Do you read gaming fiction?

[jonesy]

I own every Dragonlance book except the 5-6 latest (that's umm...Dark Thane, the Minotaur Wars trilogy, the new Linsha book and something else), so I guess I do.

I also have some of the old WH40K books, all of the Spelljammer novels, and most of the Ravenloft books.

And I've read the first Drizzt books, but can't remember anything about them.

 

[Ranger REG]

Read several Dragonlance books, Forgotten Realms books, and three Vampire: The Masquerade books.

 

[Wombat]

I've read a lot of works that later got changed into games, but very little "gaming fiction" -- what little I have read has ranged from uninspired to downright awful.

I'll stick to non-game-based fiction.

 

[Pants]

I've read the War of the Lance Trilogy: The second and third books were great, but the 1st book... kind of blew.

I've read all of RAS Drizzt books, barring The Lone Drow. Most are varying degrees of quality, some really good, some pretty bad.

I've also read all three of the War of the Spider Queen books. Very entertaining.

I read Gygax's Gord books, which were pretty good. Artifact of Evil was probably the high point. Not bad.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I just need to ask this question. Why is game based fiction considered mostly to be bad around here. Maybe it is because gaming-based fiction is what really got me into fantasy and not LOTR(although I had read LOTR) which is why I like it so much.

 

[Desdichado]

I just need to ask this question. Why is game based fiction considered mostly to be bad around here. Maybe it is because gaming-based fiction is what really got me into fantasy and not LOTR(although I had read LOTR) which is why I like it so much.

Because it is bad, or at best, only OK. Have you ever read any non-gaming fiction?

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Because it is bad, or at best, only OK. Have you ever read any non-gaming fiction?

Yep, and I still do like gaming-fiction.

 

[Cannibal_Kender]

I like some gaming fiction:

Dragonlance (Weis & Hickman only)
War of the Spider Queen was ok

I separate gaming fiction into 3 catagories:

1.What I'll buy myself
2.What I'll read if I recieve it for christmas, birthday, etc... but wouldn't purchase with own money
3.What I will avoid like the plague


Dragonlance falls in the 1st, war of sq in 2nd

Anything by Ed Greenwood (shudders) = 3rd

 

[jonesy]

I just need to ask this question. Why is game based fiction considered mostly to be bad around here. Maybe it is because gaming-based fiction is what really got me into fantasy and not LOTR(although I had read LOTR) which is why I like it so much.

Well it's like this (to me anyway):

Lord of the Rings is like this big chokolate cake laced with strawberry stripes and decorated with vanilla and dark chokolate. It's wonderfully tasty, but also very filling and you can't eat it often.

Gaming fiction is like cookies. They might not be anything special compared to the cake, but you can devour a lot of them, and some of them might have chokolate chips. And sometimes you find ones filled with honey or jam.

 

[WayneLigon]

I haven't read a lot of gaming fiction.

I've read the first two Dragonlance trilogies. Good stuff, that; I still enjoy the first three best.

I've read the Icewind Dale trilogy. Not too bad; I'll try some more at another time.

I haven't been interested in most of the books that WOTC has put out; for the most part, they involve characters and races that I just can't see myself enjoying. It seems like they go out of the way (possibly to avoid stereotypical 'party' makeups?)to include the most bizarre combos of races they can come up with.

I keep hearing Elaine Cunningham is the person to read. Tried Dream Spheres a couple times, but can't get past the first few chapters. That's not unusual; I have that problem with non-gaming books from time to time.

I might look harder at some of the books in the Rogues series, since generally I like the class a great deal; none of the ones I've seen so far really strike me as something I'd want to pick up.

I did read Spellfire, and for a long time it was one of my favorites. Not because of plot or characterization; to this day I can't tell you the plot, beyond 'it was about some woman with the ability to weild Spellfire'. What I loved was the dialogue. If I was going to run an FR game, I'd go back and read this again, to pick up how they speak the language there. That was utterly fascinating.