Dragon Age, the literary adventure.
Book 51/50 Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne by David Gaider, pb, 400 pages
The second "gaming novel" I bought recently, I mentally set the bar a little lower for this one. Gaider is the lead writer for the game Dragon Age, and has worked on other Bioware games, but this is his first novel.
Honestly? Not bad at all. The book isn't going to make you re-examine the genre, search Amazon compulsively for his upcoming works for the next several years, or earn a place of honour on your shelves. I have read books like that this year, Best Served Cold springs to mind.
The book takes place thirty years before the game, at the dawn of the "Dragon Age" ... named for the recent reappearance of the mighty creatures, long though extinct. It follows the path of Maric, a young prince without a throne, his betrothed, the warrior-maiden Rowan, and the pragmatic outcast Loghain -- a character the players of the game are all familiar with. The
Refreshingly, the book doesn't seem to be set up for a sequel, or a series of sequels, etc. The narrative does seems to have pacing problems, with a couple uncomfortable jumps ... as if another hundred pages were supposed to be stuck in there somewhere.
In the end it wasn't bad, and I didn't expect much anyway.
Doug.
The second "gaming novel" I bought recently, I mentally set the bar a little lower for this one. Gaider is the lead writer for the game Dragon Age, and has worked on other Bioware games, but this is his first novel.
Honestly? Not bad at all. The book isn't going to make you re-examine the genre, search Amazon compulsively for his upcoming works for the next several years, or earn a place of honour on your shelves. I have read books like that this year, Best Served Cold springs to mind.
The book takes place thirty years before the game, at the dawn of the "Dragon Age" ... named for the recent reappearance of the mighty creatures, long though extinct. It follows the path of Maric, a young prince without a throne, his betrothed, the warrior-maiden Rowan, and the pragmatic outcast Loghain -- a character the players of the game are all familiar with. The
Refreshingly, the book doesn't seem to be set up for a sequel, or a series of sequels, etc. The narrative does seems to have pacing problems, with a couple uncomfortable jumps ... as if another hundred pages were supposed to be stuck in there somewhere.
In the end it wasn't bad, and I didn't expect much anyway.
Doug.