Test Drive Tie-in Fiction

Paul. Could you perhaps list particular books or authors that you feel illustrate examples of excellent contemporary 'tie-in' fiction...besides yourself and your work of course.

On a side note: I tend to be an idea driven writer (in that I work from the abstract to the tangible--looking for the cleanest and most interesting route) and it seems that writing in this particular genre could be very constricting. Do you find that this is the case? Or do you approach it as a source of inspiration: molding what you are given into something interesting (I guess this would include character driven or method writing )?

Wild Gazebo said:

Paul. Could you perhaps list particular books or authors that you feel illustrate examples of excellent contemporary 'tie-in' fiction...besides yourself and your work of course.

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Be sure to put aside modesty, Paul, and make sure your own favorites from your writing are included on the list.

Wild Gazebo said:

On a side note: I tend to be an idea driven writer (in that I work from the abstract to the tangible--looking for the cleanest and most interesting route) and it seems that writing in this particular genre could be very constricting. Do you find that this is the case? Or do you approach it as a source of inspiration: molding what you are given into something interesting (I guess this would include character driven or method writing )?

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WG,

I have not found it constricting. Notwithstanding the abundance of lore in the Realms, I've never butted up against any boundaries that put limits on the type of story I wanted to tell (and that applies to both subject matter and tone). For me, the Realms has always been a source of inspiration, not a pair of shackles. It's a rich world and lots of things are fleshed out, but unexplored corners/issues are anywhere you care to look.

And you might be surprised at how little authors are "given," in terms of instruction. When I pitched Cale (my "signature character") the guidelines consisted of nothing more than this: The story is to be set in Sembia; this character is a butler to a merchant lord; this character gets things done for that merchant lord. From that, I developed a former assassin and now reluctant spy caught between two masters -- the guild that placed him in the merchant household to spy, and the lord and family upon whom he spied but with respect to whom he had developed affection, even love. Made for nice dramatic tension, I thought. And so far, so good. This has spun off still more into the character coming to grips with his past, what he was, and (through a later religious experience) what he might be becoming and what that means for his humanity. It's been fun. And at least some fans seem to like it.

Mark CMG said:

Be sure to put aside modesty, Paul, and make sure your own favorites from your writing are included on the list.

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Mark and WG,

Here are some tie-in books that I think represent quality storytelling. This is a non exhaustive list but here are some of the first things that jump to mind:

In Eberron, Don Bassingthwaite's Dragon Below Trilogy.

In the Star Wars expanded universe, Karen Traviss's Republic Commando series.

In Warhammer, I think the best is Bill King's Felix and Gotrek series (this series is not my cup of tea, but I think the storytelling is solid; I think Dan Abnett is the best writer in the WH line).

In the Realms (focusing on the midlist writers like me and just to pick two), Baker's Last Mythal Trilogy (this one is thick with FR lore and history, though, so if you don't know that lore, it might be easy to miss some of the references) and Elaine Cunningham's Song and Swords series.

As for my work, I think my best writing to date is my most recent, Shadowbred, book one of The Twilight War Trilogy. Shadowbred follows on from the events of The Erevis Cale Trilogy, which I also think to be quality storytelling (I guess that's obvious or I wouldn't have put five chapters online ).

Thanks, Paul, I really appreciate that. I wanted to join the discussion but felt I should probably make the effort to read the current work first...before I stick my foot in my mouth.

Although…I have read other books from two of those authors and I'm feeling a little skeptical.

It is great to hear that you don't feel confined by this type of writing! I tend to ask the same question to other friends and authors: getting a wide variety of answers. It just seems to be a common theme from people I know who have moved on to other things. But I guess, as many people do, we get bored of repetition or the absence of new challenges--so the question of restriction might not be very valid.

Again, thanks.

One reason I think people look down on tie-in fiction is that--in fantasy and science fiction--setting is an extremely important element, possibly the most important one. Heck, we could even go so far as to say that the world creation is what separates scifi/fantasy from regular novels.

The absolute classic example of this is Dune. The world that the author creates often makes or breaks a book.

And a tie-in author--no matter how good--is not making her own world. And so you have to wonder about that, wonder about an author who needs to rely on someone else's setting in a genre which is defined by setting.

GSHamster said:

One reason I think people look down on tie-in fiction is that--in fantasy and science fiction--setting is an extremely important element, possibly the most important one. Heck, we could even go so far as to say that the world creation is what separates scifi/fantasy from regular novels.

The absolute classic example of this is Dune. The world that the author creates often makes or breaks a book.

And a tie-in author--no matter how good--is not making her own world. And so you have to wonder about that, wonder about an author who needs to rely on someone else's setting in a genre which is defined by setting.

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GSHamster,

That's an interesting point. I would make a distinction, in connection with the importance of setting, between epic fantasy (and epic sci-fi, in the case of Dune) and sword and sorcery fantasy (FR follows the S&S tradition). In sword and sorcery fiction, setting is rarely as important as it is in epic tales. Think Leiber, Moorcock, and Howard. In each of those cases, the setting is really quite a minor player. It's there, and it's reasonably fleshed out, and is sometimes important to the story, but not much more. Sword and sorcery fiction is far more interested in focusing on the characters (usually a kind of "great man" character like the Mouser, Conan, or Elric).

In any event, many people overstate the degree to which a tie-in author depends upon the setting. In my case, while much of the Realms is fleshed out in a macro-sense in published material, the particular micro-settings in which my stories occurred were fleshed out in only a very rough sense, if at all (the cities of Selgaunt, Starmantle, etc.). With respect to those, it fell to me to try and put some additional flesh on the bones and bring them alive for the reader. There was a lot of room for creative expression.

Whether I succeeded or not in bringing them alive, of course, is another question.

PaulKemp said:

I agree that there is a lot of excellent original fiction. But I also think there's a lot of excellent fiction that just happens to tie-in to a world that also serves as a setting for a game.

Flexor, do you take your position because you think there is no quality tie in fiction or because you think it's not worth your time to search out something you'd regard as quality tie-in fiction (whereas you feel that locating quality non-tie in fiction is not as difficult)?

Clearly some original speculative fiction is bad. But many readers are willing to sift through the bad to get to the good.

Clearly some tie-in fiction is bad (hell, maybe mine is), but some is also good. Yet many readers are unwilling to sift through the bad to get to the good.

Why is that? Is it simply that readers regard the ratio of good to bad to be much worse in the context of tie-in and therefore aren't willing to spend the time and effort looking for the quality fiction? If that's so, I wonder, in the case of many readers, if the view is based on substantial actual experience or on the undying meme that "licensed fiction stinks."

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I've probably read 50 various D&D novels and I'm trying to remember one that was really good. I liked the Gord the Rogue novels due to thier insight into Gary's Greyhawk world. Umm...the one book by that one guy...heck that's about it. I liked the Dragonlance books when I was a kid, but when I tried to re-read them a couple years ago they were painful. RA Salvatore is considered the top D&D fiction writer I guess and I find his stuff terrible. I assume there have to be some passable tie-in books out there but I just don't feel like I should waste my time on those when I have so many Hugo winning novels to read, GRR Martin's stuff, the rest of the Black Company series, that latest Tolkien book, the rest of Moorcock's Elric books, the Lankhmar books, etc. I tried some Star Wars books, the first trilogy that Zahn wrote was ok I guess. The NJO books were like reading some cheap imitation of Star Wars and I quit about half way through the series. I've tried some Star Trek books in my youth but that doesn't translate well to the page IMO.

I'd probably read a new Greyhawk book if Gary wrote is since I would view it like a sourcebook for my next 'hawk campaign. I have zero interest in FR or Eberron materials.

This comment isn't meant to be harsh but its how I feel. If the writer was really good and creative he would create something original instead of just churning out another FR/Eberron/Star Trek novel. How can someone writing a FR book hope to compete with someone who creates and original and fleshed out world that ties into the story and enhances it? Hope that doesn't offend you since I know you write FR books. Its nothing personal, I hope you do well off that since I know it beats the heck out of what I do for a living.

Flexor the Mighty! said:

This comment isn't meant to be harsh but its how I feel. If the writer was really good and creative he would create something original instead of just churning out another FR/Eberron/Star Trek novel. How can someone writing a FR book hope to compete with someone who creates and original and fleshed out world that ties into the story and enhances it? Hope that doesn't offend you since I know you write FR books. Its nothing personal, I hope you do well off that since I know it beats the heck out of what I do for a living.

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No worries. I'm not offended by it and appreciate you sharing your thoughts. Lots of folks have had bad experiences with tie-in fiction. But the questions of whether a writer is "really good" and "creative," IMO, do not relate to whether or not one writes in a tie-in world or not.

Consider: "Literary" fiction is set in our world (the original "shared world" of fiction, so to speak). There's no macro world building, as such; there's just bringing a setting that already exists to life through the words on the page and the eyes of the characters. In a sense, it's presenting/re-interpreting what's already there in a way that will engage the reader. It's for the author to give earth richness. In every way that matters, that's exactly what a tie-in writer does with his/her underlying setting (or at least what I try to do). Is that somehow less creative than creating Nehwon or Melnibone or Middle Earth from scratch? Even if it is less creative in some way, does that mere fact speak at all to the underlying literary merit of the work?

Incidentally, there are a lot of reasons why a writer may choose to stick with tie-in even if he/she could be doing something else. In my case, I write novels in FR (even as I write non-tie-in short stories) because I quite enjoy the setting and the characters/stories that I've created in it (I'm lucky in that my character, after the current trilogy, will have starred in seven novels). On the business side, I enjoy the fans, the editors with whom I've worked, the distribution chain of my publisher, the sales figures, and the certainty of a novel a year for the foreseeable future. Authors with other publishers rarely enjoy those things and their career situation from year to year is much more uncertain. The upshot is that I stay with FR because I'm satisfied both creatively and with the business arrangement.

I didn't mean my last sentence to imply that you are only writing FR books for cash and not for love of what you do. Sorry if it came across that way.

My brother is always trying to get me to read FR novels, I'm sure he's read a few of yours. I'll have to ask him what he thought of them. Maybe I'll read one of those books he is always trying to push on me if I can finally get him to read "The Stars, My Destination".