Why do wizards of the Coast books suck so much?

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I have read a lot of WotC books lately and most of them are a waste of a good premise and/or papper. some of the ones I have read are: Heirs of Prophecy, Keep on the Bourderlands, Caverns of Chaos (or Caves of Chaos?) And the Baldur's Gate Series (Gag). What has your experience ben like with them lately?

 

I've avoided them for several years now. Just accept that they suck and move on to the thousands of awesome books that are out there.

 

I find a good author and stick with them. I read the Forgotten Realms series (I can't get into the Dragonlance universe) and I read Richard Lee Byers, Richard Baker, Troy Denning (at least his 'Return of the Archwizards' series was good), R. A. Salvatore and my favorite Paul S. Kemp (his Erevis Cale books were awesome in my opinion).

Special reference to the word 'opinion' since that is mostly what liking something is about. Bassil, to redeem WotC try reading the War of the Spider Queen, The Year of Rogue Dragons, and The Erevis Cale series.

 

Years ago I loved reading TSR books and then I became a workaholic and then suffered a bad head injury and realized I had lost the ability to read. When I started to recover I thought I would start back reading something easy and that I enjoyed. My Mother bought me some WotC titles because she knew I loved D&D. These books made want to loose the ability to read forever

[ July 18, 2006, 13:24: Message edited by: Bassil Warbone ]

 

Ouch. I guess they must be really bad then. Right now though, I'm deeply in love with R. A. Salvatore. Anyone have any recommendations about what to read after that? I would like to stay in the Forgotten Reals world...

 

Richard Lee Byars is doing some good stuff, I enjoy his books.
You can;t beat Elaine CUnningham, whose work first introduced me to fantasy (via a littl e book called The UNicorn Hunt), and I'm still huntinganything written about the Seven SIsters, having just read Stormlight, about Storm SIlverhand, funnily enough.

I don't bother looking at who wrote a book ('cept if it's by an author I enjoy, or by Athans, for the opposite reason) but instead which characters. I adore the 7 sisters, 'specially Storm, and Volo always makes me laugh. I can take or leave Drizzt, and most others though.

Ed Greenwood is good, if you ignore Elminster in Hell.

 

I find the FR setting awesome with the exception of some really crappy books.

Try Richard Baker as well in addition to all those suggested here.

heh, no wonder. this was easily the worst book in that series. try Shattered Mask, awesome. lord of stormweather was pretty good as well.

novelizations of games usually suck. the only exception that i've ever seen of this is "The Dig" by Alan Dean Foster.

 

The usual problem with RPG novels is that they are written by the game designers. While is is necessary for them to have at least minor qualities as authors, most of them suck at novels.

The worst example in my eyes are the novelizations of the german RPG Das Schwarze Auge. I did not find a single book that was well written.

D&D comes close second, with Hickman, Weiss, Cunningham, Keith Baker and Richard Baker as exceptions. I was surprised, however, that Ed Greenwood is the worst of the lot.

Surprisingly, most of the early Shadowrun novels are high quality stuff.

By the way: Has anyone heard what became of Nyx Smith?

 

I second Elaine Cunningham as an exception. I read her Councillors and kings triology, and it was very well written. Besides a very likable setting (FR - halruaa) quality of writing is on a very fair level.

 

yeah, that trilogy was pretty awesome. better than her liriel baenre stuff imo.

 

*Starts skinning everyone in here alive*

I've only read 3 books so far (on my 4th; Elminster: Making of a Mage) and I have loved them all (written by a different author each). My fav. so far is the current author; Ed Greenwood. I recently bought Icewind Dale 1 and bought the book the same day. I'm LOVING the similarities both have so far, and how they inspire me to do read and play the game at the same time for some reason

Just got off 14 hour shift and I'm too tired to bother with the spelling and commas and such.

 

I object to the title of this title of Forum. I have about 20 of the Forgotten Realms books and none of them are bad.

 

Well, in that case, you are beyond any help.

Or you just read the good ones.

 

I've got loads of the FR novels. Most of them are quite good imo. However, the series I'm stuck with now is kinda crappy, the Watercourse Trilogy by Philip Athans. Very un-realms like.

Also, many of the stand-alone books in the new lines (Priests, Wizards, Fighters, etc.) suck. Lady of Poison by Bruce Cordell sucked major ass. So did Master of Chains by Jess Lebow. So no more books from those 2 lines for me. However, Blackstaff by Steven Schend was pretty good, not to mention pretty significant if you read FR books regularly.

 

I think the only problem with Wizards of the Coast books are finding a compleat set of them. I'm probably in the wrong country to be a fan of them.

 

The problem I have with FR and generally D&D books is that they are artisanship more than art, if you know what I mean. They may be nice to read, interesting, have a spark here and there, but you still feel like you're reading something you buy at the airport. Sometimes they are too schematic, sometimes they are too politically correct, sometimes they are just shallow. And they tend to be overrated and overadvertised. Perhaps the big hype contributes negatively to the reception of the books, leaving the reader with a certain degree of disappointment with the discrepancies between his expectations and what he actually gets to read.

 

I agree, chev. I read The Last Mythal Trilogy by Rich Baker at the moment and I'm a bit disappointed. The story is nice and all, but he is not able to fill it with life. The characters are just bland, and while I want to know how the story ends (despite spoilers), I don't care for any of the main characters.

 

Game-related fiction in general, really. Actually, make that shared universe fiction. Star Wars, Star Trek, Battletech, Shadowrun, The assorted Warhammer novels, and so on...these all feature quality that varies wildly, but seldom exceeds decent.

 

I've read some books of Elaine Cunningham (Liriel Baenre stuff) and R. A. Salvatore (first ten books of Drizzt's adventures). What make me mad is seeing a page about Drizzt's previous adventures in the later books of series. I don't know whether this only occurs in Turkish translation or English version has the same problem. After reading first two trilogies when I saw in Legacy more than one page of Drizzt's previous adventures i have gone mad.

I think it is done for people who didn't read Dark elf and IWD trilogies. But who on earth would start reading about Drizzt with Legacy instead of Dark Elf trilogy?