| Books Based on D&D | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 15 2006, 01:47 PM (406 Views) | |
| kismetrose | Aug 15 2006, 01:47 PM Post #1 |
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By now there have been half a ton of books based on D&D and its associated settings, and not all of them are very good (just as not all books in any milieu are very good). For those of you who have read much of D&D related fiction, which books do you hold to be the best and most memorable? And if you wouldn't mind, throw in a bit about why they stand out above the rest. |
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| Aladdar | Aug 15 2006, 06:19 PM Post #2 |
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are you looking for specifically Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and Eberron settings or anything in the sword and sorcery type setting. |
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| Didge | Aug 15 2006, 11:01 PM Post #3 |
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Well, I liked Salvatore's the Cleric's Quintet, but mainly for the secondary characters. The two dwarven brothers were hilarious, especially Pikel Bouldershoulder, but the real secondary character that steals the show is Ghost, a mercenary killer. There's too many to list that pop out of my head, but that series is just a fun, light read. Very enjoyable. |
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| DarkElf | Aug 16 2006, 10:18 AM Post #4 |
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R.A Salavatore is my favorite. the books of his that stand out are the crystal shard, exile and sojourn. Cleric Quintet(because of the boulder shoulder brothers
) The servant of the shard, The Silent blade. Promise of the witch king. The spear weilders trilogy, and the crimson shadow series.From there its Elaine Cunningham's daughter of the drow, and the elf shadow set. Favorite character Danilo Than All of these stand out to me, because of the depth of the characters. |
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| Aladdar | Aug 16 2006, 12:46 PM Post #5 |
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I can't truly speak to D&D books. I've only read two of them, Homeland and Exile by Salvatore. Homeland I thought was very good, Exile was ok, and I've just started Sojourn but so far the writing is a little juvenile for me. They're good stories, but they feel rushed as if he's almost afraid to really jump into any real detail because it might turn some of the younger readers off. That may just be because I'm used to Robert Jordan's overly verbose style in the wheel of time series however. |
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| kismetrose | Aug 16 2006, 02:20 PM Post #6 |
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I've read some of Salvatore's Drizzt series, and I still think that Homeland, Exile, and Sojourn are the best of the lot, though the next three are still entertaining. They seem to get more unbearable the further along you go. I like his earlier portrayal of the Drow (mainly in the first 3 books) and some of the secondary characters (like the pech) were impactful. I've also read the first Dragonlance book and that was entertaining. I don't tend to read much of the fiction written for various games, though. |
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| Aladdar | Aug 17 2006, 08:39 AM Post #7 |
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I've figured out what it is I don't like about Salvatores writing. Now before I begin, let me say that I am enjoying reading this trilogy of his and they're an easy and quick read, but there are several things that bother me. The biggest is the same problem I had with the second D&D movie. Too often it's like he feels he has to shoehorn the book into game mechanics and then let us know that he just did it. So we get wordings like, the sfvirbenali gnome uses his special racial ability to feel the stone, or Drizzt had to rely on his wilderness survival skills to survive. The same problem existed in D&D II: Wrath of the Dragon God. They felt they had to shove the mechanics down our throat so we'd know it was D&D. So we got lines like "Barbarian, control your rage." and others like it. When you're writing literature it doesn't always have to be shoehorned into the game mechanics. It would flow so much better if he would just base it on the game mechanics but take literary license when needed. Secondly, I spoke on this one earlier, but he glosses over things that desperately need description. He assumes that since you're reading this you're already familiar with the monsters so he doesn't describe them in anything more than just a quick passing glance. He had a whole section on the Barghest and I still have no idea what that creature really was. I just have small description in my head. For such a major evil enemy I should have known the details about him, but Salvatore just glosses over those assuming that I'll go grab a monster manual or something and read up on them. I enjoy his stories, but his descriptive text leaves much to be desired. Are the rest of his books written this way? I noticed that homeland didn't suffer from this too much. As he was one of the first to truly detail the underdark he did a great job of it, after that things have seemed to slow down on detail. |
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| kismetrose | Aug 17 2006, 11:22 PM Post #8 |
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I guess I never had much of a problem with Salvatore's lack of description because I could look it up if I wanted, and sometimes I did. Most of the time, though, I had a pretty good idea of what things looked like; I didn't need him to describe it to me. I didn't think that his reference to game mechanics were as numerous or jarring as they were in Wrath of the Dragon God, but it has been a while since I've read his books. I suppose I should go back and see. I have problems with his characterization at times and then problems with how hokey his plots become. I quit reading after a while just because I couldn't stand it anymore. |
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| Aladdar | Aug 18 2006, 05:19 AM Post #9 |
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It's not a horrible thing, I obviously haven't quit reading yet over this, but everything I've studied in literature has always pointed out that it's important for you to write as if your reader has no idea what you're talking about and not expect them to just know too many things. Yes, those who have read the monster manuals through and through and who were extremely familiar with the FR setting don't need much description, but for those of us who have not, it's important that we do or else it seems shallow. His game mechanic descriptions weren't nearly as bad as Dragon God, but I still felt ripped out of the story everytime it happened. Just let the game mechanics hide in the background and write a great story around them. You don't have to remind me that they're their, just do it. |
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| Hades | Nov 13 2006, 08:46 PM Post #10 |
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Strangely enough, I love all of the Dragonlance novels and have been really disappointed with most of the material written for Forgotten Realms. I enjoyed the Salvatore series about Drizz't but even that started to get boring after about the 4th book. I tried reading the Spellfire trilogy and it bored me because while it was stuffed with battles and intrigue, there was very little character development in my opinion and the joking between the main characters became really silly after awhile. There were a few books written about the Moonshae Isles that started off really strong but I haven't kept up with them so I don't know if they stayed that way. I avoid books written about Elminster only because I don't really care for the "old powerful wizard" character that always appears in fantasy fiction - maybe if Elminster were a woman I would be more intrigued but Gandalf, Elminster, Obi Wan Kenobi, and Fizban are all the same character to me and hold no surprises. The one series that really inspired me were the War of Souls Dragonlance novels. There was something about Mina, the main villain(?) in the series, that really intrigued me. Dammit all, I dropped the ball on that series also and didn't keep up with it, meaning that I need to reread all of it if I want to pick it back up. Is WoTC open to new writers? There seems to be a whole generation coming up that wants to tell its own stories about D&D. |
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| Fixxxer | Nov 14 2006, 01:46 PM Post #11 |
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The nine short D&D novels written under the pseudoname T. H. Lain were actually fairly good. |
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| DaveReaves | Nov 14 2006, 10:58 PM Post #12 |
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You can find Wizards guidelines for such things at http://ww2.wizards.com/books/Wizards/defau...px?doc=main_faq |
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| Guest | Nov 15 2006, 06:58 AM Post #13 |
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Wow. Thanks. I have been hunting for this info for a long time! |
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) The servant of the shard, The Silent blade. Promise of the witch king. The spear weilders trilogy, and the crimson shadow series.
5:44 PM Jul 10