Best Shared Fiction IYO

[Voadam]

What do you consider the best shared world fiction you've read? D&D, Warhammer, Star Wars, etc.

I remember enjoying Weasel's Luck from the Dragonlance books immensely. I also remember enjoying the first of the Medusa Plague novels from Dragonlance and thinking it did a good job with D&D magic. I enjoyed a bunch of Dragonlance short stories in the tales series particularly the one with Tasslehoff and the mage who summons Demogorgon.

I enjoyed Dan Abnet in the WH40K Horus Heresy book, its the only one from the line I've read and I was dissapointed to find out the next book in the series would be from a different author.

Michael Stackpole did great things in both Battletech and Star Wars.

I enjoyed Vampire in the Mist, the first Ravenloft novel.

I remember enjoying a bunch of Thieves' World, particularly the Tempus and early Shadowspawn stories, and even the spinoff tempus book.

Janny Wurts did a great job IMO with the Empire Trilogy set in Feist's Riftwar world setting.

 

[Desdichado]

I predict that the most commonly referenced good shared world fiction work is going to be Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy.

I haven't read it yet, but I bought it a few months ago in omnibus format. It's on my "to-do list."

Right now I'm reading the Mathias Thulmann: Witchunter omnibus, and I'm just over halfway done---it's three novels, plus three short stories. Pretty good stuff so far; I'm quite enjoying it.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Timothy Zahn - Star Wars. He created some of the most interesting and lasting characters of the Expanded Universe - Mara Jade, the smuggler Karrde, Captain Palleaon and several more. Though I am not sure if one shouldn't rue the day he introdued Fey'lya. And the books itself were very good.

I would agree with Micheal Stackpole, especially the stuff around Rogue and Wraith squadron. (He did not write all of them, and I am not certain he actually made something for Wraith squadron, but this was one of the series I enjoyed most.)

It has been a while that I read Star Trek novels, and I read a lot at the time, so I have trouble remembering all the authors. I've heard good things about Peter David, but I don't remember a specific book from him. The authors I do remember are Diane Duane (her books seem to particular excel in the "pure" science fiction aspects) and John M. Ford. His Klingon book might be out-dated and contradicted by canon these days, but it was well written and created an interesting view on the early Federation and the Klingon culture. If I was to retcon the Startrek universe or the Klingons, I would probably steal liberally from him.

This pretty much the only shared fiction series I followed. I have read two and a half Eberron novels by now. The first two of the Lanternlight novels, one book set in the area of Eberron ruled by Meduas, and one set around some heroes and the (Hob)Goblin Empire. (If I just could remember all the names or be bothered to look it up!). The Lanternlight novels are okay. I enjoyed the book in the "Medusa territory", especially since it was high-magic and with lots of monsters. Very unusual and interesting.
The Goblin books - I couldn't stand the whiny Dragonmarked protagonist. Even though I might normally enjoy something about and around Goblins and Hobgoblins.

 

[Mark]

I remember enjoying a bunch of Thieves' World

That would be my pick. I particularly like Lalo the Limner.

 

[Rykion]

I'll add another vote for Dan Abnett and his Warhammer 40k work in general.

I also really liked the Witchunter books. I read two other of C.L. Werner's Warhammer novels, Runefang and Grey Seer, and they just weren't as good.


I think William King's Gotrek and Felix books are also pretty good in a pulpy sort of way.

 

[BryonD]

Wild Cards

 

[Umbran]

I'm going to go for the Man-Kzin Wars. Wild Cards and Thieves' World running not too far behind.

 

[Insight]

No votes for the Cthulhu Mythos (H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, others)???

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'll go with Man-Kzin, Thieves' World and Wild Cards.

In a sense, yes, the Cthulhu mythos is a shared world...but it isn't controlled in the way that every other one I can think of is. If you look closely, the various Mythos writers take liberties with the shared world that you don't necessarily see in others.

For example...

Wiki
Lovecraft recognized that each writer had his own story-cycle, and that an element from one cycle would not necessarily become part of another simply because a writer used it in one of his stories. For example, although Smith might mention "Kthulhut" (referring to Lovecraft's Cthulhu) or Iog-Sotôt (Yog-Sothoth) in one of his Hyperborean tales, this does not mean that Cthulhu is part of the Hyperborean cycle. A notable exception, however, is Smith's Tsathoggua, which Lovecraft appropriated for his revision of Zelia Bishop's "The Mound" (1940). Lovecraft effectively connected Smith's creation to his story-cycle by placing Tsathoggua alongside such entities as Cthulhu, Yig, Shub-Niggurath, and Nug and Yeb in subterranean K'n-yan.
Most of the elements of Lovecraft's Mythos were not a cross-pollination of the various story-cycles of the Lovecraft Circle, but were instead deliberately created by each writer to become part of the Mythos, the most notable example[citation needed] being the various arcane grimoires of forbidden lore. So, for example, Robert E. Howard has his character Friedrich Von Junzt reading Lovecraft's Necronomicon in "The Children of the Night" (1931), and Lovecraft in turn mentions Howard's Unaussprechlichen Kulten in both "Out of the Aeons" (1935) and "The Shadow Out of Time (1936).[4] Howard frequently corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft, and the two would sometimes insert references or elements of each others' settings in their works. Later editors reworked many of the original Conan stories by Howard; thus, diluting this connection. Nevertheless, many of Howard's unedited Conan stories are arguably part of the Cthulhu Mythos.[5]

In contrast, most true shared world settings have rules- in Thieves' World and Wild Cards, for instance, you were not allowed to make major alterations to someone else's characters without their permission.

As I think about it here while posting, the liberties taken within the various accretions in the Mythos over the years are almost akin to some of the mutability you see in Michael Moorcock's own Eternal Champion/Eternal Companion/Dancers At the End of Time multiverse, the difference, of course, being that only MM writes in his settings.

 

[Glyfair]

I doubt I could put down a "best." Especially since fiction that wasn't originally shared has expanded in that direction, such as "Star Wars." Even Vance's Dying Earth series would count with a recent collection of various author's putting own stories in the world.

I did like Thieves' World and Wild Cards, back during the boom of worlds created to be a shared world. One series I liked that I thought was underrated was Liavek. It was uneven, but I got some great RPG ideas from some of the stories in that series.