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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dire Bare" data-source="post: 5098885" data-attributes="member: 18182">If you have developed a dislike for shared world fiction, fair or not, randomly picking up some new shared world fiction to "give it another try" would be a bit masochistic, I think.  However, if a friend recommends an author or book, don't reject the suggestion because it's shared world fiction, go ahead and give it a try!  Unless, of course, your friend has a habit of recommending stinkers . . .Constraints?  Yes, writing a novel within a shared world does impose constraints an author wouldn't have with his/her own unique world.  But that has nothing to do with quality.HAH!  Well that's your problem right there!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Rose, bless her heart, wrote some okay Endless Quest books back in the '80s . . . but then somebody gave her the chance at some full length D&D novels that have soured many on shared world fiction.Totally disagree with this!It's not that shared world novel lines have factors that select for poorer authors, not at all.  Poor authors are selected by poor editors.  There are book lines both within and without the shared world genre that have crappy editors and therefore crappy author selections.D&D shared world fiction started with the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy, a great novel series from the POV of a teen interested in fantasy, and a mediocre-to-good series from a more well read adult POV.  It was an experiment by TSR and was one of those wildly successful products that took the company and the audience somewhat by surprise!  (Like the Magic: The Gathering card game)TSR had no experience prior to running a successful fiction line, and once they got past those initial three books they made some serious missteps.  The period in the 80s and early 90s right after Dragonlance debuted saw some good books . . . but also saw a decent amount of mediocre to poor books.  Almost every time I hear somebody complain about D&D shared world fiction, it's based on reading some of the stinkers from this period.This was not due to problems with shared world fiction, but due to problems with an inexperienced company with inexperienced and poor editors (overall, I'm sure they had some good editors back in the day).Since the dark years, first TSR and now WotC have come a long way.  I would argue that NONE of the current crop of novels (since the mid to late 90s till today) are crap.  And only SOME are mediocre.  Many are GREAT!  Future classics of literature, maybe not, but damn fine reads.In good faith I can't recommend the Dragonlance series right now (although I do think the "Anvil of Time" series is pretty good), and can understand if Eberron isn't your cup of tea . . . but I do think checking out the current crop of Realms novels is a good idea, especially Kemp, Baker, Byers, Jones . . . the "Ed Greenwood Presents Waterdeep" series is filled with new, but good, authors and books (but I'd stay away from anything actually penned by Ed Greenwood) . . . in fact, almost anything Realms published within the past two-to-three years is pretty good (well, ah, maybe except "The Empyrean Odyssey" trilogy, that one was a bit weird) . . . especially older titles republished in omnibus format, such as "House of Serpents" and "Return of the Archwizards" . . . .</blockquote>

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