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Who said being a role player wouldn't take you anywhere?

S

Supplement Four

SOC-14 5K
So, I'm looking through old gaming magazines tonight, and I flip open an old The Space Gamer from 1982.

What do I see?

A story by Timothy Zhan (who re-invigorated the current ocean of Star Wars novels with his book Heir to the Empire, and has won a Hugo to boot), and immediately after that, a story by Aaron Allston (who took over the Star Wars X-Wing series from Michael Stackpole)...we're talkin' 25 years ago!

Timothy Zhan
Aaron Allston
Michael Stackpole
Gary Gygax
Ed Greenwood
Margaret Weis
Tracy Hickman
Don Perrin

...I'm sure I'm forgetting several people...

All of these established authors started with their first love...role playing.

Not a bad hobby, it would seem, if you want to be a SciFi and Fantasy author.

-S4
 
Hmmm. The only one of those who I find has risen above novels that don't reek of an RPG background is Timothy Zahn. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed novels by almost all of them, but I can see RPGish roots in most of their writing styles and the types of books they get published.
 
Unfortunately two of the best ones are dead:
John M. Ford
J. Andrew Keith

Fortunately, William H. Keith is still with us.
 
I'm just about to re-release some of my fiction through Avenger. I mainly write non-fiction (20+ books) these days but I started out writing novels.

And I'm working on a Traveller novel for release later in the year...
 
Originally posted by alanb:

John M. Ford
J. Andrew Keith
Click to expand...
I haven't read any of Keith's stuff. At least I think I haven't. I know he had, what, seven pseudonyms?

But John M. Ford wrote one of the best scifi books ever written, and it gets little credit. Probably because it's a Star Trek book.

But, don't let that throw you off. The book is a real winner. It's called The Final Reflection. It's short. It's about Klingons. It doesn't feature recognizeable Trek characters (except in the Prologue and Epilogue). The story is a book-within-a-book, in that the main story is what the characters in the Prologue are reading. And, it's set before the Enterprise TV series, although that series had never been thought up back when the book was written in the 80's.

It's a freakin' FANTASTIC book. Seriously. I enjoyed it as much as any other SciFi book I've ever read. Just because it's "Star Trek", don't let that turn you off.

The book is great.

Check it out.

-S4
 
The Final Reflection is one of my all-time favorites... a Star Trek story from the Klingon point of view... written before TNG came into existence.
 
I remember throwing Timothy Zahn's first Cobra book at the wall in disgust at how badly and nievely written it was. I was then naturally horrified to find that he of all people was given the honour of carrying on the Star Wars universe in novel form. I was even more horrified to find that he hadn't improved one iota and the novels were as excruciating to sit through as... well... as the prequels were really! Hmmm... maybe he had a better handle on the Star Wars universe than I gave him credit for.

I've read a couple of Stackpole's and they're actually pretty entertaining. I like him.

As for Weiss, Hickman and Gygax. Well I've read a couple of D&D novels and they read exactly like a D&D session. Very, very slow and padded. Someone once described roleplaying sessions as 20 minutes of action packed into three hours and that's exactly what most RPG novels I've read, read like.

I don't necessarily think many of these people are particularly good writers they just know a certain setting well enough (ie they created it) to write novels for a certain marketable demographic (ie, the people who play in that setting) and the writing quality is neither here nor there.

Crow
 
No, look. I don't care if you don't like his writing. I happen to like him and his Star Wars books, but this will boil down to a 'I like it, you don't' sort of argument, and I'm not gonna get into that.
 
Originally posted by MJD:
I'm just about to re-release some of my fiction through Avenger. I mainly write non-fiction (20+ books) these days but I started out writing novels.

And I'm working on a Traveller novel for release later in the year...
Click to expand...
Yeah, you are pretty good. I look forward to the book.
 
Originally posted by BlackBat242:
The Final Reflection is one of my all-time favorites... a Star Trek story from the Klingon point of view... written before TNG came into existence.
Click to expand...
I prefer Diane Duane. She who hath written the Bible of Romulan Fandometh.
 
I really enjoyed the first two or three Dragonlance novels when they came out. I read one of the Drow novels (by RA Salvatore I think) and it was dreadful: I found myself rolling my eyes and imagining what would be on the next page, and I would be correct. Gah!

However, I really really enjoyed Paul Kidd's Greyhawk novels. I thought they were quite inventive for novelizations of classic AD&D modules, they had fantastic characters, lots of action, and some great humor.
 
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