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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 3259184" data-attributes="member: 3146">There are several problems with the ambition to have gaming novels be great works of art:First, there is the limited availability of great artists. A genius like Shakespeare comes about maybe once a millenia. Even if you're generous and say that there has been a Shakespeare every century, what are the odds that this century's Shakespeare is going to be interested in gaming novels, or even novels at all. Maybe the next Shakespeare's medium is cinema or television. Or maybe computer games. (Tolstoy was more interesting in his self-appointed role as a prophet and champion of the peasant than in writing novels; had he been as interested in writing novels, his peasants and family might have been happier and the world enriched by more quality literature).The truth is that 99% or more of the art that is created is lousy. It may be good enough to pass time with when it is published, but it won't stand the test of time and few people will mourn its passing. (Compare which of the 19th century novels people still think worth reading to the vast number that were produced, for instance, and you'll have an idea of what I mean. A lot more people wrote gothic stories novels than Mary Shelley and Edgar Allen Poe, but they're about the only ones who are better than our current crop of drek which is both easier to find, written in a more accessible language, and with a worldview that more closely approximates our own). If that's true of fiction (and writing) in general, why should we expect gaming fiction to be any different.Another matter in this regard is that gaming novels are, almost by definition written in someone else's world with at least some of other peoples' characters. A lot of the better artists would rather write in worlds that are set up to more fully explore their themes and ideas than which are consistent with the latest sourcebook on the new edition of the game.Now, if you fancy yourself a potentially great artist and have an interest in gaming fiction, you're welcome to try writing the intelligent and sophisticated gaming fiction that you want to see. But writing gaming fiction on assignment doesn't seem like the kind of situation calculated to produce great writing, so I'd expect significantly less than 1% of it to have any lasting value anyway.</blockquote>

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