23. 1988 (Aug.) - Dragonlance (D&D) - Nancy Varian Berberick - Stormblade (Dragonlance #11)

Series: Heroes Volume 2

A part of the Heroes cycle, Stormblade is a perfectly good Dragonlance novel, but it seems to be stuck in the wrong place. The Heroes cycle usually follows the story of an important character in the universe, the first volume covering Huma, an almost mythical hero of the universe, and the volumes after this one doing a similar job of fleshing out great characters.

Stormblade is a more typical D&D novel of the style where you get a party together and give them a quest which they must achieve before the end of the book. In this case they have to retrieve a new kingsword which was stolen and which would give the wielder the power to be the new regent king of the Dwarves of Thorbardin. 

The story is fun, happening parallel to the "Dragons" trilogy, with some of the characters being not too original (the Kender here is just a copy of Tasslehoff, but older), still it fleshes out the universe nicely and it's a fun read. By the end it feels like there's a sequel being set up, but that was not to come, further cementing the idea that this is somewhat out of place in the Dragonlance novels.

TL; DR: 6/10

22. 1988. (Jun.) Greyhawk (D&D) - Rose Estes- The Name of the Game (Greyhawk #7)

 

Series: Greyhawk Adventures Vol. 6 

Actually a pretty nice D&D novel in what is a pretty disappointing run of Greyhawk set novels. Greyhawk never really rose above the level of standard Fantasy world, with none of the originality in Dragonlance, Ravenloft or even Forgotten Realms, in spite of it being the original D&D setting. This makes sense as it was created by Gygax as the game was developed, not so oriented to make it a salable property, but as a basic fantasy setting.

That being said, this is a good book. Moving on from the overly complicated Mika trilogy, this book keeps Mika as the main character but has a whole new story for him, only with references to events of the trilogy but no deep connection to it. All that remains of those books are Mika and Tam, his wolf. 

Storywise, it's good and more focused than previous entries. The story takes Mika to a country in turmoil as everyone is addicted to a game with such huge wins and losses that it changes people's lives completely. The previous ruler has lost the kingdom in this game and stuff has gone weird. I actually had to go check if this was a rip-off of Iain M. Bank's Player of Games, but it isn't, neither is it vice-versa, they're both from 1988, so it's just one of those really weird convergences. Recommended and pretty fun. 

TL;DR: 7/10 Fun and focused, one of the best Greyhawk novels. 

21. 1988. (Apr.) - Forgotten Realms - Douglas Niles - Black Wizards (Forgotten Realms #3)

Series: Moonshae Trilogy #2

As usual, for me at least, with a lot of these D&D novels, I really enjoy the first half of the novels much more than the second. This is probably because I get bored with the inevitable long battle scenes towards the end of the books, and because to do those well you have to be a really good writer, which Niles isn't... he´s ok, but no great.

So I enjoy mostly the plotty and character based stuff, and this, being a middle book in a trilogy has slightly less of that than the first one, there's no need to set up the world or the main characters, as that was done in the first part, to you jump straight into the action after giving up an update on what is going on with our characters.

It starts pretty well, with a kind of murder mystery and mysterious assassins and a quest to find those responsible, but soon it devolves into battle after battle, set in different locations and with constantly shifting casts. I enjoyed the book when it was taking a breather, but soon got bored with the extended fight scenes. Oh well. Still, it's ok.

TL;DR: 6/10 Like the characters, bored of the battles.