26. 1988. (Nov.) - Greyhawk (Gygax) - Gary Gygax - Dance of Demons (Gygax #4)

 

Series: Gord, the Rogue #6

There is much to be thankful to Gary Gygax for, he invented Dungeons and Dragons which brought such joy to so many people, for example, but his forays into fiction are surely not a thing to thank him for. 

Dance of Demons is the last of his Greyhawk novels and much like his previous ones it is pretty terrible. By this time Gygax had acrimoniously separated from what was then TSR, the company which sold D&D and there was clearly a lot of bitterness in the air. In this last volume he decided to burn his remaining bridge by just destroying the world that he had created.

This could be the premise for a pretty interesting novel, but it wasn't to be. Gygax writes in an overly florid way which commits all the worst sins of fantasy writing. The two greatest of these are his penchant for long, drawn-out, battle sequences, which are really dull and the creation of an overly complex cast of pretty indistinguishable characters. There must be some 20 different demons here all with nearly unpronounceable names and paper-thin characterisations for whom you care nothing if they live or die. It feels like the novel should come with a 500 page volume of extra material fleshing out the world and characters, I kind of need to see Gygax's notes to make sense of this, or even care. By the end the universe is destroyed and our main characters live on in parallel realities, thank god I don't have to read 100 page battle scenes again.

TL;DR: 1/10 Thank fuck it's over. 

20. 1988. (Mar.) - Greyhawk (Gygax) - Gary Gygax - Come Endless Darkness (Gygax #3)

Series: Gord, the Rogue #5

More like Come Endless Dorkness, am I right? Frankly this isn't a fun read, on each page you can hear the dice roll and endless fight follows endless fight, like a live commentary of a D&D game. Very little character development and it just feels like a succession of boss fights in a game. Overall it's an incredibly dull read. 

Gygax clearly knows his world, of course he created the universe of Greyhawk where this is set, but unfortunately he isn't as good at communicating it to the reader, it's a universe full of demons and lords of evil and good and balance, our heroes fight for balance against evil and that's pretty much it. Previous novels in the series made a much better job at developing the characters, but you can't just have a whole installment where it just feels like nothing is going anywhere.

It is also a confusing read, I am sure Gygax can keep all the demons straight in his mind, but here we get a bunch of them which are just so many faceless enemies to kill and unfortunately the same happens with the main character, who are, of course, all male. We have a bard, a druid, a rogue and a barbarian as a typical D&D party all with names starting with the letters C or G making everything even more confusing. If you've read previous installments you know who they are, but the characterization is so slight that even when you get deaths the lack any kind of impact. The worst possible kind of tie-in, dull, repetitive and uninteresting.

TL;DR: 2/10 Exceedingly dull and repetitive.

15. 1987. (Sep.) - Greyhawk (Gygax) - Gary Gygax - Night Arrant (Gygax #2)

Series: Gord, the Rogue #4

Another Gygax book, another Gord book. This is a little different, however. In this volume Gygax gives us 9 short stories with Gord at their centre. Although they work independently they are interconnected and flow nicely from story to story, as is usual in these kinds of books there is always a bit of an element of hit and miss when it comes to anthologies. However, Gygax actually manages to pull off a feat by making this the most enjoyable of all the Gord books up until now. It still owes a lot to Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories, but it also gives us a better sense of place and setting than the previous volumes. The world of Greyhawk feels more alive and deep here than anywhere else up until now, and this has a lot to do with the format, the 9 interconnected stories manage to cover different aspects, places and subcultures in a way which fleshes the world out nicely.

All in all my favourite Gygax volume by far, it misses something by having only one memorable female character and stereotypes gay characters in one of the stories, but at least it has gay characters! Something which has happened in none of the other books. So, you know, meh.

TL;DR: 7/10 Best Gord/Gygax book until now, recommended. Essential for Greyhawk fans.

12. 1987 (Jun.) - Greyhawk (Gygax) - Gary Gygax - Artifact of Evil (Gygax #1)

Series: Gord, the Rogue #3

So Gary Gygax after having created D&D eventually leaves TSR. This leaves a problem, he had started writing novels for TSR, with his character of Gord the Rogue, set in the Greyhawk world which he also created. He leaves TSR who retain the rights to D&D and takes with him his character from the novels, publishing them elsewhere. This is the first volume of the non-official Greyhawk series, which is actually the third volume of the Gord series, and the 4th in the Greyhawk series, but not really... see?

Gygax will continue to publish these things over the next couple of years until he tires of it as we will eventually see. All that being said the book isn't amazing, really. It is clearly a way for Gygax to flesh-out his world and that's fine. Some elements here such as the Drow love-interest, cloning, the Cat World etc. are interesting and Gord himself is a compelling character, however many of the secondary characters are one dimensional and the plotting is all over the place, confusing and often boring. So... not really essential reading, it will impact nothing in the official line, and isn't great.

TL;DR: 4/10 Not great. 

7. 1986 (Feb.) - Greyhawk (D&D) - Gary Gygax - Artifact of Evil (Greyhawk #3)

Series: Gord, the Rogue #2

The second volume of Gord, the Rogue is a considerable improvement over the first one, it is also the last volume published officially by TSR, before Gary Gygax leaves the company. When he does he will take Gord with him, but this doesn't mean we won't have more stories, seeing as Gygax will keep writing them independently.I will be covering these as they come along. 

As I was saying, this is a substantial improvement over the previous installment, the story feels more focused and purposeful, there are more good characters, I particularly liked the Catlord and his world, and Gord develops in interesting ways with his new powerful ring. This ring allows Gord to transform into cats, from house-cats to panthers and it adds quite a lot to the story and the possibilities. The enemy is also better defined here as Iuz and his henchmen. However, it's not in this volume that we get any kind of diversity of characters. Despite having a lady in revealing clothes on the cover (Deidre, I think), she has a tiny part to play, nor are there any people of color in the book, at least not that I noticed and not with prominent roles. Unless you consider goblins, gnolls, elves and orcs to be PoC, which I don't.

This series is nowhere as compelling as the Dragonlance books have been, at least not yet, but this is a substantial improvement on the previous installments, and as such I want to see where this is going, even if Greyhawk stories will no longer be based on Gord. However a cool thing here is that you get to meet people that I only knew by name such as Melf (of Acid Arrow fame) or Mordenkainen (of Sword fame, among others). I have actually never played in the setting of Greyhawk (just Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms) so it's cool to get these weird names present in the spell titles into context as characters.

TL;DR: 6/10 Quite a bit better than the previous one, not amazing.

4. 1985 (Oct.) - Greyhawk (D&D) - Gary Gygax - Saga of Old City (Greyhawk #2)

Series: Gord, the Rogue #1

So we get the first official Greyahwk novel, after the quite experimental novel that was Quag Keep. This is also the first novel by the creator of D&D, Gary Gygax... and it is kind of a mixed bag. It starts well, with Gord, the rogue being a nicely developed character, rising through the ranks of the Beggar's Guild and so on. But soon enough it starts showing some problems, such as the lack of any significant female characters, there's this half-elven lady that he saves (again not the most original thing) but what you might have thought would become and interesting relationship where the female character had some agency, just disappears, he goes to jail, she marries someone else, done. 

Actually this is in the tradition of plenty of sword and sorcery style writing, you know, from like the 30s, even Robert E. Howard had stronger women in Conan stories. So yeah, in this volume at least women are just things for Gord to save or feel bad when they die or marry someone else. This isn't what happens with other male characters, who become his actual companions. I am sure this will change in further installments of the series, at least I hope so. Oh yeah, and everybody's white, 

Another gripe I have with it is the fact that after Gord leaves the city of Greyhawk the story gets a bit too dispersed. It just feels like an adaptation of a gaming module, which it is. 

TL;DR: 4/10 Below average.