PLANESCAPE Novels: Are they any good?

[dead]

I was thinking of buying the PLANESCAPE line of novels but was wondering if they are worth investing in. Five novels were released:

- Pages of Pain
- Torment

The Bloodwars Trilogy
- Blood Hostages
- Abyssal Warriors
- Planar Powers

Has anyone read these and are they any good?

Are they canon?

Is there any good reference material?

Thank you!

 

[Starglim]

Pages of Pain is excellent. I can't speak for the others.

 

[cmrscorpio]

The official novelization of the game Torment is TERRIBLE. If you've never played the computer game, you will be completely lost and unable to follow the weakly written story that has little to do with the *awesome* story in the game. Instead, download the unofficial novelization of the game that uses the actual game dialogue available here:

http://http://www.wischik.com/lu/senses/pst-book.html

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Avoid the Torment book like the plague. Can't say I know anything about the others, though.

If you really want an awesome Planescape experience, I would actually advise playing through Torment.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Avoid the Torment book like the plague.

Agreed. I got the book with the game and I'm glad I played the game first. To be honest after playing the game I couldn't understand why they bothered with a novel; the game has a word count that dwarfs the average novel. I don't recall the exact figure but I think it was something in excess of half a million words.

 

[Fyrie]

I've only read Blood Hostages, but I remember thinking it was good and very authentic to Planescape. It suffers the weaknesses of most DnD books in that it is pulpy and formulaic. The writing style is geared to a little bit older of an age than the original Dragonlance books are.

Skip the torment book. Play the game. It's one of the best games ever made.

 

[Shemeska]

Avoid the Blood War trilogy. The books were written in a vacuum of knowledge about the setting itself, and they break some of the setting conceits and basic notions to the point that it gets goofy.

Pages of Pain is actually a really good book. Much better if you divorce it partially from the setting, but it's a genuinely good read. Take everything in the plot with a grain of salt as far as it relates to Her Serenity, but I enjoyed it.

Didn't read the Torment novel, so can't comment on it.

 

[Aluvial]

I actually enjoyed the trilogy a great deal. They were quick reads, with an interesting plot. As for the setting, I looked at all of these novels as "possible" for their specific settings.

It's like the Greyhawk books with the Justicar. Not my Greyhawk, but a possible Greyhawk. I liked those too! Can't remember all of the titles...

Aluvial

 

[Oryan77]

It's been almost 15 years since I read these. Overall they are good reads but they aren't awesome. I'm a huge PS fan and a 3.5 PS DM, but I read these books when I first started learning about the PS setting. So I'm trying to give my opinion based on someone unfamiliar to the setting and not a stickler over setting accuracy. The trilogy isn't very popular among PS fans, but as a book to read just for fun, I thought it was worth reading and they still had some pretty creative scenarios.


- Pages of Pain = Good book but it all takes place in a Lady of Pain maze. There are only 2 characters in the book but it's still an interesting read. You don't really learn too much about Planescape though.

The Bloodwars Trilogy
- Blood Hostages = Good book but it's very confusing in the beginning. Throughout the rest of the book you really need to reference monster manuals so you understand what races the characters are in order to visualize them. The books don't really explain what a race is when it introduces new characters. It explores the Planescape setting pretty well.

- Abyssal Warriors = Good book but it can also be a little confusing to read like the first one. It has a few good scenarios in it that explores the PS setting. It doesn't hold true to PS setting rules, but it doesn't really matter much because you don't really feel like you're reading a true PS setting book anyway.

- Planar Powers = Interesting book but it has absolutely nothing to do with the Planescape setting other than hearing about the Lady of Pain. The main character pretends to be a god by sticking a human guy in a closet, shrinking him down so tiny that the human doesn't realize he's in a closet. The fake-god turns the closet into his own world for the human guy to live in. It's sort of an Adam & Eve scenario.

 

[Anthraxus]

Heh, I just picked up Blood Hostages at Half Price Books on Saturday. I haven't actively sought out the Planescape books, but I keep an eye out for them at HPB. This is the first PS book I've bought there, so I can't comment on the quality.