i am so tired of bad writers like tom phillip athans, and the like, their writing just makes me wanna start screaming obsenities at the top of my lungs out of my car window while driving to work, and their oustoundingly bad use of the english language has driven me to tears. what are your thoughts about idiot writers like phillip athans? (and i hope that they are very very negative!) :mad:

There is one thing that can ruin any book:
Villain genocide. No matter how good the bad guys armies are, they are always slaugthered by very few good guys. The worst so far has to be dune. For some reason the inhabitants of the planet can kill enourmous armies of
the best of the best of the best.
I they just had given some kind of explanation to why they are so awesome in combat...but no. The worst thing is that the descriptions of this people is totally against it. We learn that they don't get combat training untill they are adults.
They can't even fight without their weapons.
An army of bad guy elites are destroyed by
children and elders. The main bad guy is assasinated by a four year old child.
ARRRRRRRRRRR! :mad

Phillip Athans? Well after reading one of his 'books' i did wonder what possessed someone to let him near any sort of writing material. Shows that some people just don't care about what gets published as long as it'll get them money. Ban his books worldwide and never let him near anything to write with ever again :D.

Bring me some insight, what did he write, so I never take his books in my hands :)

As far as I know, only the two Baldur's Gate books (1 and 2). The ToB one was written by a different writer.

You can see it all at http://www.sorcerers.net/Books/index_fr.htm and read sample chapters...

So become a DM and write stuff the way it should be written. Then get immediate feedback from your 'readers' as to what they think of your stories as they read/live them.

Would it not be good for us to post stories of our characters' adventures somewhere here on the boards?

I will agree that there are some very crummy writers out there that can make your life hell if you read the.

Divine Shadow; Frank Herbert didn't mention this in his book but if you read the colabarations by his son and Kevan J. Anderson you find some fery waky reasons as to why the people of Dune fight so well.

I think that The Avatar trilogy was the worst fantasy text I've ever red. And I haven't met with a really good Dungeons and dragons book yet. (Though I used to read a lot of fantasy

the only truely good dnd books are written by either greenwood or vallese, the rest of the dnd writers (especially athans) are the human equivalent of the scum found at the bottom of a highly polluted river.

Only? I don't think Greenwood's that good as a storyteller, while he suren knows how to make a plot. ;)
Among FR literature Salvatore's books are just wonderful in both aspects - story and telling. Cleric Quintet's my personal favorite. I like Elaine Cunningham's style too.

Couldn't resist adding my 2-cents:

As a fellow with an MA in English, I didn't expect to like ANY of the swords-and-sorcery books after Tolkien.

The Shanara series -- crap. Boring plot, average writing. I quit part-way through book two.
The Sword series by Frank something -- ditto, but with a slightly more interesting plot.
Raymond Feist "Magician" trilogy -- Better plot, interesting magic system made me keep reading.

Yadda yadda yadda. I'd give more in-depth recounts, but it's been a while since I read any of those.

Then I picked up Weis and Hickman's first series (Forgotten Realms, I think -- the one with Tasslehoff Burfoot). Great stuff! They managed to have something with interesting characters, humor, a good plot, etc. Ditto with R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt books. Robert Jordan's series is interesting, but I may have to strangle the man if he doesn't make some plot advances. It should have been a trilogy.

The best I've read lately is George Miller's Song of Ice and Fire. Highly recommended for its unexpected plot twists, character development, and imagination.

Weis and Hickman, that's Dragonlance, probably my favourite series of books. i stopped reading most D & D books a while ago, they were so bloody sugar sweet. the Birthright novels were good, very gritty and harsh. Against the Giants surprised me, it was actually a book for adults, instead of the usual teen aimed stuff.
The novels that accompanied the CRPG's Planescape and the BG series were utter trash!! I know this has already been stated, but I picked up the Planescape: Torment novel, after playing the most in depth RPG story, and it didn't even skim the surface. A novel is planned for Neverwinter nights, will it be more of the same?
As for good Authors, David Gemmell is King. It is not high fantasy, but his heroes are people, who are in real danger. They aren't demigods or chosen of gods or some such garbage, that destroy an army of demons, then have some breakfast and a few jokes.
but I suppose it all depends on what you like...

The NWN book is supposed to be an anthology. We can only hope some authors that know how to write will contribute...

I found this lovely piece of info in the news section...
...We're looking to hide some items within the game world that you would only normally find by reading the Forgotten Realms book "Neverwinter Nights" by Phillip Athens....
Doesn't bode well...
My little brother just got a job at Wizards Australia, maybe he can tell them how bad the CRPG novels have been.

He must be bad if they can't even spell his name right. :p
Or maybe it was on purpose. :D

Anyway, if it's an anthology, Athans will only compile it, like with the other Realms Anthologies. Would be nice to get an official word about it though. Anyone know anyone at the book department at WOTC?

Found out off my brother, Athans is a contributer, along with a host of other writers, some of them quite good.

Ah, excellent. Hopefully his part will be as small as possible.

Hopefully, it would be nice if Athans did not contribute at all, I read his books only because they were written after one of my fav games, but found them to be the calibur of books you find in the kids section at your local library.

I picked up the baulders gate 1 book by him at my book store and didnt buyit for two reasons the first being that I dont like reading a book for the first time when I already know the plot. Second the second was because I read the last page of the book where you lean on you sword to kill him thus learning that the book didn't evan continue on the game.
After that I decided that I wouldent by the book.
From the coments here Im glad I din't waist my money on a bad book.

Has anyone read the Chronicles od Gor series by John? Norman. I think that is an excellent series, although very hard to find now and it is about 26 books long and can be increadibly long winded at times. I think Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow and Thorns series was very good but the Belgarion and Mollerian series by David Eddings is definately my favourite. Phillip G Williamson wrote a very good series called the Firstworld Chronicles that had a very interesting 'magic' system. As for Fiest - good, Gemmel - brilliant.

I just saw this thread, but I have to say that Divine Shadow is off his rocker. The entire book (Dune) is about how the Fremen have faced harsh climate and way of living and are thus superior fighters. Did we read the same book?

This is a D&D forum folks. Stick to it. Discuss SF in the Whatnots forum, in a new topic.