D&D General I'm reading the Forgotten Realms Novels- #202 The Howling Delve by Jaleigh Johnson (Dungeons 2)

[Mirtek]

But again, why?

As to badly plotted, it reminded me- even when I was reading it, of Star Wars (a bit), or else- now that I am thinking about it, the Matrix. Or Dune, or... well, any number of books in which the hero lacks family/backstory/past. heads for adventure and discovers that they have magical powers (Luke/Neo/Paul).

The bad guys attack x lots- try to kill the super-powered good guy, who gathers friends, including an aged mentor (who teaches the hero about their powers), also add in a love-interest, a comedy double-act and... well, you're pretty much there.

Cue more plotting by evil empire(s), then final attack and we're pretty much done with this book.

I can' wait to see what happens next.

I don't mean to push it too much but what do you object to? What's bad about it? What am I not seeing?

Cheers goonalan

I actually do not remember anymore why I hated it so much, just that I stopped after about a third of the first novel and then only started the triology again several years later when it had become the currently only available option for realms novels. Maybe my brain is trying to protect me by locking the exact memory away.

Overall I was never a fan of Greenwood's novel. I love his setting (although maybe mostly due to the contributions others have made to the realms) but I absolutely dislike his novels. And of them Spellfire was for me the worst of the bunch (and reading through the Elminster novels was already a huge chore for me).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Character with the personality of a rock (main distinguishing feature: female) randomly develops vaguely defined superpower. Is attacked by generic Bad Guys who are destroyed by said superpower. Go somewhere, talk to some people, get attacked by more Generic Bad Guys who are destroyed by superpower. Rinse and repeat. The superpower always grows to be equal to whatever the Generic Bad Guys throw at the protagonist so there is never and sense of threat.

 

[Goonalan]

I actually do not remember anymore why I hated it so much, just that I stopped after about a third of the first novel and then only started the triology again several years later when it had become the currently only available option for realms novels. Maybe my brain is trying to protect me by locking the exact memory away.

Overall I was never a fan of Greenwood's novel. I love his setting (although maybe mostly due to the contributions others have made to the realms) but I absolutely dislike his novels. And of them Spellfire was for me the worst of the bunch (and reading through the Elminster novels was already a huge chore for me).

I hear you brother.

For me this is the best version of Elminster (who seems to be the central character in almost all of Greenwood's books- even when he's not supposed to be) that I have read so far. Big E is the most restrained I have seen him, so far.

Although chronologically this is obviously the first FR novel version of the Big E.

I love Greenwood's novels because of their intricate knowledge of the way of the land (the Forgotten Realms), the lovely Realmsian idioms and phrases, even the way language is used- it's kinda the ultimo roleplayers/DMs wet dream. When all of your players turn up one day for the weekly game, and then speak/stay in character for the duration. The thought that the language and knowledge presented here could one day be mine, as a DM, that the players would ask and I would know all there is to know about the Realms, and to be able to talk confidently about Sembian trade routes, and politics around the Moonsea, or else to bring to life/voice the talk of a blacksmith in Shadowdale (as opposed to an artisan master smith in Waterdeep). I love that.

I love that Greenwood, seemingly more than any other author (and for obvious reasons) knows what happens in the Realms, where everything is, and what it does, and why- and better still what it sounds like. It's a window into a world I want to live in (a bit, every now and then), and to recreate- at my gaming table.

Which is a bit (a lot) why I like Drizzt, and in particular (more than Drizzt), why I really love Menzoberranzan, it's so well established (now) in my mind that I feel I could DM it, well. And, I want to...

I'm not looking forward to the Elminster specials either, although this one gave me a little hope. Calm down Big E, stop acting the giddy-goat. You're Obi-wan, not Han.

Thanks for getting back to me. I'm living and learning.

Cheers Goonalan

 

[Goonalan]

Character with the personality of a rock (main distinguishing feature: female) randomly develops vaguely defined superpower. Is attacked by generic Bad Guys who are destroyed by said superpower. Go somewhere, talk to some people, get attacked by more Generic Bad Guys who are destroyed by superpower. Rinse and repeat. The superpower always grows to be equal to whatever the Generic Bad Guys throw at the protagonist so there is never and sense of threat.

Gotcha.

But that's a familiar tune, but... I understand your plight, certainly this novel (and quite a few of the others I have read) seem to follow that pattern.

The bad guys get tougher, the good guys get tougher still- they maintain their lead. Kinda like a lot of games of D&D I have DMed.

Cheers Goonalan

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Gotcha.

But that's a familiar tune, but... I understand your plight, certainly this novel (and quite a few of the others I have read) seem to follow that pattern.

The bad guys get tougher, the good guys get tougher still- they maintain their lead. Kinda like a lot of games of D&D I have DMed.

Cheers Goonalan

It's the way it's done. You are right that Star Wars has a very simple story. The film could easily have been awful, it works because the story is well told. The characters are likeable, so we care about them. The good guys are clearly weaker than the bad guys, so "how will they win" is a meaningful question. The Force takes effort to learn, and Luke still needs Han to get Darth Vader of his back. If Spellfire had been Star Wars, Luke would have blasted the Death Star out of existence the instant the Millennium Falcon was caught in the tractor beam, then the rest of the run time would have been padded out by sending bigger and bigger Death Stars, implausibly large fleets of mini-Death Stars, the amassed might of every Sith ever, all of which get zapped out of existence with no effort or cleverness from the hero.

 

[Seramus]

Spellfire stood out to me as an Adventure instead of a Story. I also thought the spellfire was a bit special snowflake, especially since silverfire is also a thing. But that didn't take too much away from the fact that I could really imagine this story as a pack of PCs.

 

[Alzrius]

It's been well over twenty years since I've read this book, so I don't have many clear memories of it, which I suppose is also my indictment of it, since the books that I do like I tend to go back and re-read my favorite sections at various points. But not this one.

In truth, I don't think I've ever enjoyed an Ed Greenwood novel. The man has an incredibly fertile imagination, but his characters and his pacing always leave me cold. The characters (in my opinion) all tend towards very flat archetypes, particularly because they all seem to be completely ruled by their id. Characters who fall in love will be utterly flat-out crazy in love, unable to stop themselves from proclaiming their feelings out loud every other scene. Elminster and similar "mentor" characters will all vacillate between passive-aggressively snarking at their charges' naivete and having a plan for everything that could possibly happen when an enemy attacks. Villains will wear their foibles large, either plotting against everyone around them all of the time or dedicated beyond all reason to destroying the heroes.

The pacing isn't much better. His stories tend to proceed in an extremely chaotic manner, largely because he has magic show up everywhere with very little context. His adventures will have people stumble into portals of teleportation in old caves in the middle of nowhere, utter a word and accidentally activate an old wand that they thought was just a minor magic item, or stumble into some ancient but still-active spell that suddenly changes the entire scene. And while all of that makes sense within the context of a high-fantasy world with a long history, it's the presentation that I can't stand, because none of it is contextualized within the framework of the story, or at least not very much. These things just come out of left field and boom, the characters barely have a chance to react to them before the story is rushing onward to the next scene. That might be "realistic" for how things would work in a crazy fantasy world, but a sequence of "stuff just happens (with little explanation)" doesn't make for good reading. The characters don't need to be the center of the universe, but they shouldn't seem like they're constantly being buffeted by forces that they keep blindly stumbling into either.

So yeah, not a fan of this one.

 

[GreyLord]

Spellfire is one of my favorites of the Forgotten Realms Novels. It's fun, it's fast moving, and it's a LOT like how a D&D game would like to be run.

A LOT better than many of the later novels (avatar trilogies...cough...hack).

 

[mrpopstar]

My little librarian heart flutters every time I see an update to this thread. Keep feeding the light in that skull!

 

[Goonalan]

It's been well over twenty years since I've read this book, so I don't have many clear memories of it, which I suppose is also my indictment of it, since the books that I do like I tend to go back and re-read my favorite sections at various points. But not this one.

In truth, I don't think I've ever enjoyed an Ed Greenwood novel. The man has an incredibly fertile imagination, but his characters and his pacing always leave me cold. The characters (in my opinion) all tend towards very flat archetypes, particularly because they all seem to be completely ruled by their id. Characters who fall in love will be utterly flat-out crazy in love, unable to stop themselves from proclaiming their feelings out loud every other scene. Elminster and similar "mentor" characters will all vacillate between passive-aggressively snarking at their charges' naivete and having a plan for everything that could possibly happen when an enemy attacks. Villains will wear their foibles large, either plotting against everyone around them all of the time or dedicated beyond all reason to destroying the heroes.

The pacing isn't much better. His stories tend to proceed in an extremely chaotic manner, largely because he has magic show up everywhere with very little context. His adventures will have people stumble into portals of teleportation in old caves in the middle of nowhere, utter a word and accidentally activate an old wand that they thought was just a minor magic item, or stumble into some ancient but still-active spell that suddenly changes the entire scene. And while all of that makes sense within the context of a high-fantasy world with a long history, it's the presentation that I can't stand, because none of it is contextualized within the framework of the story, or at least not very much. These things just come out of left field and boom, the characters barely have a chance to react to them before the story is rushing onward to the next scene. That might be "realistic" for how things would work in a crazy fantasy world, but a sequence of "stuff just happens (with little explanation)" doesn't make for good reading. The characters don't need to be the center of the universe, but they shouldn't seem like they're constantly being buffeted by forces that they keep blindly stumbling into either.

So yeah, not a fan of this one.

Obviously I'm not going to make an attempt to convert you to the dark side, and I get all of the above- I've even said similar after reading other Greenwood novels.

It's becoming clear that Ed Greenwood has (at times) a little more in the way of a license to get away with things, this book is 380+ pages (from memory) and there seems otherwise to be a uniformity to these novels 312 pages, no more- no less. Mr Lowder earlier in this forum spoke about getting special permission to go over the word/page count (he was allowed approx. 330 pages, from memory).

Likewise I wouldn't want to be Ed Greenwoods ed(itor) because you're right- the randomness abounds, speak word on random bone and get transported to who knows where- chased by a Gargoyle, and then leap in to the portal... There was a short story back in one of the earlier collections (I think) in which Big E went hopping from plane to plane and it was just Gah!

But this one, as stated (imho) appears to offer less of this, and much less of the (least enjoyable) sexy Gandalf version of Big E.

I think I also said something similar with regard to the anything goes nature of the Greenwood novel, we're in (name of place) with (name of person) doing (name of task)- five lines later and we've shifted location, person and task- ten lines later, we're off again. But again, less of it here- I think, fairly linear.

But, and this is my big BUT- I'm here to find out about the Forgotten Realms, first and foremost, Ed Greenwood is making a lot of the place sound and feel real to me. In a way that many of the other novels fail (or else fail to try), possibly my one-eyed view- I want to find things to drag in to my game- places, people, words (and sayings) and anything else that will fit. Greenwood's books have that in spades, like you said- an incredibly fertile imagination.

For I don't know how long I lived (dependent on who was asking) in Greyhawk, then in some generic homebrew world (called Oerth) that was Greyhawk in all but name (and map), now... at last, I've started to make a home for myself (and my players) in the Forgotten Realms.

I'm fifty books in here, and I can still see the point of it all.

Perhaps the book just caught me by surprise, I needed a lift after the last one in Legacy of the Drow- this was it, it just swung by and I really raced through it, pleasantly gurgling to myself- as you do.

Thanks for commenting, always appreciated.

Cheers Goonalan