Warcraft novels – crap and pleasure

The other week I went on vacation, spending a week on the beach. But actually I spent a couple of days in the Warcraft universe as well – even though I was completely offline. For the first time in my life I read a couple of Warcraft novels.

Until recently I honestly didn’t know those books existed. It was when I was doing some last minute book shopping for my trip that my eyes fell on those titles on the sf/fantasy shelf in the local book store. Afterwards I realized my picking was rather random. As a matter of fact I didn’t have anything to choose between – there were just two titles, both written by Richard A Knaak. There seem to be some more Warcraft writers around and quite a few books, but this was what I found in my little shop. In the hurry I thought I had got part 1 and part 2 from a trilogy. It turned out that I was wrong – the first one, Day of the Dragon (first published 2001) was from another trilogy than the second book, The Demon Soul (from 2004), which turned out to be the middle part of The War of the Ancients trilogy. Well. Things happen. Actually it didn’t matter much. Some of the main characters appear in both and I got the hang of the plot pretty fast anyway, so the only thing I really regretted was not having access to part three in the War of the Ancients series.

I guess there are a lot of connoisseurs out there who know a great deal more about the Warcraft novels than I do, so you’ll probably think I’m quite stupid and unknowing, but I’ll use my blogger privilege and write about my experiences from reading those books anyway.

First of all – the whole concept felt a bit weird. I may be a bit old and conservative, but when I grew up you usually first read the book. Then you saw a movie based on the book. If you had read the book first you’d probably get disappointed since you had all the pictures in your head and the movie rarely could live up to it, with all it’s limitations when it came to special effects as well as the very short format. No matter how great job you do with the movie you always have to kill the darlings… (like Tom Bombadill who sadly but necessarily disappeared in the Lord of the Rings movies, which I by the way think were excellent on the whole.)

And after the movie you would read the cartoons and play the games and the toys and wear the clothes and chew the bubblegum… you know. But the book was always the original, which everything else came from.

Now the world seem to have turned upside down and for the first time in my life I’m reading a novel where the cover tells me it’s based on a game. Mind you, I don’t complain about it, but it makes me realize how different it is nowadays. And that’s for good. Why couldn’t a game be the artistic original and the book a sort of copy? When you think about it.

Secondly: what did I think about it? Was it worth the money and time I spend on them? Well, to be honest, those books aren’t the best examples of fantasy I’ve read in my life. If you’d compare them to the classic, recognized fantasy eposes I think they’re meagre, written in haste by a very, very productive writer. They lack depth, especially when it comes to portraying people – they’re all sort of plain, flat and show up a lot of clichés. The language isn’t beautiful or original in any way and the plot doesn’t make me go wild. History is told rather clumsily in longue ranting parts sometimes. That’s the negative side of it.

BUT (here comes the twist)

I loved to read them! I really did and I don’t regret reading them at all, on the contrary. It’s just that it’s unfair to compare them as fantasy books to other fantasy books – because they aren’t – you could rather see them as companions to the game, the extra material you’ll find in any good dvd box.

I must confess that I’ve never until now been able to understand much of the lore until now, to conquer it and make it to a part of my own game experience. I don’t know why, but I found the descriptions in the manual that accompanied the game when I first bought it rather boring. I was eager to start playing and didn’t pay much attention to the glorious passed of the dwarves or whatever it spoke of. And once in the game I read at least some of the quest texts and dialogues properly, but I found it hard to put anything into my memory and to get the full picture of it. The world was too confusing, the game so huge and new, that I couldn’t grab that side of it too.

Of course there are an abundance of websites where I could catch up. Wowwiki would be a great start. Whenever I’m looking up tactics on the next raid boss I tend to come to the lore department by mistake, but then I’m usually in a hurry, so I quickly go forward to the strategy part of it. When it comes to reality I’ve never taken myself the time, and reading huge chunks of text on a screen isn’t really enjoyable.

Those books offers a solution – they’re far more accessible to me than heavy websites. By reading those novels, no matter how crappy written they were, I can now see the game from a slightly different point of view. Even though I’m not actually roleplaying, it’s quite a lot more interesting to go and take down a raid boss if you can think that you’re actually part of an ongoing war, and know what’s he been up to so far, and what this event actually is about. If you just ignore the lore altogether, I sometimes get the feeling that we’re rather technically trying to beat a PC-game just like Pacman or Lemmings, just a bit more technical. If you get the difference.

Especially the book from 2004, The Demon Soul, made me happy and excited. I was reading about how they were defending Mount Hyjal, where I hope to go very soon (typically I missed the guild-first kill of Rage Winterchill the other week when I was on vacation.) I’ve followed how Illidan grew up and I know why he turned evil. And my server, Stormrage, turned out to be named after his twin brother, a nightelf druid – I had no idea about that before! Maybe everyone else does, but I didn’t, noob as I am. Now that I’ve met Archimond in the battlefield through the eyes of this young druid, I just can’t wait to see him in the game as well.

Of course it’s a bit disappointing that no gnomes whatsoever appeared in the novels (I guess there are historical reasons for that which I’m still unknowing of). But there are mages! And trust me, there’s something special to read about how they counterspell stuff, conjure food, mount their gryphons and do other things you recognize from the game.

Everything in the game becomes a bit bigger and more amazing after reading the books. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder. The game can be just as thrilling as we want it to be. For instance you can chose to see the flying from point A to B, not just as another boring waiting for the next fight, but as a thrilling, dangerous journey, like in the books.

My conclusion is: if you ever like me stumble on those novels – give it a chance – for what it is: companions which can add a lot of pleasure to our beloved game – even though they may not be the greatest fantasy novels ever written.