Pushing LJ's posting limits... with a post about books. :)

[tek2way]

I finished R.A. Salvatore's Dragonslayer's Return tonight. As dlyman29 said, it's easily his best work. I absolutely loved this story. I wish he could do more like it. I wouldn't want to see more sequels per se, but I always love the time/dimension displaced traveller stories, moreso when they involve fantasy elements. Now, I think I'm going to read Neil Gaiman's Coraline next. I should be done with that by Thursday. After that, I'm going to finish Ian Irvine's Dark is the Moon and The Way Between the Worlds. After that, I believe I have some Thomas Covenant stuff by Stephen Donaldson to read. :)

Comments

told ya so

[a1057soul.livejournal.com]

;-)

If you haven't gotten to them yet, the new generic "Dungeons and Dragons" series that Wizards has put out are pretty good. There are five so far: The Savage Caves (http://www.wizards.com/catalog/product.asp?88220), The Living Dead (http://www.wizards.com/catalog/product.asp?88230), The Oath of Nerull (http://www.wizards.com/catalog/product.asp?882400000), City of Fire (http://www.wizards.com/catalog/product.asp?882500000), and The Bloody Eye (http://www.wizards.com/catalog/product.asp?178520000) with several others plotted and soon to come out (about a 2-3 month gap between each).

They're not a "series" per se, kinda what the Forgotten Realms "Harpers" series was, except the main characters of these books are the ones from the PHB, DMG and other core Rulebooks: Redgar the Fighter, Ember the Monk, Hennet the Sorcerer, Jozan the Cleric of Pelor, Lidda the halfling Rogue, Krusk the half-orc Barbarian, Alhandra the Paladin, etc... with various players in a one shot book... they're short - usually about 200 pages or so, but they're all by one author - T.H. Lain. Basically a novelization of the 3e ruleset but not hocking specific modules like TSR did with the original Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms series...

Well written in a Salvitorian type style (descriptive but action oriented) and provide great real time type examples of the common 3e spells, skills, feats, items, etc... and how the classes function. I like them quite a bit so far (I finally see the uses for an gnome illusionist).

=-D

Dan

Re: told ya so

[tek2way.livejournal.com]

I probably WOULD read the D&D novels, except for the price: $5.99 for a 200 page book? I almost feel ripped off looking at it in the store. Which one would be your favorite so far? I might consider one of them, to "test the waters", such as it is.

Re: told ya so

[a1057soul.livejournal.com]

actually, I made the $5.99 payment for each, and can't say i regret it... i've bought worse (Elaine Cunningham's Magewar series for example which I still haven't finished). If I had to pick one... City of Fire... but I like Krusk so I was a bit prejudiced... Oath of Nerull would be 2nd because of the really cool mage trails that take place.

Actually as soon as I see the new ones, I grab them immediately...

Re: told ya so

[tek2way.livejournal.com]

Well, if they keep Krusk as funny as he was in some of the WotC support material. (One of their online columns - Gamestoppers - had Krusk in it, and wow, was it hilarious.)

I'll consider getting that one at least. We'll see what happens from there. Thanks for the tip.

Re: told ya so

[a1057soul.livejournal.com]

unfortunately, no (I wish). the author made Krusk a bit dour (taking in the half part of the half-orc), but quite a bit on the wry side but not the classic big dumb barbarian... almost rangeresque, which is in keeping with the 3e version in my mind. But the gnome in Oath of Nerull was quite humorous... wisecracking and lighthearted.

honestly the books are worth it just for the extended characterizations of the archtypes. they really flesh out the classes quite a bit.

Re: told ya so

[tek2way.livejournal.com]

*nods* Okay. No big dumb barbarians. Check. *sigh* I'll still go ahead and pick up one of them, just to give them a go.

For now, though, my plate is rather full. :)