in and around the chapter's home base. Another fairly major character in the 40K universe shows up as well (I'm trying not to spoil things here) as a part of this and the whole thing is just a ripping good story about space marines doing their things with a solid mix of rivalry, violence, and reverence for the emperor.

By the end, the current crisis has been handled, but the need for both revenge and the prevention of a further crisis will drive the story in the next book.

The bad: The main character, Rafen,  is still remarkably generic.I get that it can be tricky to make "battle brother Johnny" a unique individual in the game but when you've spent 3 books inside the guys head he should come across  as more of a memorable personality than he does. It's not as much of a downer here because there is so much going on. He is the vehicle by which the reader experiences a series of interesting people and events (and they are interesting) and no more. One comparison: the Space Wolf Novels focus on Ragnar, who will someday become Ragnar Balckmane, a unique character in the Space Wold army. No one is going to be clamoring for a "Rafen" entry in the Blood Angels codex anytime soon. Now that can be good, giving a more "average Joe" point of view, and we get a little of that here, but there's really nothing else to the character beyond that.

Who must read this: If you're a Blood Angel player or fan, even if you hate gaming fiction in general, or the the first and second books in particular, this is the one you ought to read. Lots of time with Dante, Mephiston , and the other movers and shakers of the chapter, some exposure to the successor chapters and their chapter masters, and the whole thing takes place on Baal - it's 280-odd pages of immersion in the whole Blood Angel thing and it is definitely worth your time.

40K Friday - The Novels

Even if you don't play the miniatures game the 40K universe is rich and nearly post-apocalyptic in tone and interesting enough to explore in other ways. One of the easiest ways to dig in is through the line of novels and short stories that have been published, mainly over the last 10 years.

My favorites are the Space Wolf series by William King. His background was in fantasy where among other things he wrote the Gotrek and Felix novels for Warhammer fantasy which are my favorite books for that universe as well. His work at times feels akin to Robert E. Howard's stories, while retaining some of that English tone I can only point to but not adequately describe, similar to what you find in Moorcock's work. Considering the Space Wolves are basically super-powered space vikings, his talents mesh well with the subject matter. A young space wolf named Ragnar is the main character and he grows considerably though the books while having several interesting adventures including duty on Earth in the 41st Millennium, something we don't see much in other 40K stories.

There are novels about many other Space Marine chapters. Another good series is the Ultramarines by Graham McNeil.

I just recently read this opening trilogy and it covers a lot of ground in three books.

• Nightbringer is about a rebellion on an Imperial world and shows us what it's like when marines interact with the governmental structure of the imperium - also, Necrons!
• Warriors documents a Tyranid invasion and might be the most complete picture of how interstellar conquests work in the 40K universe that I have read in one work, covering space battles, planetary invasions, and small infiltration missions under desperate circumstances
• Dead Sky, my least favorite, covers experiences on a world in the Eye of Terror. It may be the goriest book I have ever read, and that's saying something, but it's a solid look at life on a chaos world

There are more in the series but I haven't read them yet.

We also have a series of novels about the Blood Angels. I reviewed the first one and hated it, and it was pretty poor. I forced myself to read the second one recently and it's actually a big improvement and brings the story to a decent conclusion. It should have been released in one book, which is what this "omnibus" edition pictured above is. Taken as one complete story it's actually worth a read.

Despite all being about Space Marines, all three of these novel series have different feels. The Ultramarines about kicking ace by-the-book, the Wolves are all about kicking ace and having a good time, and the Angels are about kicking ace and struggling to not turn into a crazed vampire. There is a ton of bloody combat action in each of them but the flavor of the stories give different views.

Additionally the focus of each is different: the Space Wolf novels are mainly about the main character - we see his journey from normal human to marine which we do not see in any of the others - with a pretty good secondary focus on the space wolf chapter and it's unique take on things. The Ultras are less chapter-specific and the central character is less of an individual but the 50K universe itself is a bigger focus. The Blood Angels are also have a less-interesting central character but spend a lot of time on the chapter, which is really the main character of the books as it undergoes an internal struggle to decide what it wants to be.

Scope is also quite different among the three. The Blood Angel books largely take place on two worlds and a large starship. Each Ultramarine book spends pretty much the entire novel on one world, giving an intimate look at each one as the characters journey through it. The Space Wolf novels spend more time on the chapter homeworld of Fenris than anywhere else but jump around to different planets and situations as each story develops.

Aside from the marines there is a large line of novels about the Imperial Guard, so if you want to see how normal humans fare in the 40K universe, they are the place to go. The most popular of these are the Gaunt's Ghosts novels by Dan Abnett. I've read the first 3 and they are quite good too. The shortest synopsis I can think of is that it's a lot like the recent Battlestar Galactica series - things start off bad and keep getting worse.

Aside from these character and unit-specific stories there is also a line of "historical" 40K novels that take place 10,000 years before the "present" of the game where the big event that sets up the current state of the universe happens - the Horus Heresy. It's a long story of conquest, betrayal, and the war that erupts as a result. It's up to 15+ novels now and I've only begun reading the first one now. This event has been around in-game for about 20 years but has always been summarized as "this happens and this happens and this happens and now the emperor is crippled and some marines are traitors fighting against the imperium." This novel series is a detailed look at a massive event and the units and personalities that are involved in it. It covers some interesting ground explaining why some units hate other units and how some of the nearly-immortal primarchs are killed. I'm looking forward to reading through it.

So if someone was interested in the 40K universe but had no experience where should they begin? I'm going to go with the Space Wolf trilogy or the Ultramarine trilogy as a good starting point. Space Marines lead lives of action and danger so most of the books dive right into that and sort the rest out later.

Most bookstores both used and new have a whole section of 40K novels so they are quite easily available and almost all of them are in print. There are audio books for some of them as well though I have no experience with those. If you're the least bit curious about Warhammer 40,000 go ahead and drop a few bucks on one of the books and see what it's all about. 

Book Review Catchup

I've read a few books - good and bad - over the last few months but I've neglected to comment on them on the blog. I want to run through a few of them so these will be shorter than usual.

The Pirate King, R.A. Salvatore (Transitions Book II) - Different. This book has a much bleaker tone to it than past Drizzt books. Now this is part of the series that covers the transition of the Realms from the 3E version to the post-spellplague 4E version but the first book in the series, The Orc King, felt fairly run of the mill. This book is different. From the start there is a sense of decline, of things not being the same as the were and not getting better. Some old friends are encountered but the main part of the book is an expedition from Waterdeep to Luskan led by Captain Deudermont the pirate hunter. The goal is to break the power of the Hosttower of the Arcane and reduce piracy on the Sword Coast. It's portrayed as a tragically misguided adventure and it reads as a political or military allegory of some recent events in the world - a major evil power is broken and goes into hiding while criminal factions arise and a bloody internal conflict breaks out, wearing down the outnumbered invaders who only had good intentions, but find those intentions largely thwarted. It's a long downward spiral that gets ugly in the end. Some major characters die and lordy lordy Drizzt gets beaten in a fight! Yes, the token terrible new threat to Drizzt that comes out of nowhere in THIS book actually wins one. Satisfied now?

I don't know if I would call it a great read but it was interesting and definitely felt different from the prior books.If you read some of the earlier books then gave up on them try this one and see if you feel the same way.

Avenger, Richard Baker (Blades of the Moonsea Trilogy Book III) - Satisfying.I really liked the first two books in this series (reviewed here and here) so I was really looking forward to the big finale. It does tie up most of the loose ends of the story so far and the villain is dealt with satisfyingly, but I was a little let down.The first book focused on the town and countryside around Hulberg. The second book expanded to explore the Moonsea and far more exotic places. This book pretty much focuses back on Hulberg and environs and felt a little small or constrained as a result. In 4E terms if the first book felt like Heroic Tier, then the second felt like Paragon, but this third books feels like it drops back to Heroic for some reason. It's not a bad story, but it felt a little deflated in comparison. There's a little more karmic balance than I like too but that may not bother most people. It's just a little too close to elements of the Sacred Movie Trilogy for my taste.

Anyway, it's a good book. If you liked the first two then you should read it. There's clearly room for more stories of Geran Hulmaster and I would be happy to read them if and when they are written.

A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin - Awesome. You should get it and read it if you haven't already.

A Clash of Kings, also by George R.R. Martin - More Awesome. After you finish the first one go get this one. It's more of the same goodness.

That's about enough for now. I will post more when I've read more.

Fantasy Books, Gaming Fiction and My Background in Them

I really just wanted a post on the blog that explains my background with fantasy literature as it might help someone get why I think a book is good or bad. This is that post.

I liked stories about knights and castles and such when I was a kid. In about the third grade our teacher read us the Hobbit in class and I completely fell for it. A short time later I saw a little animated movie called "The Hobbit" and heard that there was a follow up story called "The Lord of the Rings." During a discussion with an aunt who was into fantasy books I mentioned that I had heard of these books but I didn't know how to get them. She loaded me into the car and drove me to Waldenbooks in the mall and bought me all 4 of them. I read those books over the next week and read them many, many, times over the next 20+ years. Those books were my introduction to fantasy and in some ways are a high-water mark for fantasy lit.

In elementary school I also read The Chronicles of Prydain and was thrilled. These were written more for kids but they were very good stories and were still better written than a lot of the material that comes out today. I read them again a few years ago (reading them aloud to my kids before bedtime) and they still hold up very nicely.

I read a lot of World War II and Science Fiction stuff in elementary school too but since this is about my Fantasy background I will focus only on it.

I discovered D&D in 5th grade and beyond the game itself it provided a nice bibliography of fantasy books - remember this was way before the internet and it was sometimes hard to know what to look for at the library or the bookstore. Now I had a list...

In Junior High I read Sword of Shannara (thought it was kind of weak back then), The first Xanth trilogy (OK and kind of funny), a lot of comic books, and then we moved to Texas and the local library had the Conan books.

Feeling like I had found the holy grail of fantasy fiction (beyond LOTR) I dived in and read all 12 Ace edition Conan books over my 8th grade year and it set the new high mark. They are different from LOTR but they are equally powerful in their own way. I've read them many many times since then as well as the new un-pastiched director's cut versions that came out a few years ago and I still rank them at the top.

Next I found the Elric books and I pored through those as well - different than Conan or LOTR but kind of a weird middle ground. Violent like Conan but also baroque and fantastic like LOTR. I loved them and still do. I tracked down Moorcock's other works and devoured them as well and all together they make a very nice block of Fantasy reading with a distinct feel to it.

In some ways that's my Triangle of Fantasy Greatness - LOTR/Hobbit, Conan, and Elric. Maybe that dates me but that's the core of it to me. If you want to include the classical trilogy of the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid then you might have a second "center of greatness" that I think has an impact on the earlier works of fantasy at least.

Other classic works that I like include The Worm Ouroboros, The Compleat Enchanter, and Burrough's Martian stories. I am also a fan of Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories though I do not rank them quite as highly as some old-schoolers do. They are very good though and very much tied into the core of what led to D&D. Along that same line Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson is clearly the genesis of the D&D paladin and the D&D troll and has a good dose of fey/faerie too.

The 80's - In the remainder of the 80's I read Fred Saberhagan's Swords trilogy and thought it was decent enough though I think I like the Empire of the East series that precedes it a little better. They're both good reads. Laurence Watt-Evans Lure of the Basilisk series is a good set of tales with a non-human point of view. Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook is a good set of stories - I don't see it as the major work that some others do but I do think they're good. The Guardians of the Flame by Joel Rosenberg is one of the early "gamers transported into a fantasy world" stories but after the first trilogy that tends to show up less and less as new characters fully tied to the fantasy world take over. It's a good series and covers 2 or 3 generations now.  There were two other major fantasy series in the 80's that I think bear mentioning:

1) Thieves' World - these books were very popular and were by far the grittiest, nastiest set of thing I had ever read, at least by the middle to end of the series. If you think Conan or even the Black Company stories focus in on the low fantasy end of the spectrum take a look at these. Technically the first one was published in 1978 but they came out about one a year all through the 80's until the final volume was published in 1989. They get nastier as the series goes on and after seeing the same trend in Wild Cards I wonder if it's a trait of shared world novels as the writers try to outdo each other. In any case if you are interested in low-fantasy with a wide variety of characters it should be on your list.

2) Dragonlance - this was the real beginning of the D&D fiction avalanche. At first it was just a trilogy and a bunch of game support material but soon it would open the floodgates and we would see everything from Greyhawk novels to Forgotten Realms novels to books focusing on the gully dwarves of Krynn. This also indirectly opend up 2 other types of fiction - the non-D&D gaming fiction series such as the Battletech novels and later the Shadowrun, Vampire, and Wwarhammer/Warhammer 40K novels. It also opened up the "trilogy based on a guy's D&D campaign" series of books - more on those later. These were the first and they are decent stories. Re-reading them as an adult I see some things I do not like as much now but there is some fairly grown-up material in there. The death of Sturm is one. The unrepentant selfishness of Kitara the former friend is another. The whole character of Raistlin and the strain between family, friends, and the desire for power is pretty well done though it does play a bigger role in the Twins trilogy that came after. Those are all well done and the world is painted well and feels like a D&D world. It's not LOTR, but it's not garbage either and it was a major work at the time and still is now if partially for what it represents. I can tell you that my 11-year old reading it this summer for the first time thought it was as awesome as I did back when I read it for the first time and I think that says something.

There have been some other "big" fantasy books that have come out in the last 20 years:

David Drake has written some fantasy and as much as I love his military science fiction I am not as big on his fantasy. Lord of the Isles and the sequels are interesting but not my favorites.

Robert Jordan wrote a  huge pile of words about something and I have yet to read any of them. I do have the first two on my bookshelf and they have been there for several years now. I just have not been able to bring myself to start down that road as every book in the series is ridiculously long and there are way too many of them - there's no work of fiction that should take 5000 pages. History of Rome from 500 BC to 500 AD at 1 book per century? OK, 10 volumes sounds fine. History of made-up world and characters in 10+ volumes of 600+ pages? Ridiculously overwritten.  I may get to it someday but it won't be soon.

L.E. Modesett wrote a bunch of stuff about a world called Recluce and it's pretty good.  Looking at the list there are 16 of them now covering around 2000 years of history. Alright that's more than I expected but each one is much smaller than a Wheel of Time novel so it evens out. They describe an interesting world and a very interesting magic system, one of the more detailed ones I have seen as far as describing how magic works and how it feels to be a magic-user. I like them a lot though I confess I haven't read the last wave of them.
 
David Eddings put out a bunch of stuff in the 80's and the 90's and a lot of it was over-padded crap. To me this is the start of the "fantasy bloat" we are still living with today. If a trilogy is good, what's better? A 5-book series! Of course! So he wrote two of them! About the same characters! Pretty much doing the same thing! And they are very slow! He eventually wised up and wrote 2 trilogies about a totally different world and character after this and those were actually pretty good. So my insight from reading these was that if you, as a writer, think that you have a good story for a trilogy, try making it a single novel. If you  think you have a good story for a 5-book series try making it a trilogy. If you have the brilliant idea to write a 10-book series about a fictional fantasy world please don't - try writing one book and let's see what happens. The Belgariad and The Mallorean were some of the first series I read and came away thinking they were just not that good and had me wondering why 5 books was better than 3 when the story clearly wasn't there. I should credit them as they did open my eyes that not everything publishers issued was great or even good.There's a good story in these books somewhere but it's a shorter story than what was published.

Raymond Feist put out a pair of books that were very good (I thought) and they soon grew into an ongoing ad-hoc series  that's up to around 20 books now - in other words it's another runaway case of sequel-itis. There were in some way based on the author's D&D campaign so at this point we've come full circle to where D&D, inspired by fantasy fiction, is now inspiring fantasy fiction in a new generation of authors.   Now I liked the first book -or two depending on when you read it - and thought it was really good. I thought the first trilogy was good, but then things started to decline for me from there. It is cool to follow along as a character that was a child in the first book grows up and is eventually an old man 10 or os books in but there has to be a limit somewhere. I suppose as long as people keep buying them that "the franchise" must go on and the generational thing does keep the characters on a limited rotation but even that wears thin after a time. I would really like to see experienced successful authors experiment a little more - write a new series set in a different world or try some historical fiction or try some horror or post-apocalyptic book - something other than "the 27th novel in the Riftwar Saga". Good stories deserve a good ending and too many nowadays never get one.

The next-to-last major work I want to mention is one I am just starting - George RR Martin's Game of Thrones. series. I have all 4 of them now but I've been waiting to read them until I know I'm going to be able to do it in large chunks. With the HBO series coming out next year I have more incentive to cover them soon. I have not read them but I have heard nothing but good things about them so I am looking forward to it. Hopefully they rise above a lot of what passes for fantasy these days.

The place of honor at the end of my ramblings here goes to the Discworld novels. I've been reading these since the late 80's and thinking about them now they are the fourth leg of my "triangle of fantasy greatness" that  I mentioned above, which is somehow appropriate. They can be read in almost any order but I have a soft spot for those initial Rincewind books, Mort, and Reaper Man. They are the fantasy equivalent of the Hitchiker's Guide (another major work in my developmental period) and if you like that style of humor you will appreciate them but if you liked that AND have read a bunch of fantasy novels good and bad over the years you will feel like you finally found a home when you start reading those. As a fantasy world the Discworld is better described than most serious fantasy novels. The characters and organizations have more internal consistency than a lot of them too so they meet the real test of quality - they aren't just funny they're good. If you haven't read one then find one at a used bookstore and work it in to your schedule - they're short so it won't take long. I'm betting if you're reading this blog you will probably end up liking it and looking for more.

Anyway that's a chunk of my fantasy lit background  and my view of some of the peaks and valleys of the genre over the last 30 years. The biggest problems I see are that the books are too long, too many authors write sequel after sequel because they can and not because the story demands it, and that much of fantasy has been colored by the assumptions of D&D  as a generation of authors grew up playing it and another generation grew up reading it. These are not universal issues - there are good books out there - but I do hope we see a return to shorter works, self contained novels or trilogies at most. In today's short-attention-span world it seems like it would be a natural path to follow. I hope it comes about.

Gaming Fiction Review - Corsair

This is the second book in the "Blades of the Moonsea" trilogy by Richard Baker which are some of the first books set in the 4E timejumped version of the Forgotten Realms. I reviewed Swordmage, the first book in the series here so you can look that over if you are interested. In short, I liked it and was looking forward to the next book.

Headline: This is another good story with a slightly different flavor than the last

As in the first book I found the writing level to be a step up from most D&D novels. Maybe it's just this author, maybe it's a deliberate move with this series, but for whatever reason it is refreshing.

The main character is again Geran Hulmaster and he is supported by his halfling friend and a tiefling warlock met in the prior book. The characters are not especially deep but Geran is reasonably well drawn for a fantasy protagonist. I would like more motivational insight and less of the "what he has done" type of internal discussion but this is a very minor nitpick. He is mainly motivated by a desire to preserve his family's holding and his friends' safety which is good enough. His friend Hamil is a classic loyal sidekick and not much more while Sarth the tiefling warlock is enigmatic at best, speaking little and revealing less. I would like to see a little more of Sarth's background in the next book or in a completely separate book about him.

The story in this one begins soon after the end of Swordmage. In Swordmage the main character returns home after a long absence, discovers some trouble at home, then discovers even more trouble at home, and manages to resolve both by the end of the book, telling a complete story. I'm being vague to avoid spoilers, but the general arc is that in the end he has resolved the immediate threats to his home but other threats and loose ends remain.In this book, the rising threat is piracy, in particular one group of pirates. Another more subtle threat develops in the background and comes to prominence at the end of the story and will presumably be the focus of book 3. The anti-piracy story however is the main focus of the book and it is a good one. Duels on deck, chases at sea, journeys to a weird new land, ramming speed, and haunted ruins all make an appearance. The latter third of the book in particular felt a lot like some of the 70's era fantasy involving "weird" fantasy ala Elric and some of the stranger places he visited, and I mean that in a good way. I really liked this element and it's the first time I've felt that way about a D&D novel.

The villains both old and new are interesting and have realistic enough motivations in that what they do makes sense. They also are not stupid and do not constantly fail - it's nice to see some of the badguys' plotting actually work out as intended. There are 3 main villains and unlike in some novels they are all distinct and I don't think the reader will have any trouble keeping track of who is who - I felt it was worth mentioning as this is not always the case where evil wizards or priests pile up interchangeably over the course of a novel. This is not the case here.

The resolution of the story is satisfying and has an almost Empire Strikes Back feel to it - major goals are accomplished but significant setbacks are also in place, kind of like Empire. This is also the middle part of a trilogy, like Empire. This is not a bad thing, just an observation. The third book should be interesting.

This is a D&D novel so how does that part work? In short it's good. I like to nitpick game-based novels that don't follow the rules of their own universe but I don't see any of that here. It feels like a high-heroic to low paragon level type adventure. There are no super-powered magic items, no weird powers coming out of nowhere, and monsters behave the way they should according to what we know of them from the monster manuals. Also, let me repeat what I said in the first review:

 What's refreshing is what it's not: It's also not a Zhent plot, not a Bane plot, not some weird new supervillain-esque shape-changing creature from another plane, it's not Cyric attempting to subvert the goddess of magic or Nethereese or Red Wizards or Drow or any of the other overused meta-plot bad guys from the swirling vortex of bad Forgotten Realms novels. There are no harpers. Elves have only a minimal influence on the story - primarily the training of the title character as Swordmages are an Elven thing. No Elminster. No Dracoliches. No Seven Sisters. No personal appearances by gods of any kind.

I really like that this has continued. It shows that there are other things going on in the wide world of the Forgotten Realms besides the standard villain groups and the heroes that oppose them. More books like these can only improve the Realms as a vast, diverse world where anything can happen and it doesn't always require a deity or an epic-level hero to start it or end it.

So, this is a good story about a hero and his companions taking care of business and expanding their horizons a bit as they try to protect their friends and family from danger within and without and it's one of the best D&D novels out there.  I am really looking forward to the next book.

Gaming Fiction Review: The Orc King

Today I'm reviewing R.A. Salvatore's The Orc King, published in 2007, and Book 1 of his most recent Drizzt Trilogy, Salvatore has been writing about this same group of characters, a group of adventuring types living in the Forgotten Realms, since 1988 and the stories fill about 20 books so far. This trilogy is supposed to cover the 100 year timeline jump between 3E Realms and 4E Realms and since the main character is an Elf, there should be no consistency problems in doing this. I have read all of the Drizzt novels over the years and though there are those who will disagree I consider Salvatore to be about the best writer of D&D novels working today - more on that later.

To the book: There is a framing device used here where Drizzt and another elf are discussing the events in the novel 100 years after they occur. I thought this was appropriate and will hopefully set the tone for the remaining books in the trilogy. The book opens very shortly after the end of the previous novel (2004's "The Two Swords") with dwarf king Bruenor dealing with an orc army camped at his front door for the winter. Drizzt, Wulfgar, Regis, Cattie-Brie, and other supporting characters remain close at hand though each is considering following up on their own urges during the winter lull. Bruenor ends up looking for the lost city of Gauntlgrym, Wulfgar goes off to pursue his own interests, but otherwise things stay pretty stable through the first half of the book. Partway through the story intrigue n the orc camp really takes off and provides most of the driving action and plot complications in the book.

Characters: Drizzt is the main character and is at the center of about half of the action. He is the usual combination of wise councilor and ass-kicking champion (sort of a combination of Merlin and Lancelot) with thoughtful commentary between major sections of the book. It's not new but it is consistent and does help the reader pick back up on the feel of these books after a multi-year gap.
Bruenor takes a major role through a large part of the story and does have some interesting decisions to make. He remains the stereotypical dwarf in many ways and has a lot of fighting to do at the end.
Cattie-Brie is sort of a victim through the first part of the story, mostly following around other characters, suffering from an injury sustained in the earlier books and not really making decisions on her own. Late in the plot though a new channel opens up for her which could be interesting in the next 2 books.
Wulfgar is given an interesting path to follow, one that has little to do with the rest of the story in this book. His chapters are mainly about him and are largely separate from the main story and the rest of the characters. There is some very adult material here - not in the X-Rated sense but in the grown-up sense - and it is interesting in some ways, it might have been better off as a separate novel that told a complete story rather than as a few chapters of "Wulfgar goes off by himself to tie up some loose ends and find his destiny."
Regis has next to nothing to do in this one, so if you like the halfling don;t expect to see much of him. He's not a major character this time.
The previous trilogy centered around the rise of an orc king named Obould Many-Arrows and even spent some time telling the story from his point of view. This was one of the more interesting aspects of those books as it's unusual to get to see through the eyes of the orcs in a D&D novel/ Plus, this orc was the Chosen of Gruumsh, and after so many Elminster appearances in novels as the Chosen of Mystra it was incredibly refreshing to see that there are Chosen of other gods too, and that it does mean something. We do get to see more of Obould in this novel and much of the plot centers around what will he do next, but it's not as extensive an in-character view as we had before.
There are other supporting characters including various orc chieftains, orc shamans, another Drow, the usual lineup of dwarves, and a new villain who makes his first appearance in this novel and only this last one, the opponent,  feels off in any way.

Plot: The plot centers around the uncertainty of King Obould Many-Arrows next move as winter thaws and the campaigning season begins. There are factions within the orc forces, some hidden and some more obvious. The dwarves have different options open to them. Other settlements in the north have opinions - Silverymoon, the Moonwood Elves, Nesme, all have to decide how they intend to react. In between this larger political storyline the characters do their things until it all comes to a head at the end. I thought things were headed a certain way at the climax and I was wrong, somewhat disappointingly so.

Disappointments: I have had two problems with Salvatore's work in the past and both of them crop up again here, in addition ot one new issue I see and hope does not become a trend: Spoilers Ahead!

Issue #1: The reset button - like a bad episode of Star Trek The Next generation the books often have interesting potentially world-changing events looming overhead, only to be resolved with no real change to the world by the end of the book/episode. Things at the end of the book tend to be about the same as they were at the beginning of the book with much of the actual change taking place between novels.  Many books back Drizzt fights his arch-rival Atermis Entreri after much build-up. What happens? It's a draw, both survive. Drow take over one of Amn's major cities and ehat happens? Nothing, it's largely secret. The drow attack Mithril Hall and what happens in the end? The dwarves drive them off. The orc king attacks Mithril Hall and what happens? The Dwarves drive them off. Drizzt fights the Orc King, a confrontation between two unstoppable forces and what happens? It's a draw, both survive with no real injuries and go back to their bases. In this novel, has Bruenor found Gauntlgrym? No. Bruenor and some of his closest advisers head out on a suicide mission to take down Obould and anvils are dropped repeatedly that no one is coming back from this, Bruenor in particular,  but guess what? Not only does Bruenor not die, neither does any other dwarf that sets out with him! Everyone is fine! The king suffers a broken arm but that's it! In the end a treaty is signed between the orcs and the dwarfs that leaves things pretty much the same as they were at the start. There's plenty of talk about change and accepting new things but effectively the situation at both ends of the novel is that dwarves and orcs are camped next door to each other and mostly not trying to kill each other.

Issue #2: Major characters are not allowed to die - This ties in somewhat to the gripe above but I think of it as a distinct issue. Out of 6 or so major characters in any given novel, only one has died (Wulfgar) and he came back in the next couple of books. Even major villains can't die - Entreri, Jarlaxle, Obould - all have faced Drizzt and none of them have dies, for some reason. In this novel, much foreshadowing points to Bruenor not making it out of the climactic fight - even Bruenor says it - and this would have been a great way to send off a good character but no! Once again we are denied a heroic end as he somehow survives with only minor injuries. Even secondary characters cannot die - Thibbledorf Pwent is a dwarven battlerage who regularly hurls himself into or onto major foes and even he doesn't get a heroic death! He comes through every battle in great shape. We end up with irresistible forces bouncing off of immovable objects in a literary version of bumper cars! We've had 20 years and 20 novels of these characters - PLEASE LET SOME OF THEM GO!

Issue #3: The one-shot villain - I saw some of this in the previous trilogy with the Drow advisers who met a bad end. In this book we have two - a new orc chieftain who comes up from the underdark and a gnomish wizard of all things, who ends up being a major threat. I was OK with the orc rival to Obould - some factioning among orc tribes is almost required - but the gnome just comes out of nowhere with no real motivation other than a desire to jack with people and appears to have been added to give Drizzt something to kill that appears as a credible threat! It's sloppy and doesn't really fit the rest of the novel. I think the story would have been much better without the interloping evil gnome. Do orc shamans really need help scheming and plotting? If so couldn't it have been a devil or something, maybe showing a religious schism and that not all of them are looking to Gruumsh in their search for power? Couldn't the big uber-orcs from the underdark have brought something along to deal with flying surface elves rather then benefiting from an unknown wizard hidden in their midst? It just sticks out like a sore thumb, feels very random (an evil surface gnome acting as the secret power behind an orc tribe in the underdark?) and doesn't even tie into any past opponents from earlier novels - surely there are enough of them at this point to work in revenge from a prior enemy. This is the first time it's really stuck out for me in reading these books, and I hope it''s not something that continues.

So you might think I hated the book overall after reading the issues listed above, but I didn't - I like it. It does have some problems but it's several cuts above most D&D novels and it does serve as the next chapter in a book that we've been reading for a very long time. If you like these books, this is one of the better ones. If you hate the Realms, D&D books, Drizzt, or gaming fiction in general than this book isn't likely to change your mind but it's not a terrible book by any means. One caveat - this is not a good place to start. Much of it's impact depends on knowing how much the characters have gone through to get to this point and without that background it's going to lose some power.

On a final note Salvatore has grown considerably as a writer over the years. There is one exchange in the book that really struck me as grown-up writing. Drizzt and Cattie Brie are discussing the death of an elf they knew and she asks Drizzt if he would have married her after C-B's death. He's uncomfortable with this and doesn't really want to talk about it but she continues and asks him if he thinks that the elf thought about him in her last moments. There's more to the conversation, and it doesn't really have anything to do with plot but it does come across as very real, something a woman would ask a man and it's just flat-out well-done. Women characters in most gaming fiction don't really come across as being much different from men unless it's as caricatures but this series and this book in particular is better.

So there you go - if you like these kinds of books then it's on the high-end of things. If you hate them then continue and skip past this one. I liked it enough to seek out the next two books in the trilogy and see where it goes. I'll let you know down the road.

Gaming FIction Review - Swordmage

This time I'm reviewing one of the newer D&D books - Swordmage, by Richard Baker. It's labelled "Blades of the Moonsea Book 1" but it is a standalone story and I have not read the rest of the series. It came out in 2008 and is apparently up to a trilogy as of right now.

Headline: This is actually a good story and a good D&D book.

I have not read any other novels by Richard Baker but I will look for more. I found the writing to be a little more adult than in the older D&D novels I have read, which is a good thing. It's set in Hulberg, a small city on the Moonsea. I have a soft spot for the Moonsea going back to Pool of Radiance and that's one of the things that drew my attention to this book. It's also the first novel set in the current 4th edition version of the Forgotten Realms after the spellplague and all the other changes including an 80-year timeline jump. So the setting appeals to me in several ways.

The main character is Geran Hulmaster, the titular swordmage, and we meet him in an interesting prologue in Myth Drannor. Circumstances ensue, and the story begins with him returning to Hulberg after a long absence after hearing of the death of a friend. It turns out the Hulmasters are the ruling family of this small barony and he is a lesser son of this small noble family. As you might guess some things have happened during his absence and he gets involved, albeit somewhat reluctantly. The opposition is intelligent and a nice mix of supernatural and simple conventional self-interest and greed and there are multiple opposing forces, not one over-arching super-baddie.

What's refreshing is what it's not: It's also not a Zhent plot, not a Bane plot, not some weird new supervillain-esque shape-changing creature from another plane, it's not Cyric attempting to subvert the goddess of magic or Nethereese or Red Wizards or Drow or any of the other overused meta-plot bad guys from the swirling vortex of bad Forgotten Realms novels. There are no harpers. Elves have only a minimal influence on the story - primarily the training of the title character as Swordmages are an Elven thing. No Elminster. No Dracoliches. No Seven Sisters. No personal appearances by gods of any kind.

So if you would like to read a decent story about a normal D&D character type hero handling local problems in an interesting corner of the Realms threatened by local bad guys, then you will find this to be a good read.

Main Characters: Very nicely done. The motivations make sense and are not divinely inspired, the result of a curse, or imposed by an outside party. He's made a bad decision or two in the past and thinks about them at times but isn't tortured unreasonably by them. He's good at what he does but not unbeatable and not invulnerable.

Supporting Characters: Interesting and capable on their own, from the traveling companion to Geran's extended family they do have some distinct personalities. Sarth is not especially well defined but he is probably the smallest supporting role so I'm not terribly upset about it.

Plot: Impressive. Certain things I expected but I was regularly surprised by the timing of events and by some things that didn't happen that seemed to be inevitable. After reading many many fantsay novels, many of them terrible, I am rarely surprised by plot elements but I really like the way this one worked out and I was impressed by the way it all wrapped up. Not every plot hook was wrapped up by the end - there is clearly room for a sequel or two - but it came to a satisfying conclusion.

Action Scenes: Well done. The fights seem like they could happen in a game of D&D (important when writing a story based on a game) and the descriptions of the sword magic is well done - it could be useful to a player playing one in a campaign. There are some big battles in the book as well and they are well done too. I felt there was a Lord of the Rings movie influence at work but that is not a bad thing in my mind.

Resolution: Excellent. Many plots are resolved, some conflicts are settled, enough to feel like a complete story is in this book but with plenty of them left for further sequels. Nothing ridiculous happens to provide a convenient out for any major character, no deus ex machina or uncalled for deific intervention in other ways either.

Overall: Impressive. I'll be looking for the sequels now.

Pool of Radiance - the novel

While preparing to run the new campaign I went ahead and picked up the old "Pool of Radiance" novel too, from 1989. I'm not going to do a full review of it because it is not worth it - it's not great. There are a few interesting bits here and there but it fails my main test of game fiction - does it faithfully recreate the world it is set in? This isn't a huge problem until the end, during the climactic battle against the dragon. The Dragon, a bronze, thinks to itself that it can't hit one character with it's breath weapon because He's "too close". A paragraph later the magic-user realizes she can't hit it with a lightning bolt -her favorite blasting spell up to now - because it's a bronze and since they breathe lightning her spell wouldn't hurt it. Then a short bit later the dragon's breath is reflected back at it and severely injures the dragon! A bronze dragon damaged by its own breath weapon? Even if a decision was made to ignore the immunity thing for purposes of the story, then why would the wizard girl think to herself that she couldn't hurt it? Just trim that one comment and then even if the story deviates from the game universe the novel is at least internally consistent - as it is, it doesn't follow D&D as we knew it AND it doesn't make sense within the novel either! This was a pretty big disjunction coming in the climactic fight of the book and I was disappointed as it wasn't as bad as I had expected up until then.

A few other nitpicks -

• One character is a Human Ranger Thief. This novel was written during 1st edition and I'm not even sure how that would happen. I suppose he could have been dual classed but even then it's pretty rough with the level requirements. Oh, and he uses dual shortswords - this is pre-Drizzt pre-2nd edition, and pre-decent rules for dual-wielding. Maybe some playtesting for 2nd edition had been going on and so they worked it in. Regardless, two weapon use was looking cool even back then.
• One character is an apprentice wizard and her master goes off to Phlan first to help a colleague fight off a monster attack. He leaves her a) his familiar, which is a horse - I don't remember that being an option under the "Find Familiar" Spell and it effectively serves as a fourth party member during the book b) his Wand of Wonder - OK I don't have a problem with this. Hell I've handed out a wand of wonder at the beginning of a cmapign myself just for the funny factor c) his STAFF OF POWER ?! WTF?! Can you see any wizard going into a big fight leaving an item like that behind? Maybe if he had a Staff of the Magi?! Even then wouldn't you let your buddy mage use the Staff of Power to help keep your hide intact? I can tell you none of my player's would ever do that - they tend to be of the "my items die with me" school - so I found this to be a pretty obvious sore thumb.

Anyway the story is pretty much an abbreviated run-through of the adventure by 3 characters of differing backgrounds who grow significantly in power during the tale. It's not the worst D&D fiction I've read, but it's not great. For what I'm doing it wasn't a waste of time as there are some names and things I can steal but that's about it.

Game Fiction Review - Web of Arachnos (City of Heroes)

Since it's a supers kind of week here...

The Web of Arachnos by Robert Weinberg - 2005 CDS Books

I recently finished the first City of Heroes novel "The Web of Arachnos". I think it's a later entry in an interesting ongoing progression. We originally had fantasy novels some of which influenced early D&D (Conan, Newhon, LOTR), then we had a wave of fantasy novels influenced by D&D in that they involved players being pulled into a world like that of their game (Guardians of the Flame, Quag Keep), then a wave of direct D&D gameworld novels (Dragonlance), then a wave of novels that often started as a D&D campaign (Feist's novels). Now we have a series of novels (and Warcraft has them too) based on an MMORPG coming back around to the written form that started the whole thing in the first place. There's not a perfect circular flow here but it's close enough to be interesting to me. Given that COH is a superhero game and world you might think that comic books would be more appropriate - it is and they did that too, but I'm not going to review them here because a) my comic interest dwindled after the 80's so I am not current and b) I haven't read them yet.

To the book - I do play COH and so I am familiar with the major characters pictured on the cover, but I have to say that doesn't really matter. This book is a "how it all began" novel, a prequel to the modern day and the current time in the game, so knowledge of the game or the universe is not required. I think it's a good idea for a new book series, but I suspect that plastering the COH logo on the cover instantly limits the audience to a degree. That said I imagine the audience for the "superhero novel that's not a graphic novel" is pretty limited to begin with.

Side Note - I saw a lot of parallels to the first Wild Cards novel which covered the origin of super powers in that universe and the high points of history up to the 1980's, setting up the rest of the novels that were largely set in the then-modern day time of the mid 1980's. Similarly, this COH book begins in the 1920's and moves into the 1930's covering the origin of powers with a single event and the first appearance of many of the iconic COH heroes and villains.

But is the book any good? In short: yes. It sets up[ the 'point of divergence' where the game world diverges from our own, the origin of powers, it introduces the major players of Statesman and Lord Recluce along with several other supporting characters both good and bad, and covers the formation of the first super group. As I was reading it, I was thinking that it would have made an interesting "Season 1" of a TV show along the lines of Heroes.

The Good:

The main characters are interesting and undergo several personality changes during the course of the novel and the reasons behind these changes are clear and make sense for those characters. Statesman and Lord Recluce both are well-developed and feel real enough to make sense.

The setting is refreshingly broad - City of Heroes is based around a single city, Paragon City, which is a typical American East Coast city. The novel travels far beyond this particular setting. I like it when game fiction explores the less well covered parts of the game's setting and this novel spends quite a bit of time in Europe which is not featured in the game. This adds to the realistic 'feel' of the book.

The scope of the novel is just right - it focuses on a few major characters, ramps up to a major event which changes them, and then spends the rest of the story exploring how that event impacts their lives, their families, and the world they live in.

The Bad:

I'll get right to it - the action scenes are not all that impressive, especially for a super-hero novel. The fights are limited and small in scale for most of the story. There is a huge battle near the end but conveying that fight seems to be a little beyond what the author could muster. It's not a huge flaw in the book, but it made me wonder what Mike Stackpole could have done with the same material.

On a related note the high point of the book could have been the nemesis confrontation near the end of the story, where Statesman and Recluce come face to face with full powers and some strong differences of opinion but I found it lacking a little something - it's not bad, it's just not the climactic moment that it could have been.

My final nitpick, and it is minor, is that Monica seems to be on the verge of developing powers late in the novel but there is no explanation as to why. Then she is given a gift at the end of the novel which will give her powers directly. I just felt a little fuzzy at the end of the story as to exactly what her powers were going to be or if she was just really good at karate. Hopefully the next book will cover some of this.

Final Comments: This is a good piece of game fiction. If you are at all interested in superheroes, it's worth a read. If you play City of Heroes and want to know more about the history and origins of the game world, it's invaluable. If you are thinking about starting a superhero RPG and want to see how someone else set things up it's a great resource, especially if you are interested in a golden age campaign.

Main Characters: Interesting, realistic, well-developed, and very sealable for a game of your own.

Supporting Characters: Interesting, good motivations, just enough information to whet the appetite for more.

Plot: Good. It's fairly linear but there are multiple heroes facing 2 major bad guy organizations plus some corrupt city officials so it's not a simple 2 sided conflict.

Action Scenes: Adequate but not the strong point of the book. This is one area that really should improve in future novels.

Resolution: Good to Very Good in that the world is set up for future adventures but it's not a totally satisfying ending for the main characters. It's similar to a movie that is clearly setting up a sequel that will continue with the same antagonist.

Overall: Very Good - I recommend it if you are at all interested in superhero stories or Supers RPG's.

Book Review 1 - Blood Angels Deus Encarmine

For a change of pace, a book review:

Blood Angels Deus Encarmine by James Swallow - 2004 Black Library Publications

Overview: There are a lot of books set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Most of them focus on the Space Marines. This book is the first one about the Blood Angels chapter of the Space Marines. The main character is a regular tactical marine and the story begins with him on garrison duty. Complications ensue and by the end of the book there appears to be a growing split in the ranks of the chapter. The main opponent is a unit of Word Bearer Chaos Marines and there is an Inquisitor involved in the proceedings too.

The Good: It's refreshing to read a tale about a Marine who is not the best ever, the chosen one, a new recruit, or a chapter master. This is mainly a tale about a regular grunt marine, at least it starts off that way.

It's also nice to see the Blood Angels getting some attention in the fiction line as they were one of the first chapters mentioned in the Warhammer 40,000 game.

Another nice item was that the marines do not automatically win simply by showing up - they spend a fair amount of the novel on their heels.

The Word Bearers are also nicely painted as corrupt, evil but having goals and motivations of their own.

The Bad: The book begins well enough focusing on Brother Rafen who is a tactical marine and the main character. Soon enough though, we are getting first person views from other marines, the leader of the enemy unit, an assistant to that leader, one of the evil marines, the captain of a marine strike cruiser, and an inquisitor! That's a lot of jumping around for a 250 page novel and it hurts the narrative flow when one character voices his plan for the next battle then we jump to a character wondering what that enemy is going to do in that battle, which is what we just read!

Also, there is absolutely nothing special about the alleged main character other than him being a space marine. At the end of the story he has doubts about the way things are going but he doesn't actually do anything with the doubts he has been expressing for most of the novel - in fact, he does commit one defiant act to try and make things right but then he throws in with the group he has doubts about! Contradictory? Yes! Even that isn't really a decision consciously made, it's mainly just him going along with it because he fears the consequences if he doesn't. As a character he is indecisive and just goes along with whatever is happening which makes for a not particularly interesting hero. You could almost make a case that this is supposed to be more of an everyman/regular guy's point of view take on the universe and the events of the novel but he is still a superhuman space marine - I don't think it's a strong argument to make.

Another issue is that the Blood Angels are mainly known for/distinguished by their tainted gene seed which basically turns them into vampires as they age. This is a huge, angsty angle for the Blood Angels chapter and while it does appear in the novel it is barely touched upon and seems somewhat bolted-on. There is a part of the story where the black rage and the death company figure into things but the rage is not pictured as the normal inevitable decline but it is artificially introduced by some magic potion used by one of the characters! I had a small problem with this as it is deviating from the background pretty significantly.

One oddity is that the Blood Angels have several interesting special characters that have been detailed over the years in the game and none of them appear in the novel except in a small "meanwhile back at the ranch" scene near the end of the book. This isn't necessarily bad but it is different from many other 40k novels. If the main character had been stronger this would not have been a problem but there is no one at the center of this novel and focusing on Captain Tycho or Corbulo could have been much more interesting.

The final issue I had with the book is that we end up with a lot of smart, experienced people making bad decisions - Rafen, Arkio, Inquisitor Stele, Sgt, Koris, even the Word Bearers. To get to where we are at the end of this novel, multiple stupid decisions have to be made. Some even have suspicions or wonder how something happened - which clearly indicates something is going on that they do not see or get - yet they go ahead and make a decision based on clearly flawed or incomplete information. It seems out of character each time it happens and it weakens the story considerably.

Final Comments: This is a very run-of-the-mill 40k novel. It's not harmful or bad in and of itself, but if it was my first 40k novel I would not be looking for more. There is nothing special about it and nothing that really ties it to the Blood Angels chapter - it could have been written about any chapter of marines. Plus, speaking as a DM and gamer c'mon - Vampire Space Marines fighting Evil Chaos Space Marines! It should be great, but they somehow manage to make this unexciting and bland.

Main Characters: Boring. Not essential to the plot

Supporting Characters: Interesting, probably the best part of the book

Plot: Complicated but weak (dependent on bad decisions by smart people) and not completely revealed in one book! Stay tuned for book 2 when you will finally find out what is actually going on!

Action Scenes: Adequate but unexciting. Very average.

Resolution: There is a small resolution for the main character at the end but it's clearly not the focus of the story, merely one step to getting there.

Overall: Very Disappointing

Gaming Fiction Reviews - Major Players

Gaming fiction has mostly been published by just a few companies:

-TSR/WOTC: TSR really got things going with the Dragonlance novels in the mid-80's. They took off and are still being published today. These were followed up with a series of Greyhawk novels which did not do as well, and then the Forgotten Realms novel line got going in 1987 and has never looked back. This was and presumably still is the heavy-hitter line of gaming fiction.

-White Wolf published numerous Vampire novels in the 90's and 00's though it seems to have petered out recently. I was never a Vampire player, so I admit to limited knowledge of these books and will probably not be reviewing them anytime soon, if ever.

- Games Workshop began publishing books set in their Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes in the 90's and these have continued through today with new works published quarterly (if not monthly) and omnibus editions of older works coming out to keep them in print.

These are the major players as I see them at the current time

Gaming Fiction Reviews - Prologue

The first piece of gaming fiction I know of is Quag Keep, published in 1979, and written by Andre Norton (an author whose other works I like). I will save the review for another post but it is the first I believe.

There was a lag before other gaming fiction was published - the next BIG thing was the Dragonlance series that kicked off in 1984 - , though several related types of work fired up right away.

One related work was Thieves World, which created the concept of the shared world novel. Multiple authors wrote about their own character in one shared setting, a fantasy medieval city in decline. Elements of these stories and backgrounds were developed through RPG play at the time. The first TW novel came out in 1979.

Another related type of work was the "players transported into a fantasy world" novel, which is similar to Quag Keep but does not used a published game world. The first of these that I am aware of is "The Sleeping Dragon" by Joel Rosenberg, published in 1983. There may have been others, but it's the first one I encountered and the oldest one I can find any mention of.

Finally, the third related type of work is the conventional fantasy novel that takes place in a world and may even use characters generated from a role-playing campaign. Raymond Feist's novels are exhibit A in this genre. Early works in this field tend to have the hallmarks of early D&D - wizards without armor and who do not use swords, priests that heal/temples that are centers of healing, and a gradual progression of the power level of enemies. Compare this to say, Lord of the Rings where one of the first hostile encounters by Frodo and Sam are with Ringwraiths! - clearly not a level - approproate foe.

I intend to do a series of reviews of gaming fiction, but I may go back and include some of these related works as well, because they can be interesting and many of them are read by the same people who read gaming fiction. Considering the amount of ausdience crossover, I think I can justify some review crossover.

Gaming Fiction

One area of RPG's that has developed and become big business in the last three decades is gaming fiction - That is, books based on a game universe. Most of these are based on some role-playing universe, but not all.

I do have somewhat different standards for gaming fiction than I do for a history book or more mainstream fantasy or science fiction novel.

- I expect at least one interesting main character, preferably more than one.

(Since most gaming fiction is rooted in the concept of "the party" this is something most gaming fiction succeeds at achieving)

- I expect some interesting supporting characters.

(On some level this boils down to "things I can steal")

- I expect to feel immersed in the world - most gaming fiction is based on a very well-developed world and this work has been done for the author before their story was written or likely even conceived. The story should use that - it's one of the potential strengths of gaming fiction. The background details are already there - all the author has to do is come up with interesting characters and a situation to put them through, and then they should be off.

- I expect the story to obey the laws of its particular universe. A parallel to the above, this can be a cardinal sin to me - if the author sets their story in an established world, then violates the tenets of that world, they have failed as a writer.

So, we have a situation where a game is published, has a great background, develops fans and takes off, and then some novels are written to tell some stories in that background - sounds like a great situation, right. It should be. Unfortunately there is a lot of bad gaming fiction out there and it has been there since the very begining