Franchise Fiction - James Wyatt - Dragon Forge (2009)

I did say that I had started reading the next book in this series already. I finished it yesterday, but since I've recently posted here about the book before this one, there isn't too much to be said. Much of what I said before is still true.

That being said, there was a few more parts I didn't like and a few more parts that I did. For one thing, it turns out that the changeling is a member of the Royal Eyes. That makes him a lot less interesting now, because the Royal Eyes commonly use changelings as spies. But the fact that he didn't spend as much time doing spy work made up for it. Instead, he befriended a bunch of misfit warriors and traveled into the Demon Wastes, which I though was cool. The Labyrinth stuff was awesome, and Vor was the greatest character they had in the stable. An orc paladin that used to guard the Wastes and who let a pregnant human go because she was carrying his child? More of that, please! And of course he had to kill him off. Because nobody can really be interesting.

Something I didn't like was the whole marital issues between Gaven and Rienne. I am not reading your parts about going to Argonnessen because I want to hear about how Rienne thinks Gaven is self-absorbed. I don't give two fucks. Get to the being slaughtered by dragons, please. And this book in particular tries to hard to make Gaven special. Sure, he's the Storm Dragon, but I don't see what that had to do with their abomination machine.

Though, to be fair, I didn't understand how their abomination machine was supposed to work. In attempts to keep the whole thing cloaked in mysticism, Wyatt leaves the reader in the dark about the thing the damn book was named after. I still couldn't tell you what it was supposed to do.

I do appreciate, for reals though, the budding romance between Cart and Ashara. A warforged and a member of the house that built the warforged? That's the kind of shit that I crave. But watch, the next book will start with Ashara contracting a fast-acting disease called spear-to-the-face, just like everyone else with any interesting qualities.

Finally, these people don't know what dragonborn and eladrin are? What? Have they never been to Q'barra? What about hearing about the feyspires? These are kind of a big deal. If you know what a tiefling is, there is absolutely no reason you shouldn't recognize a dragonborn or eladrin when you see them, you guys. I thought you were all well-traveled and shit. :P

4.5/10

Franchise Fiction - James Wyatt - Storm Dragon (2007)

I mentioned in the last post that I was ass-deep in D&D stuff. While I did not purchase this book then, I did start reading it in that time period. We've just started playing last night, and I actually finished reading this a couple days ago. I started it a while ago. I wasn't keeping super on top of anything, let alone my reading regimen, so again, I apologize.

I honestly don't read a lot of franchise fiction. We do have a few though; that teen novel from the last post, the City of Heroes novels, and the first two books of this series. I don't usually read franchise fiction because I don't believe that a story should depend on an existing IP to sell. I bought this and the second book because of that little word in the top right corner of the cover: Eberron.

When I bought this book, I was still working on my first adventure and devouring lore for Eberron, our campaign setting of choice. I liked that it wasn't high fantasy, good-versus-evil gameplay, so I wanted to dig in. In particular, I wanted to figure out the feel of the world beyond steampunk, technology-runs-on-magic fantasy. And in the end, I'm still more inclined to point my own campaign towards my preconceptions than that of the story provided.

If it was standing alone as a story, I probably would be giving it a lower score than I am. The story itself is fairly basic: there is a prophecy detailing the events leading to the rise of the Storm Dragon, and there are a group of fugitives orchestrating these events. The main character is a member of the dragonmarked House of Storm, and knows all of the prophecy regarding the Storm Dragon. Is it any surprise, then, when (Spoiler!) he becomes the Storm Dragon in question?

The story itself is rather high fantasy. However, the only thing I can compare it to is the story of Final Fantasy 12. They go and collect people and artifacts to make certain things happen, even if the characters themselves are at odds with each other. In this book, those items are information and artifacts from various places in the world, and collecting them all to one spot to force an event to take place, one that was supposed to send one of the more unsavory characters to godhood.

Again, as a story, it was subpar. The main character quickly and easily forgives and changes his mind about people and events. He feels little to no remorse, taking an "ends justify the means" attitude. And since he does end up being the legendary Storm Dragon, he becoming even more of an unbelievable character. If he was too naive or kind to appreciate the destructive power he has been gifted with, or even if he descended even more into the delicious madness the beginning of the book hinted at, then I would have been enthralled. Instead, he just comes off as a douchebag.

The fact that his biggest conflict is that he wants to choose his own destiny also just makes me want to gag.

However, the fact of the matter is, for all of this book's flaws, it actually gave me ideas and techniques to use in my future adventures. I know now how I'm going to end the campaign. I know how to work with some of the more contradictory dragonmarked houses now. And I know how to use the Draconic Prophecy in my campaign, which was the primary reason I wanted to read these books in the first place. It had been so confusing to me before. Now I get it, and I may even employ some of it.

The best thing I got out of it though is the use of changelings. One of the side characters that grows into a main character is a changeling. At first I just though it was cool that Wyatt was including that side of Eberron in his story. But the use of the changeling was so polished. That character felt like a real guy with a stable of faces and personalities in his head. And the way he molded himself based on personality and name was just awesome. If I got nothing else out of this, I got that, and that was good enough for me to start reading the second book already.

4.0/10