Dwarves don't sell novels

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Two words, my friends: Wulf. Ratbane.

Amen.

Up the dwarves. Down with pansy elves, pecks, and poof dwarves (aka gnomes).

What we really need is not another DL novel, but a Wulf Ratbane novel.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Two words, my friends: Wulf. Ratbane.

My ferkin' ears are burnin'.

 

[Numion]

(I kinda think if WOTC wrote books as cool as Lord of the Rings, that claim would be quite questionable)

But LotR is the original elf wank-fest.

 

[SWBaxter]

But LotR is the original elf wank-fest.

The movies, yes, not so much the books. Tolkien notes in one of his letters that Legolas was the character who accomplished the least of all the Fellowship, and that was intentional - the glory days of the Elves are long past in LoTR. You could argue that the Silmarillion is the original elf wank-fest, but even those elves are overshadowed by the Valar (and arguably the Edain). The "Legolas is next to godliness" interpretation was one of many thematic changes Jackson made that don't appear to match Tolkien's intentions.

I think the elf fixation in the D&D novels actually has more to do with Anne Rice than Tolkien - TSR/WOTC elves are long-lived, gorgeous, somewhat alien, and often angst-ridden outsiders, just like Rice's vampires. Drizzt could easily be a drinking buddy of Lestat, if some extradimensional space were created to contain all of their angsty posing.

 

[Eltharon]

Not in the books as much as the movie. Elves ARE good in the books, but theres really only one. The others sort of hang around Rivendell. And Tolkien never really makes Legolas that much cooler then Gimli. He even kills less Orcs at Helms Deep.

EDIT: SWBaxter beat me to it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

But Dwarves "as is" have been given a very narrow niche in fantasy "reality", and it's very very difficult to make that niche interesting.

I disagree. Put down a fantasy novel and pick up pretty much any other sort, and the sorts of people represented are much closer to dwarves than elves in fantasy.

The fact that what passes for fantasy novelists nowadays (especially in the shallow end of the pool where most game fiction is written) are attempting LotR necrophilia doesn't mean there aren't other ways to write dwarves that would speak to people.

For example, the favoured class (if you must) of Dwarves is Barbarian, and they're essentially Vikings, but shorter. They love to build ships, raid, pillage, loot, and drag home slaves and wenches for slaving and wenching. They're pirates, but worse. They still drink, make stuff, and seem to work endlessly... until they come across some worthwhile loot, after which they drink, break stuff, and sing endlessly.

Heh, the dwarf in my campaign is a barbarian/druid and behaves similarly, although his extended family are more like hatchet-flinging Hatfields and McCoys. (Hey, the Appalachians are mountains!)

 

[WayneLigon]

(I kinda think if WOTC wrote books as cool as Lord of the Rings, that claim would be quite questionable)

Probably not as much as you might think. The art and science of what to put on a book cover is a bizarre and strange thing; like it or not, people are heavily influenced by what they see on that cover. Studies are made about colors used, the size of figures, what those figures are, etc.

Here is an interesting article about the difference between British and American cover versions of the same book. Notice that the American covers almost always use warm colors. Cool or dark colors have a direct correlation to lower sales on the same book, when different covers are used for different printings, or by the same author.

 

[Dragonbait]

There was a very similar thread on the old WoTC novel message boards. I think it was one of the more prolific female D&D writiers who sounded off on this subject, too. She mentioned the fact that WoTC does not like non-human and non-elven heroes (and perhaps non-dragon). Her reasoning was very close to what heirodule brought up:

'you can get away with elves because they're sexy, but not matter how cool the book is, if you put a dwarf or a halfling on the cover, sales drop'

So I guess this is a sore spot for writers too. If this mentality was not there, I think there would be a much larger variety of novels out there.

It's nice to see that dwarves are appreciated somewhere (Warhammer novel writers, you are dwarven gawds!). D&D novel readers are shallow and horny, apparently What is the target age group for D&D novels? I know that as a wee little one, I broke my teeth on Azure Bonds. I'll admit it - the cleavage of Alias of Westgate was half of what got me to buy the novel. However, the other half was that strange reptilian humanoid weilding a sword...

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Sehestedt, the marketer questions using changelings because they are an "alien race" and they need to be identifiable with.

This is very much what was laid down to the original Dark Sun creators. Their original creation had humans and all others races were new races. Marketing told them it was cool but they had to come use PHB races... and must throw in dragons somehow. So the designers came back with hairless dwarves, 7-foot tall elves that ran around the desert... literally, and savage halflings that ate other PC races. Their take on dragons were that the god-like rulers of the city-states were metamorphosing into "dragons", while there was one who had fully transformed into The Dragon who all of the god-rulers paid tribute to.

he says 'you can get away with elves because they're sexy, but not matter how cool the book is, if you put a dwarf or a halfling on the cover, sales drop'

Well, I might put this down to artists not being able to draw halflings appealingly. Warhammer artists seem to have a dwarf-look that appeals to enough fans. If WotC artists could draw halflings and dwarves "cool" then... maybe the marketers conventional wisdom wouldn't be.

 

[Ibram]

Heh, we've got to remember how lame WHFB elves are though...

I've always prefered the WH elves to the D&D elves, a much more interesting bunch IMO.

and WH Dark Elves are vastly more evil then the drow could ever hope to be...