WoW Stories aka Lore

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.