[X] My Assistant

[Wounded Ronin]

i have the whole series and read every single one about 3 times each. i love her books

Well, I figure that lots of people must like her books because she's so prolific and successful. But in order to better illustrate styles of fantasy writing I like or do not like, I figure I'd throw that particular book in as an example of a fantasy writing style which does not appeal to me. I actually read that particular book when I found it in a public library and decided that I ought to read it so as to better learn about the fantasy genre as a whole. I finished the whole book in one sitting on an airplane in a few hours, forcing myself to read the whole thing, for the sake of my personal education.

Incidentally, did you ever order the music that appears at the end of the book? Apparently you can order it from Firebird music or something like that. I'm not sure I dare to seek more knowledge about this lest my sanity be permanently torn away...

[shadowfire]

i have read it but never thought to buy it though i did see that it was on CD. I figure though that it would be good background music for a game.

The first book of that series i read was "Two take a thief", which i received free with a membership to a book club along with the 3rd harry potter book.

Another good author is L.E. Modesitt Jr. and his magic of recluse series.

[sunnyside]

I also think much of the trend in tabletop gaming has to do with video games.

The reason being that previously if you wanted to play Conan or whatever your only option was to bust out the dice.

However nowdays if you want to just play Conan and whacks some things with your sword you can just go to
http://www.conanthevideogame.com/

or maybe just play God of War or WoW or heck play never winter nights or whatever that DND game was.

The point is to compete a tabletop game has to bring something it does better. I see two things:

1. You can do anything. In a video game you have to find the secret door you can't just take a sledgehammer to the side of the building. So on and so forth.

2. You can get into the character. This is where a lot of the character development comes in. Which, yes, can all too often be confused for wangst.

Though honestly a bunch of the vampire guys are all about the wangst so I can't blame writers for obliging.

But either way games have their niche in those two things, and so they increasingly work it.

Also there is increasingly a feeling of been there done that in writing and gaming. When you're reading your first novel as a tween the main character can be the biggest lump of Mary Sueness ever written and you'll gobble it up. And when you're first busting out the dice at that age a plain vanilla dungeon crawl is great.

But now I just can't stand that tripe.