I love reading fantasy, but I can be picky. Some of the authors I have enjoyed are Robert Jordan, George Martin, Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, just to name a few.
I have read books associated with games, specifically DnD and while I often enjoy the story they never paint a picture in my head like the great fantasy writers do and I have them kind of labeled as ‘trash fantasy’.
My only source of ‘lore’ for Warcraft are the games themselves. I would like to learn more about the characters/land/history but I dont want to bother reading a bunch of crap to do it.
Are the Warcraft books ‘trash fantasy’ or are the worth reading?
Well, the stories told don’t seem to have any depth or complexity, just a light novel adventure type.
You’d like them if you care about the lore somewhat (and be disappointed with the writing in the game after reading the books)
The thing to remember is that regardless of quality, WoW’s lore and story is spread across multiple forms of media such as comics, books, the game, and novellas. If you want an actual understanding of the game, then you should read the books and such, or at least look up information contained within it.
For example - many demon hunter RP’ers will RP their DH as blind. But the Illidan novel shows us that’s not the case, and discusses how Illidan was originally blind after the ritual, but then began seeing colors and shapes, and eventually through honing his own inner demon, he had been able to see once again, but with heightened vision, which we now label as spectral sight.
They’re no different than other books written by writers who are writing about some established franchise, so if you thought the others you’ve ready are “trash fantasy”, you’re not gonna find Warcraft’s any different.
On the other hand, I would label Brandon Sanderson “trash fantasy”, or at least not much better than a Forgotten Realms author, so there’s a decent shot you might actually enjoy the Warcraft novels.
My own opinion is the novels aren’t great works of literary fantasy, but they tell a story and are more engaging than reading a summary on a wiki. They’re also short, so unless you use a finger to read, they probably won’t steal much of your life to read. Oh, they’re also written-morally-for the Alliance. The Horde are either evil, primitive, both, etc.
I’ve enjoyed most of the ones I’ve read. My favourite would probably be Lord of the Clans. As a general rule though, I stay away from the ones by Richard A. Knaak. I really don’t like his style.
Lord of the Clans was just a really interesting story that as a big Thrall fanboi, I was really interested to read. It was all about where he came from, how he grew up, how he became such a hero to the orcs, and how he learned the ways of shamanism. It was all there and all thoroughly enjoyable.
As for Knaak. It’s more the way he writes than the stories he tells. Lots over overly simplistic words and sentence structure. Lots of repeated turns of phrase. It all added up very quickly in my mind and I can’t not notice it anymore.
I do disagree. Like I said, Day of the Dragon has been favorite. It’s the one before Lord of the Clans. I think it’s a matter of taste when it comes to this.
Could be me not caring as well just being passionate about the story.
R.A. Salvatore, Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, James Lowder, Christie Golden, and I can keep going … all excellent fantasy writers.
Can’t say I’ve ever read any of the wow novels though. Maybe if I come across them for a decent price at a bookstore or something, I’ll give em a whirl. They’re not really on my radar though.
Sorry, I’m really not trying to convince you you’re wrong or crap on what you enjoy, or anything like that. It’s just where I’m coming from. If you love it and enjoy reading it I’ll give you two big thumbs up and say “That’s awesome.”
I live in Portland, we have a store called Powell’s (world famous bookstore.) I’m sure I could find them there if I really wanted. I may take a look for them sometime, just to see if they spark any interest for me. I see a lot of really devoted people to the story of wow, it seems kind of interesting from that alone on what I read from threads.
No need to apologies, I’m not feeling offended at all. But I think it’d be wrong to tell to avoid all of Knaak writing to someone who is interested in maybe reading the Warcraft novels.
Sunwell Trilogy is the most popular of the Warcraft series. The three book comes from him. Same for the War of Ancients.
So you might as well say to not bother at this point. That is more my discussion point.
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