| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Rory |
Posted - 22 Jan 2006 : 02:30:09
I was on a vid game message board many months ago and I suggested that RPG devs go out and hire some fantasy authors. I talked about how the novel Temple Hill would make a great action RPG or adventure game and most of the RPGs that I thought had a great story like Pool of Radiance were originally adventure mods. To my surprise most people disagreed with me. Their impression of FR novels was that they were the B movies of literature. I thought they were nuts I told them that I read a many classics growing up and many FR novels were as good or better.
I’m asking you guys because I’m bias. Ever since PoR and the FRs and AD&D DC comics I have been a FR freak.
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| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Jorkens |
Posted - 21 Apr 2007 : 09:33:56
quote:
Originally posted by Kaladorm
quote:
Originally posted by KnightErrantJR
I have also had a hard time working through Three Hearts and Three Lions, which I bought because I had heard that it inspired many D&D conventions, but I cannot, to this day, get past half the book.
I found the dwarfs speech simply hard work and not fun to read. I didn't think it was an amazing read but it was a nice romp through a fantasy world (if it felt a little like a whistlestop tour of many locations). I read it after reading the list of influences it had, but forgot what they were. The only one I could remember was the use of the word geas :) Nothing else really 'screamed' D&D at me
I thought about Hugis language ( think English with a smattering of scandinavian and archaic terms )when reading it, being Norwegian and with some knowledge of old Norse it wasn't that much of a problem to read, but it would be a hindrance to most readers. That and the knightly questing structure of the tale would put of many readers. I like Three Hearts and Three Lions though and would heartily recommend The Broken Sword by Anderson also.
As Faraer mentions the D&D trolls are the ones in this book and the paladin character of Holger was a major influence on Gygax. |
| Faraer |
Posted - 20 Apr 2007 : 23:58:59
I missed the last part of this thread last year.quote:
Originally posted by Mystery_Man
Actually there is a fairly interesting conversation going on elsewhere as to whether or not the fantasy genre is a modern creation or not.
Modern quasi-medieval heroic fantasy might be called a genre, like the medieval romance or the social novel. Fantastic literature as a whole is not. (See Clive Barker's extemporization from last year's FantasyCon.)quote:
Originally posted by Richard Lee Byers
The fact that Homer and his audience may well have believed in Zeus and his family doesn't ultimately matter (at least not to me.) What's important is that Zeus and the gang weren't a part of their actual experience. That means that when Homer depicted the Olympians, he was working in the same way that a modern fantasy writer works, and that when his audience listened to or read his poem, they experienced it in the same way (with a sense of wonder) that modern fantasy readers experience a modern fantasy novel.
We don't know Homer didn't experience magic and gods; many modern fantasy authors have. There are differences between mythic, religious literature and self-conscious art, but I think the idea that they're categorically separate is a mistake linked to the persistent but anthropologically discredited idea that premodern people believed in their gods the way some modern doctrinal Christians have 'faith' in the literal rigid truth of the bible. Greek theatre is not a distinct thing from the religious rituals it descended from.quote:
Originally posted by Kaladorm
Nothing else really 'screamed' D&D at me
Three Hearts and Three Lions is the main source of D&D trolls and one of the main influences on D&D paladins. |
| Kaladorm |
Posted - 20 Apr 2007 : 22:45:05
quote:
Originally posted by KnightErrantJR
I have also had a hard time working through Three Hearts and Three Lions, which I bought because I had heard that it inspired many D&D conventions, but I cannot, to this day, get past half the book.
I found the dwarfs speech simply hard work and not fun to read. I didn't think it was an amazing read but it was a nice romp through a fantasy world (if it felt a little like a whistlestop tour of many locations). I read it after reading the list of influences it had, but forgot what they were. The only one I could remember was the use of the word geas :) Nothing else really 'screamed' D&D at me |
| Rory |
Posted - 31 Jan 2006 : 23:08:35
quote:
Actually, I wasn't making a statement which is superior. I was merely saying that about the only thing asparaguses and oranges have in common is that they're vegetative.
I understand what you meant and I agree with you. I was just adding to a side note. |
| Mystery_Man |
Posted - 31 Jan 2006 : 23:05:57
quote:
Originally posted by Winterfox
Uhm, are you saying that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is folklore? 'Cause, y'know, it's not. At all.
No, they are two separate examples. Sorry, that even confused me when I reread it, should have made two separate sentences. :) |
| Winterfox |
Posted - 31 Jan 2006 : 22:33:39
Apropos of nothing: Twain's one of the least pretentious authors ever, and I love him muchly for that. (Well, that and for A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.)
quote:
Originally posted by Mystery_Man
Heck, take any medieval folklore and throw it in (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight).
Uhm, are you saying that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is folklore? 'Cause, y'know, it's not. At all. |
| Richard Lee Byers |
Posted - 31 Jan 2006 : 21:24:53
I agree with you that we can trace fantasy back a long, long time. The fact that Homer and his audience may well have believed in Zeus and his family doesn't ultimately matter (at least not to me.) What's important is that Zeus and the gang weren't a part of their actual experience. That means that when Homer depicted the Olympians, he was working in the same way that a modern fantasy writer works, and that when his audience listened to or read his poem, they experienced it in the same way (with a sense of wonder) that modern fantasy readers experience a modern fantasy novel.
Anyway, to respond to the question, I consider myself quite well read in the classics of the modern fantasy genre (I admit, I haven't gotten around to a lot of the recent stuff, but by definition, if it's new, it hasn't had time to establish itself as a classic yet, right?) I'm better read than some in the classics of world literature, not nearly so well read as others. I'm pretty solid on ancient and medieval stuff, but have missed a fair number of modern works that are considered classic. Have never read Proust or Tolstoy for example, just to expose two of the many gaping holes in my education. But if you want to talk about Goethe (well, his Faust anyway) or Twain, I've got you covered. |
| Mystery_Man |
Posted - 31 Jan 2006 : 20:29:59
quote:
Originally posted by Richard Lee Byers
Well read in the classics of the genre or well read in the classics of world literature?
That's a good question. I have absolutely no idea how to frame the answer. Pick one, pick both.
Actually there is a fairly interesting conversation going on elsewhere as to whether or not the fantasy genre is a modern creation or not. One has (not me I'm not that outrageous) put forth the proposition that fantasy is a modern creation as in the last 100 years. I would completely disagree, and have...
Lets say The Iliad, or Aesops Fables, A Midsummer Nights Dream, or even Gulliver's Travels. Heck, take any medieval folklore and throw it in (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight). Those IMO could be classics of the genre in a "classic" sense. |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 31 Jan 2006 : 19:58:28
Well Richard, as far as I'm concerned, if you have read Secret Wars, the Infinity series, the Phoenix stories in X-Men, Crisis on Infinate Earths, Batman: Year One, Man of Steel, then, hey, thats enough classics for me . . . |
| Richard Lee Byers |
Posted - 31 Jan 2006 : 17:29:14
Well read in the classics of the genre or well read in the classics of world literature? |
| Mystery_Man |
Posted - 31 Jan 2006 : 14:41:04
quote:
Originally posted by Winterfox
Actually, I wasn't making a statement which is superior. I was merely saying that about the only thing asparaguses and oranges have in common is that they're vegetative.
Actully they don't even have that in common. hee.
Interesting conversation so far though. I wonder how many FR authors today are well read in the classics. |
| Winterfox |
Posted - 31 Jan 2006 : 00:47:21
quote:
Originally posted by Rory
But you can still compare an orange to an asparagus.
You just have to keep the right perspective. To me the comparison is like comparing a college basketball team that runs a bastardized system to a team of Basketball Hall of Famers. Its possible for the college team to have a player that is a future Hall of Famer and its also possible for the team to have a few players who in some aspects are better then a Hall of Famer. Classic literature has 5,000,500,or 50 years of work depending on how far you want to go back, and almost no literary constraints as whole, although individually many did. FR novels are 20 years old and we all understand their system. You just have to keep that perspective.
Actually, I wasn't making a statement which is superior. I was merely saying that about the only thing asparaguses and oranges have in common is that they're vegetative. |
| Rory |
Posted - 30 Jan 2006 : 23:48:07
Now that I have had time to reflect a bit I can see why I had that impression. Unfortunately you don’t see that type of violence or gang raping by Kobolds in animation from anything but anime. So I started picturing the novel as a late night Comedy Channel anime cartoon with Broms western art style.
My problem with the writing in anime cartoons is that they go out of their way to convince you that the characters are bad SOBs, and/or cool. They usually fail and it comes off as pretentious and cheesy. When writing about a Drow city you have little choice but to create characters that range from the morally ambiguous to the actual bad SOBs. Dissolution pulls this off without the pretentiousness. Picture watching Quenthel puts a crossbow bolt in her lieutenant’s forehead on the Comedy Channel. I could see millions of highschool kids talking about how she is a baaaad bitch after that one.
There is no question; I will get the next book. The characters that are making the journey have so much personality. I think that’s one of the reason the violence works. It all has a reason ingrained in each characters persona. Quenthel wants to install fear, Jeggred has a passion for killing and hurting, Ryld is able to turn anger into focus and block everything out, Faeryl is the survivor, while Pharaun is able to rationalize his conscience and justify his yearn for power.
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| Gellion |
Posted - 30 Jan 2006 : 03:16:00
quote:
Originally posted by Rory
After reading Dissolution I had an odd impression. About 40 pages into the novel I started to envision everything as an anime cartoon. This is odd because I’m not much of a fan of anime. Never before have I read a book and thought wow if this was an anime cartoon I would own it. I have only owned one anime cartoon in my life. Dissolution was a 2005 Christmas present so I have not read any of the other WotSQ novels. I’m wondering if you are an anime fan or if anyone else has had the same impression.
Hehe, I can see how you can see that. I really Dissolution, I reccomend you pick up the rest of the series soon.:) |
| Richard Lee Byers |
Posted - 29 Jan 2006 : 01:18:10
Nope, I'm really not an anime fan at all. I am a comic-book geek, but I'm into your basic American superhero stuff: Batman, Spider-Man, Hellboy, etc. |
| Rory |
Posted - 28 Jan 2006 : 21:36:26
quote:
Originally posted by Winterfox
Er, a fact of which I'm well aware, thanks. :P (If you couldn't tell that I was facetious from the "teenagers are idiotic and hormonal" bit on, well...)
To bring it marginally back on-topic: if you want to compare FR novels to literary canon classics, then uh... don't. There's little point; it's not even apple and orange and more like, oh, orange and asparagus.
But you can still compare an orange to an asparagus.
You just have to keep the right perspective. To me the comparison is like comparing a college basketball team that runs a bastardized system to a team of Basketball Hall of Famers. Its possible for the college team to have a player that is a future Hall of Famer and its also possible for the team to have a few players who in some aspects are better then a Hall of Famer. Classic literature has 5,000,500,or 50 years of work depending on how far you want to go back, and almost no literary constraints as whole, although individually many did. FR novels are 20 years old and we all understand their system. You just have to keep that perspective.
I have a question for Mr Byers if he is still chipping this thread.
After reading Dissolution I had an odd impression. About 40 pages into the novel I started to envision everything as an anime cartoon. This is odd because I’m not much of a fan of anime. Never before have I read a book and thought wow if this was an anime cartoon I would own it. I have only owned one anime cartoon in my life. Dissolution was a 2005 Christmas present so I have not read any of the other WotSQ novels. I’m wondering if you are an anime fan or if anyone else has had the same impression.
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| Erik Scott de Bie |
Posted - 28 Jan 2006 : 18:56:49
quote:
Originally posted by Richard Lee Byers
The Realms are a universe worth writing about partly because they're complex and multifaceted, like the real world. It's easy to imagine all sorts of people living out all manner of adventures there, which is to say we can deal with pretty much the totality of human experience filtered through the lens of fantasy. So, why shouldn't we? Why shouldn't writers have the freedom to talk about anything they like, so long as they can do it in the context of a good sword-and-sorcery yarn?
Just my opinion, of course.
I agree with that opinion. There is nothing about a shared-world venture that restricts people from dealing with many, many themes, and I think that the different novels do, indeed, do so.
Erevis Cale is clearly about something (as I understand it: fate vs. choice, necessity vs. some kind of moralism, truth of power) different than the Year of Rogue Dragons (once again, some of what I've taken: dealing with trauma, stopping being "broken"). All the while, Ghostwalker (which I can definitely speak to) asks about the difference between vengeance and justice, the ambiguity of good and evil, and shows the damage hatred wreaks upon the world.
And those are all just examples off the top of my head. So, I see a great deal of thematic diversity.
Cheers |
| Faraer |
Posted - 28 Jan 2006 : 02:11:14
If every Realms book says exactly the same things about, say, friendship or political power, the line is mere pastiche. If each book says something different, unrelated and incompatible, that's abusing the setting as a proper-name source and dumping ground. The Realms is a world of considerable depth, and part of that depth is a moral, philosophical and tonal landscape which ties together the historical details and social patterns and makes them the way they are. As with the genre of swords and sorcery itself, that landscape allows authors freedom to explore different things within it, stretch and even outlie its borders, draw on it to make their work stronger, and at the same time contribute to the fabric for the sake of the setting and others who write and play in it. As with the sourcebooks, some Realms novels are written by people who don't have the time, inclination, or affinity to look beneath the surface, understand the setting and write in harmony with its themes: to use its chords and motifs for the benefit of all.
Of course, everyone who edits and writes in shared worlds has a different idea of how to compromise between absolute fidelity to what went before and writing whatever the hell they want; different legitimate objectives and different ideas of how to achieve them. Thematically relatively coherent or relatively dispersed is one of those choices. But an array of atomic, philosophically discrete novels linked only by nominal history and geography would be a big waste. My own preference isn't for anything like absolute uniformity, just for the sharing to be more aware, lucid on the big scale, and mutually reinforcing than it's sometimes been. (In other ways, I'd like the novel line to be more diverse.) |
| Richard Lee Byers |
Posted - 27 Jan 2006 : 23:34:50
The rest of the CREW, I mean. CREW, not SCREW.
Talk about your Freudian slips... |
| Richard Lee Byers |
Posted - 27 Jan 2006 : 23:33:23
It's entirely possible that I'm still not really understanding your point, Faraer. Maybe because I'm taking the word theme to mean something different than what you mean by it. But that said, it seems to me that it's a good thing if FR fiction addresses a diversity of themes. Doesn't that make the canon richer than if Elaine, Ed, Bob, Paul, Murray, Rich, Tom, Erik, Lisa, I, and the rest of the crew were all talking about the same underlying ideas, or if I myself dealt with the same underlying ideas book after book after book?
The Realms are a universe worth writing about partly because they're complex and multifaceted, like the real world. It's easy to imagine all sorts of people living out all manner of adventures there, which is to say we can deal with pretty much the totality of human experience filtered through the lens of fantasy. So, why shouldn't we? Why shouldn't writers have the freedom to talk about anything they like, so long as they can do it in the context of a good sword-and-sorcery yarn?
Just my opinion, of course.
Kuje's Edit: I fixed Richard's spelling. Hope he doesn't mind and I laughed at the mispelling. :) |
| Faraer |
Posted - 27 Jan 2006 : 20:06:12
Richard: This is another reason I want to see an interview with some of the Realms book editors, but it seems to me they've been more concerned with literal than thematic consistency when editing the line, which is simpler to judge, and especially since different people have been in charge. Diversity is good, but incoherence is bad, and there are Realms books that would have been better if they'd been done with greater consciousness of the Realms' existing, underlying (sometimes buried) themes. When races and characters are treated radically differently by different authors, no wonder the subtle stuff is too. The Realms fiction corpus isn't as much more than the sum of its parts as it could be.
I'm not talking about using novelists to write parts of computer games, but of first-rate literary talented becoming games designers, and a few novelists learning to write interactive worlds. In discussing the differences between media, it's hard to separate their necessary characteristics and their contingent ones (just as people sometimes mistake mediums for genres, as often with RPGs and manga and anime); when computer games are more than a half-century old they'll be much different from todays. |
| Winterfox |
Posted - 27 Jan 2006 : 17:59:57
Speaking as someone who writes fiction and has made a feeble attempt at a NWN module, here's what I think vastly differentiate the two (keep in mind, I've western (C)RPGs in mind, not Final Fantasy and the like; JRPGs are book-linear most of the time, anyway):
- In a game, you have to take into consideration variables -- for instance, the skills/classes of the protagonist, the quests she has or hasn't done, the ways she solved them, and even the makeup of the party (if any) she leads. Do party members have their own stories? Subquests? How do they interact with each other, and how do NPCs interact with them? Are there multiple endings? If it's a sequel, what ending from the first game do you go with? Obviously, if you're writing fiction, it's all much more linear.
- The world must revolve around the protagonist: yes, you can have that in a book, but IMO, it'd make for a horrible book. In a novel, you can switch viewpoints, tell the story from someone else's eye, and hatch subplots that can progress without the protagonist's knowledge or assistance. But in most RPGs, every quest must be done by the PC, every loot obtained by the PC, everything important waits for the PC's decision. Otherwise, there wouldn't be much content for the player to experience, would there? Even the development of other characters cannot go on without the PC to witness it somehow. If there's a romantic option, all the possible romantic interests will be interested in the PC and the PC alone -- they aren't going to find each other attractive, and would rather have catfights over the protag.
- Cliches are, strangely, more forgivable. Slap on tree-hugging elves, gruff dwarven smiths and gold-hoarding dragons. Bastardize Quenya and Sindarin then pretend it's Elvish. Have the protagonist be some unknown from a quiet village. Gamers tend to expect and accept this, but if they see the same in a book, they're less likely to forgive and forget. (Yes, people voice the sentiment that they're tired, tired, tired of "Save the world, young farmboy!" plot, but in a game, a criticism of cliches isn't likely to dominate a review. Not unreasonable, since there're graphics, gameplay, and so on to consider.)
Mind you, I'm comparing all this to (what I consider to be) good fiction. There're fantasy novels that follow all the formulae and churn out all the possible stock types but will still be lapped up anyway. (Eragon, Derivative Eddings, Waste of Time, to name but a few.) |
| Bluenose |
Posted - 27 Jan 2006 : 15:47:32
quote:
Originally posted by hydr0x
quote:
Originally posted by Faraer
When the videogame industry gets older, and the influence of the current indie gaming movement is felt, eventually we will get top-flight writers working on games, and hybridizing their skills with those of world and game designers, and then things will start getting interesting.
As an avid collector and fan of videogames i have to reply to this ;)
I'm to sleepy right now to think of any examples but i'm pretty sure there already are examples of AD&D/FR games with storylines written by well known fantasy authors (including RAS iirc) and there might be other examples, especially in the RPG and (Click&Point-)Adventure Genres (did Terry Pratchett work on the Discworld games?? no idea), not to mention the connections between the game industry and Hollywood's screenwriters and directors (which is quite similar, although the movie industry is not anywhere as old as some of the classics in literature)
Terry was involved in the script for the Discworld games (and I believe also was involved with the GURPS versions). If I'm remembering correctly there was a game set in Krondor in Raymond Feist's world which he was involved with. And I've a feeling that there was a SF game that a really well known author was involved with, possibly JG Ballard, which was a real flop.
The problem I think is that authors of novels and scriptwriters of movies have a story in mind. They are used to a situation where the story advances down a particular path. Computer games generally try to be less linear, giving the player multiple choices of action and often more than one ending. It seems like a different set of skills are needed, although some will certainly translate. I think the best might be TV scriptwriters, who often end up setting up possiblities in a season-arc without knowing what will happen in the end. So if you really want a big name, Joss Whedon might be the way to go. |
| hydr0x |
Posted - 27 Jan 2006 : 10:03:03
quote:
Originally posted by Faraer
When the videogame industry gets older, and the influence of the current indie gaming movement is felt, eventually we will get top-flight writers working on games, and hybridizing their skills with those of world and game designers, and then things will start getting interesting.
As an avid collector and fan of videogames i have to reply to this ;)
I'm to sleepy right now to think of any examples but i'm pretty sure there already are examples of AD&D/FR games with storylines written by well known fantasy authors (including RAS iirc) and there might be other examples, especially in the RPG and (Click&Point-)Adventure Genres (did Terry Pratchett work on the Discworld games?? no idea), not to mention the connections between the game industry and Hollywood's screenwriters and directors (which is quite similar, although the movie industry is not anywhere as old as some of the classics in literature) |
| Richard Lee Byers |
Posted - 27 Jan 2006 : 03:36:34
Not sure what you mean by "thematically overdiverse?" Can you expand on this point, please? |
| Faraer |
Posted - 26 Jan 2006 : 23:20:13
Write-for-hire franchise fiction is generally about as good -- judged as stand-alone novels -- as commercial fiction in general. Slightly worse, due to a combination of the problems writing in someone else's world and the lower prestige and the authors thus used. (Franchise fiction written by the creator of the franchise is a somewhat different category.)
But shared-world fiction is able to do things that stand-alone novels can't do, reinforcing each other with a shared descriptive, cultural and symbolic vocabulary. When writer B writes about some element -- if he or she does justice to it -- it comes with mana (and potential verisimilitude) built for it by writer A. This is a really important compensating factor, and not one likely to be understood by literary critics unfamiliar with worldbuilding. Realms fiction is thematically overdiverse, but we're in the early days of shared-world writing, and I think we'll get bodies of work that will be greater artistic objects as a whole than some would expect.
That lower prestige has a lot of snobbery to it, of course, with its usual purpose of social definition. Just look at the current idea of 'pulp fiction' -- a selective, condescending confection abstracted from actual pulp writing (neglecting that the term 'pulp' is to contrast with 'slick'; 'esoteric' unbound from 'exoteric' is an interesting comparison). Or the notion of the 'B movie' now no such thing is made.
When the videogame industry gets older, and the influence of the current indie gaming movement is felt, eventually we will get top-flight writers working on games, and hybridizing their skills with those of world and game designers, and then things will start getting interesting. |
| Erik Scott de Bie |
Posted - 25 Jan 2006 : 03:36:58
quote:
Originally posted by Richard Lee Byers
Is stuff like mine the oranges or the asparaguses (asparagi?)?
I don't know, Rich, I'm a little confused by all this food talk as well, though it does resonate quite well. I personally think......
Dissolution is like a black cherry-flavored margarita.
The Rage struck me as a Mayan sweet onion, fried in just the right quantity of olive oil and mixed with The Rite, which was much like Mexican red pepper spread with chipotle and the tiniest bit of Jose's best.
Here's hoping The Ruin comes out as the next set of vegetables needed. 
But anyway. My diversion aside: I shall kick back and enjoy your regularly scheduled discussion, which has been quite interesting thus far. 
Cheers
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| wwwwwww |
Posted - 25 Jan 2006 : 00:07:41
quote:
Originally posted by Richard Lee Byers
Is stuff like mine the oranges or the asparaguses (asparagi?)?
Well, you already know my thoughts on your "Dead God Trilogy." If anyone here hasn't yet read that series, READ IT NOW (buy 'em before they go out of print)! Without a doubt, one of my favorite fantasy series', much less limited to a shared world (although, to be honest, there never were any more Scarred Lands novels). I haven't read your YofRD trilogy yet, but if it's half as good, I'll enjoy it. |
| Winterfox |
Posted - 24 Jan 2006 : 23:26:04
I don't know. Oranges and asparaguses are equally healthy, I think. (Though I really wouldn't want fresh orange slathered with gravy and put in the same dish as roast beef, say. On the other hand, I refuse to eat asparaguses by themselves, uncooked and unseasoned. Ew.) |
| Richard Lee Byers |
Posted - 24 Jan 2006 : 22:31:28
Is stuff like mine the oranges or the asparaguses (asparagi?)? |
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