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Post by GhostofLandar on Apr 17, 2020 7:31:26 GMT
No! In the pretty mundane and awful 'the claws of helgedad' Lone Wolf is captured and taken to helgedad for two years to be the pawn of haakon and dslutar's power struggle for archlord ship. Qinefer keeps the monastery building going, but that's it. Claws is before the sacrifice of ruanon, and in sacrrifice it clearly, explicitly states that when people with kai senses are attacked, viveka getas twinged hence showing somewhere she has kai potential, qinefer is attacked beddcause she is on the path, meanwhile she realises and it is shown that lone wolf must get the attack to a significantly crippling greater degree because he is a full dedveloped kai. Qinefer then visits the birthplace, goes off her head due to its effects, and leaves lone wolf and the story never to return. Dude, Qinefer is awful, end of story. Viveka became a character, we might as well have seen her fleshed out but Grant wanted to score points and outshine LW. And the notion that Lone Wolf would be held by any of the Darklords for two years instead of just killing the last possible wielder of the blade that ended Zagarna AND Vashna is one of the dumbest ideas of all time. I mean, even if Joe approved it (willingly as opposed to Grant insisting his contract gave him that freedom) it's still a STUPID idea.
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Post by Rusty Radiator on May 3, 2020 7:59:28 GMT
No! In the pretty mundane and awful 'the claws of helgedad' Lone Wolf is captured and taken to helgedad for two years to be the pawn of haakon and dslutar's power struggle for archlord ship. Qinefer keeps the monastery building going, but that's it. Claws is before the sacrifice of ruanon, and in sacrrifice it clearly, explicitly states that when people with kai senses are attacked, viveka getas twinged hence showing somewhere she has kai potential, qinefer is attacked beddcause she is on the path, meanwhile she realises and it is shown that lone wolf must get the attack to a significantly crippling greater degree because he is a full dedveloped kai. Qinefer then visits the birthplace, goes off her head due to its effects, and leaves lone wolf and the story never to return. Dude, Qinefer is awful, end of story. Viveka became a character, we might as well have seen her fleshed out but Grant wanted to score points and outshine LW. And the notion that Lone Wolf would be held by any of the Darklords for two years instead of just killing the last possible wielder of the blade that ended Zagarna AND Vashna is one of the dumbest ideas of all time. I mean, even if Joe approved it (willingly as opposed to Grant insisting his contract gave him that freedom) it's still a STUPID idea. Yeah, it really put me off the novels. Personally, I would have preferred a faster sweep, covering more than one gamebooks events per novel, rather than a load of ridiculous filler. If they wanted extra characters why not follow Gwynian, Knights of White Mountain, Vakeros and Herb Wardens of Bautar....? Eruan Pathfinders?
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Post by rhygar on May 3, 2020 13:47:48 GMT
And the notion that Lone Wolf would be held by any of the Darklords for two years instead of just killing the last possible wielder of the blade that ended Zagarna AND Vashna is one of the dumbest ideas of all time. I mean, even if Joe approved it (willingly as opposed to Grant insisting his contract gave him that freedom) it's still a STUPID idea I've not read all the novels, just the first four or so, and only skimmed Hunting Wolf. I'm afraid the further I went the more dismayed I became with what I was reading and gave up. It looks like I made a good decision. That plot line you've just outlined is (on the face of it) absurd. Why did Joe allow such deviations from the books? Did he just give up trying to correct things? Did he get exhausted or too embarrassed to keep saying 'no' ?
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Post by GhostofLandar on May 3, 2020 17:18:53 GMT
Dude, Qinefer is awful, end of story. Viveka became a character, we might as well have seen her fleshed out but Grant wanted to score points and outshine LW. And the notion that Lone Wolf would be held by any of the Darklords for two years instead of just killing the last possible wielder of the blade that ended Zagarna AND Vashna is one of the dumbest ideas of all time. I mean, even if Joe approved it (willingly as opposed to Grant insisting his contract gave him that freedom) it's still a STUPID idea. If they wanted extra characters why not follow Gwynian, Knights of White Mountain, Vakeros and Herb Wardens of Bautar....? Eruan Pathfinders? John Grant didn't know anything about or care about Lone Wolf or Magnamund, that's why. This is a man who wrote about slave markets and cruel grandees cutting people down in Herdos, a Dessi town, a country governed by the Elder Magi, a race sent directly from the Plane of Light. Anyone who knew anything would know the Elder Magi, whatever they must tolerate in their neighbors or even allies would not permit such things in the country they directly ruled. This is also a man who didn't care that a Cloeasian girl lobbed a normal weapon at a Helghast and had the gall to bring his stupid fantasy barbarian "Thog the Mighty" into the intelligent and distinctive setting of Aon. I'm sorry if he was sick for a long time before passing away, that's awful. But I've always held a grudge for his clear lack of respect for the material and the fact that he wrote large chunks of it to market his own fantasy settings. I mean, he includes Thog and Alyss by name in other works. I'm also not fond of Carag the "almost good" Giak. Not because I oppose the concept entirely (though I mostly do,) but because I don't think it was executed well. I assume Joe didn't have full veto power because if he did, the original epilogue for Sacrifice of Ruanon wouldn't have been kept in: "As far as I'm concerned, Magnamund does not have a technological future. Paul was adamant about keeping it in and I eventually agreed to its inclusion, but I've always felt since that I made the wrong decision. I don't want to give the wrong impression here about my working relationship with Paul -- he's an excellent writer and we get along very well as collaborators and friends. It's just that on this occasion creatively we didn't see eye to eye." There is no way Joe approved of sidelining his own side characters for bleepin' Thog the Mighty. I know he must like (or even invented Alyss) but even her use is ridiculous in the novels. The notion that Magnamund would have the future described in the epilogue for Ruanon is preposterous and mainly an insult to Lone Wolf and Dever's life's work. It isn't that the writing couldn't find its way into another book or setting, but it's entirely inappropriate to Aon/Magnamund.
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andyc
Kai Lord
Posts: 210
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Post by andyc on May 3, 2020 19:31:26 GMT
I am kind of glad I have never read the novels. There is plenty of Lone Wolf game books and bonus adventures to keep me amused. Indeed so far, only the BA of Maters of Darkness (as Mongoose would have it) annoyed me with its lack of consistency with Joe's world. To be fair though, there is a lot of BAs I have yet to do.
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Post by GhostofLandar on May 3, 2020 21:52:07 GMT
I am kind of glad I have never read the novels. There is plenty of Lone Wolf game books and bonus adventures to keep me amused. Indeed so far, only the BA of Maters of Darkness (as Mongoose would have it) annoyed me with its lack of consistency with Joe's world. To be fair though, there is a lot of BAs I have yet to do. It's interesting because at times I sort of enjoy this different voice. Grant's description of LW descending the ice-stairs was great (as a kid, at least) and I believe inspired someone who depicted the climb of the wall of ice in GoT. I believe he either gave voice to or contributed to the more trippy feel of the Chaos-realm in Dead in the Deep, but then again that was present in Grey Star. It's clear the Birthplace (be it Joe or John Grant's contributions or synthesis of same) inspired that part of DitD, and that's a positive addition. That said, it's impossible to overlook the Mary Sue pioneering that he pushed, the overreliance on surrealism and Grant's need to play around with his own ideas treating OUR setting like his own sandbox (tick..tick..tick...you touch the colors and the colors stick), and his denigration of beloved characters. I look at them not as canon at all, but as fun tellings by an out of his gourd shaman storyteller in some village in Anari.
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Post by Zipp on May 4, 2020 14:38:02 GMT
The first book, Eclipse of the Kai, is legitimately well written and I still think is an excellent read. It's the most "Joe" of the books, containing the best narrative of the early years of Magnamund and enticingly fleshed out versions of Banedon, Lone Wolf, and Vonotar. There is risk, and hints of mysteries to come, and I was genuinely excited to see where the story went next. I even enjoyed Alyss. I found her to be an interesting edition to the story and I liked her role as both an eventual odd-romance for Banedon and as a bit of chaos, like a Joker working for the forces of good, to just slightly tip the scales enough that good has a chance of winning. Her mage battle with Vonotar is exciting and well described, really blew open my imagination as akid.
Almost immediately, the second book suffers. The characters don't develop further, the story loses its focus, Alyss becomes a constant Deus Ex Machina, and the new characters take the spotlight away. A shame.
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Post by rhygar on May 4, 2020 20:23:56 GMT
Careless or cynical treatment of beloved franchises puts a bee in my bonnet. There’s a well-written article which can easily be found online by Stephen Baxter called ‘Freedom in an Owned World’ about the initial attempts by Games Workshop to enter the world of novels and publishing, pre Black Library. I mention it here because it may be of general interest, and also because it reveals the attitude of some writers towards other people's creations, together with their motivations and whatnot and may have parallels with what was going on with the Lone Wolf novels. Paul Barnett’s sometime confederate Dave Langford gets a mention or two. The interview I’ve just read with ‘John Grant’ by Lou Anders for Infinity Plus in 2002 was an eye opener and answered a lot of my questions too, as did the comments i’ve looked up on these boards. It's a pity that LW didn't get a Bill King or a Dan Abnett doing the novelisations.
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Post by GhostofLandar on May 14, 2020 15:37:21 GMT
Careless or cynical treatment of beloved franchises puts a bee in my bonnet. There’s a well-written article which can easily be found online by Stephen Baxter called ‘Freedom in an Owned World’ about the initial attempts by Games Workshop to enter the world of novels and publishing, pre Black Library. I mention it here because it may be of general interest, and also because it reveals the attitude of some writers towards other people's creations, together with their motivations and whatnot and may have parallels with what was going on with the Lone Wolf novels. Paul Barnett’s sometime confederate Dave Langford gets a mention or two. The interview I’ve just read with ‘John Grant’ by Lou Anders for Infinity Plus in 2002 was an eye opener and answered a lot of my questions too, as did the comments i’ve looked up on these boards. It's a pity that LW didn't get a Bill King or a Dan Abnett doing the novelisations. I'll check out that article. Reading that John Grant interview by Anders is eye-opening. Wow. Everything makes sense now. "thematically a single novel although they have quite different feels to them -- the former is pretty serious metaphysical stuff while the latter's more a fun, adventurous romp with a lot of jokes in -- are actually about Qinifer, with the latter also being about Thog the Mighty. Once I'd written the books, Joe would check through them to make sure I'd done nothing that'd conflict with the rest of the Lone Wolf canon, and that was it. It was very kind of him not to interfere too much -- just to have confidence that I knew what I was doing." There you have it, you can ignore anything not directly relating to Lone Wolf's experience and it seems clear that he publisher used to hassle him but then backed off (perhaps they also thought they were getting more conventional tie-ins)
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Post by beowuuf on Jul 4, 2020 17:21:00 GMT
Ah, context is important. I wondered what I was replying to (12 years ago!), it seemed very negative. It was someone who thought Qinefer or anyone else got ahead of Lone Wolf in terms of disciplines or powers. I really don't like The Claws of Helgedad as a book, but the rest are ok to varying degrees. Not really the same feel as the gamebooks, but then the gamebooks are the gamebooks. And some of the things I didn't like are equally applicable to Lone Wolf as any other characters.
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