WoW Stories aka Lore

Monday, October 3, 2011
I love to read.  Besides WoW, it's my favorite past time.  However, sometimes WoW eclipses it and I go for stretches where the only thing I read are blogs and strategies.  In the past 2 months, I've read about 30 some books, I would have finished more but Name of the Wind was about 662 pages and The Wise Man's Fear is 994.

Now, what does this have to do with WoW?  Well, I've read a couple of the WoW books.  When I first got started in WoW, I read the War of the Ancients trilogy by Richard A Knaak.  I liked the basic story enough that I was able to overlook Mr Knaak's writing style.  However, I didn't recommend the books to my husband when he started to play.  I told him to go find a summery and read that.

Other then that, I read the Cycle of Hatred novel by Keith R.A. DeCandido.  I honestly can't remember a lot about the book, so it didn't leave a big impression on me.  The other books didn't grab my attention until The Shattering came out.

I really enjoyed The Shattering.  I loved the Thrall storyline, I loved the Anduin storyline.  It helped flesh out the upcoming expansion for me in a way the 'preliminary events' leading up to the Cataclysm didn't.  (I think I read it after the expansion came out.  I can't quite remember.)

Shortly after reading The Shattering, I decided to pick up Stormrage.  My main IS a druid, and I hated Fandral since I started playing WoW.  (I was Alliance for the first 2 years I played.)  My guild used to go into Fandral's room and 'Rude the Druid'.  I managed to fight my way through about 90% of the book.  But I haven't been able to finish it yet.  (It's been sitting on my husband's nightstand since April.)

Instead of finishing Stormrage, I picked up Arthas: Rise of the Lich King.  Arthas was not my favorite villain in the Warcraft Universe.  I much prefer the Old Gods.  However, I did enjoy the book.  I highly recommended it to my husband (who is reading it now).  We are discussing the book as he goes through it.  (His biggest complaint is that Christie Golden keeps saying how old everyone is.)

And on Friday, my newest book arrived, Thrall: Twilight of the Ancients.  I am really excited about this book.  However, I do need to finish The Wise Man's Fear (I'm on page 451 right now) before I can start it.

Now, why did I bring up the WoW novels?  Well, like I said, my husband is reading Arthas right now, and will move onto The Shattering after that.  He and I have had discussions about how there is a lot of lore that takes place out of the game and how it sucks for people who either don't like to read or don't have the money to invest in all the outside lore-related merchandise.

I get that there are things happening in the background that we don't know about.  But sometimes I wish I could get my story in one place instead of having to branch out to a couple other places to learn why Fandral turned into a Druid of the Flames.  Maybe I should go finish the last 10% of Stormrage.  Just suck it up and do it.

With that said, I will still buy the WoW novels, if only because I love stories.  Be it in game, on tv, or in books.

4 comments:

  1. Ceraphus said...:

    I have to say, War of the Ancients was my first WoW book series, and I truly enjoyed it, and very happy they are now making it into an instance with the upcoming 4.3 patch.

    I read Arthas on my trip to Blizzcon 2010, where I got Golden to sign a copy of The Shattering. I recently finished it, really enjoying reading the in-between from Wrath to Cata. I skipped over Stormrage, though am tempted to get it as an audio book for my trip to Blizzcon 2011. I am currently half way through with Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects, been reading it to my 7 month old daughter. Though I have heard incredible things on the new novel Lionheart I believe it is, which focuses on Varian Wrynn.

    The WoW lore I have loved since I picked up the first Warcraft RTS game, I am looking forward to what they do next, I am not as big of a fan of the old gods, though am very curious what Blizzard has in store for the Titans, we have not heard much of them except for in Ulduar them being summoned via the final boss in there if you failed to kill him

  1. Draccus said...:

    I am getting more into the background story of the World of Warcraft universe. There are certainly a lot of writers and paths to take in fleshing out the iconic figures. Stormrage is definitely a great read, one worth going back into and reading again to do some Druid fact checking on the Lore. The small often over looked details painted very nicely. Fandral was an easy to dislike Druid from the beginning, especially once we got on the endless quest for more seeds.

    The latest to hit the shelves, Wolfheart, is shaping up to be a pleasant read. I just started it the other day and I am already loving the writing, but what is drawing me in is how the characters history are blending the old world feel of Vanilla WoW alongside the events of Cataclyism.

    Yet one more reason why some great fan-fiction, or story tellers are blooming from the deep woods. Perhaps the next expansion, *Emerald Dream themed *cough *cough, will really bring back the story aspect and have the characters become more involved and immersed in it. A tighter connection to killing a boss for more then what the loot pinata looks like and how hard the fight is.

    But that is just me.

  1. Rhoelyn said...:

    Ugh. The rants I've had about the WoW novels could fill many, many neigh-unreadable, vitriolic blog posts. Which is why I don't blog about my WoW novel rants.

    As a roleplayer at heart, I've always been deeply interested in the WoW story, and when they quickly started branching it out of the game and into books, comics, roleplay books, bad web site short stories, etc... Well, I continue to be disappointed, not just in the conveniently-expensive cost of keeping up with the Azerothian story but with the poor quality of the places we're forced to look if we want to experience it all.

    I tried very hard to read the War of the Ancients trilogy. I made it through the first book and into about five chapters of the second before I gave up. I managed to get all the way through the Shattering; I found it passably written, but nothing more. I have Arthas and Stormrage, but I haven't worked up the willpower to read them over the books I expect to actually be good. (I mean, you've read Patrick Rothfuss! I can't bring myself to read this WoW CRAP over the amazing writing I can find in his books and those of his REAL WRITER peers.) The WoW comic books got so ugly and confusing that I stopped reading after about 8 issues.

    There's so much potential in the WoW story, and I keep hoping that we'll see it realized only to be disappointed. Time and again.

    Okay, rant over. I could go on like this for ages. Thank you for sharing. I hope you enjoy your next book.

    Thanks,
    ~Rhoe

  1. Karegina said...:

    I can tolerate a lot of poor writing (I have read the Twilight books because my best friend from high school basically held a gun to my head) and I am very happy that I can see past it to the underlying story. My husband can't, so I get to hear about how poor a writer is as he reads the entire book. (However he did make it through the Sword of Truth series, so I don't know how much I trust his opinion!)

    I know the books and comics are a polarizing issue for some people. But I'm a gluten for punishment (see the Twilight statement) so I don't mind. I do like the WoW story. And no, I don't roleplay (in WoW at least).

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