Elminster Novels

[BobROE]

What bugs me most about Greenwood, is not that reading his books caused my eyes to boil in the sockets. Its that what he puts in those novels becomes FR canon, and when I was playing in a regular FR campaign I felt I needed to " Keep up" and therefore subject myself to was he passed off as a novel.

It's not just Ed Greenwood's books that are FR canon, it's all FR novels that are FR canon (except for a few that they've removed, notably the double diamond series cause it takes place to far ahead of the "present" timeline).

 

[Faraer]

Definitely start with Elminster: The Making of a Mage. They're in print as far as I know -- amazon.com has the mass-market paperbacks in stock. Elminster's Daughter works particularly well as a stand-alone book, though reading the others will make you more aware of a lot of the subtleties. I think Elminster in Hell is the best of the series, a thematic encapsulation of a lot of what Ed's Realms are about, certainly the most ambitious Realms novel to date (with Cormyr and Evermeet following).

Diaglo, you know better than that 'el Munchkin' crack. It's a tired, unambiguously false canard; Ed's mindset couldn't be more different from any 'munchkin' one.

If the novels weren't canonical, a huge amount of Realmslore that Ed's got into his novels wouldn't be part of the official continuity -- from the Shadowdale details and mechanics of spells in Spellfire to the caravan lore in Hand of Fire to the Waterdhavian history in Elminster in Hell -- which would be a big shame.

 

[KChagga]

On the other hand I read The Making of a Mage, Elminster in Myth Drannor, and Elminster in Hell. Those first two were ok, but I thought that Elminster in Hell was horrible. The book is about Elminster(in hell no less), but we spend 3/4 of the book with other people in snippets. It was like a friggin clip show in book format. That book stank and I have no urge to read any other books by Mr. Greenwood. Of course YMMV.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Oh no please don't tell me you like Ed Greenwood's writing. As a product developer he was outstanding. As a novelist he makes Baby Jesus Cry. I really tried to read him. I gave him every oppourtunity to prove he could write fiction, but he is just plain awful. Every book I read by him got less and less readable. Spellfire was pretty bad, crown of fire was worse. Elminster :making of a mage had me cringing through every page. And the shadows of an Avatar series was just plain unreadable. I mean half of one of the books describes one long excrutiatingly unintersteresting battle. I stopped trying after that. I cant be alone in this opinion can I?

He is easily the worst novel writer I've ever read. He isn't even at the bad comic book writer level. I read Spellfire and it was like dental surgery, painful!

 

[Faraer]

Whereas I found Spellfire moving, inspiring, and wonderful. Certainly you can't argue that Ed's a bad writer technically; major fantasy authors routinely consult him for help.

 

[orbitalfreak]

As far as Ed Greenwood goes, I think he's hit-and-miss. I really liked the Shadows of the Avatar Trilogy, and liked the Making of a Mage; however, I couldn't finish Temptation of Elminster, it was too boring for me.

 

[Alzrius]

I'm hard-pressed to say specifically what I don't like about his writing, but I just don't like it. Maybe it's the way things just don't seem to flow at all, or maybe it's the overly flowery language that seems almost humorous in how over the top it is.

I think my major problem with Greenwood's writing is that all of his characters are not only munchkins (and that isn't just because they're the strongest in the Realms...Troy Denning wrote Elminster in the Return of the Archwizards trilogy to be powerful, but fallible, something Greenwood has yet to grasp), but Mary Sues also.

I don't think the Wikipedia definition is totally accurate (or rather, the entry doesn't focus on what I feel are the major traits); Mary Sues as I understand them are characters whose emotional standpoint is used as the dividing line between good and evil. The Mary Sue is all that is good and right and beautiful in the world. Everyone who is a good guy will love and idealize the Mary Sue as their hero/god. Everyone who is a bad guy will be stricken with feelings of fear/inadequacy towards the Sue and will enact futile plots to destroy her. These guidelines are true for everyone in the story.

Needless to say, a combination munchkin/Sue is about as bad as it gets, and I see these happening again and again in Greenwood's novels. I just can't bear to read them anymore because of it.

Hm, seems I wasn't so hard-pressed after all.

 

[diaglo]

i bought (b/c i have all of the paperbacks from the beginning to present for all of TSR and WotC) the last 2 books by Ed: Elminster in Hell and Hand of Fire, i couldn't finish either of them.

i'll probably buy Elminster's Daughter too when it comes out in paperback, but that will be just to complete my collection.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Whereas I found Spellfire moving, inspiring, and wonderful. Certainly you can't argue that Ed's a bad writer technically; major fantasy authors routinely consult him for help.

No offense but I thought Spellfire was worse than your average pop-up book I've seen in my four year old nieces collection. I made myself finish it. Game fiction is pretty bad IME, but this was easily the worst I've ever read.

P.S. What major fantasy authors consult him?

 

[Remus Lupin]

I've read the first two Elminster novels (Making of a Mage and Myth Drannor). I keep coming back to "Tempation" in an attempt to finish it, but so far no luck. I think the major problem is, as another poster pointed out, the narrative choppiness of it all. Another problem is the lack, 100 pages in, of a coherent plot. Elminster just keeps jumping from one scene to the next, without a whole lot to tie the various elements together.

As yet another poster said, my main motivation for reading the Elminster novels, as well as Elaine Cunningham's stuff, is to get more of a sense of the character and details of the Realms. Cunningham has so far been much more effective for me.