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Greyhawk: Gord the Rogue #5
Dance of Demons
The life of young thief and adventurer Gord has been building toward a climax for years. Now, in Dance of Demons, the climax has arrived.
In his role as the Champion of Balance, Gord journeys with his comrades to the depths of the demon-infested Abyss and the sublime majesty of the Celestial Sphere. He battles to gain possession of the magical key that holds the secret to loosing the power of Ultimate Evil upon the cosmos.
The forces Gord encounters are much greater in scope than "merely" Good and Evil. The masters of Time, Probability, and Entropy also have something to say about how this reality-shaking conflict will be resolved — and they will be heard!
In his role as the Champion of Balance, Gord journeys with his comrades to the depths of the demon-infested Abyss and the sublime majesty of the Celestial Sphere. He battles to gain possession of the magical key that holds the secret to loosing the power of Ultimate Evil upon the cosmos.
The forces Gord encounters are much greater in scope than "merely" Good and Evil. The masters of Time, Probability, and Entropy also have something to say about how this reality-shaking conflict will be resolved — and they will be heard!
428 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published November 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 9, 2012
Gary Gygax (RIP) grandfather of the fantasy roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons, was not only a creator of games, but an author of fiction as well. He wrote this novel “Dance of Demons”, published way back in 1988, as well as many, many more. He is perhaps best known for his Dungeons and Dragons manuals and game system, but don’t let that fool you. This novel, a grand fantasy set in the world of Greyhawk (a fantasy world in which you play Dungeons & Dragohns created by - yup - you guessed it - Gygax), is the final novel in the “Gord The Rogue” series of novels.
And when I say final - I mean final!
Gygax holds no punches in this one. Demigods, Demons, the most powerful entities in the Greyhawk universe and the Abyss duke it out to the cataclysmic, bitter end. Highly entertaining and a fitting end to the whole series, which spans seven novels.
In this final chapter of the series, ‘Gord The Rogue’, imbued with god-like abilities, embarks on a quest to unleash the universe’s most powerful evil in the name of cosmic balance. I found this a novel a treat, most likely because I am familiar with twenty sided dice, armor classes and the abilities of rogues - but this novel goes beyond entertaining those in the know the inner working of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game.
It’s a classic fantasy romp, and the stakes are rarely higher than in this offering. The extra fun comes from recognizing familiar Dungeons and Dragons world trappings and creatures created by Gygax for his world of Greyhawk players - like Orcus, Demogorgon, Infestix and Iuz. Then there is Tenser, Mordenkainen and Bibgby . . . And you now picture me with a bag of dice slapping against my thigh, gathering with bespectacled nerds at night, and role-playing until dawn to save the world from evil . . .
No comment.
Suffice it to say this series of novels by Gygax is quite entertaining at any level, from gamer to reader. And if you can find them, (a really big “if” here), I recommend them as a fun, fast read. And if you are like me having grown up in the late 70s and early 80s playing ‘the game’, then these particular novels are the “dicing on the cake”. . .
The complete series, in order of publication, is as follows;
1) Saga of Old City (Oct. 1985)
2) Artifact Of Evil (Feb. 1986)
3) Sea Of Death (Jun. 1987)
4) Night Arrant (Sep. 1987)
5) City Of Hawks (Nov. 1987)
6) Come Endless Darkness (Mar. 1988)
7) Dance Of Demons (Nov. 1988)
And when I say final - I mean final!
Gygax holds no punches in this one. Demigods, Demons, the most powerful entities in the Greyhawk universe and the Abyss duke it out to the cataclysmic, bitter end. Highly entertaining and a fitting end to the whole series, which spans seven novels.
In this final chapter of the series, ‘Gord The Rogue’, imbued with god-like abilities, embarks on a quest to unleash the universe’s most powerful evil in the name of cosmic balance. I found this a novel a treat, most likely because I am familiar with twenty sided dice, armor classes and the abilities of rogues - but this novel goes beyond entertaining those in the know the inner working of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game.
It’s a classic fantasy romp, and the stakes are rarely higher than in this offering. The extra fun comes from recognizing familiar Dungeons and Dragons world trappings and creatures created by Gygax for his world of Greyhawk players - like Orcus, Demogorgon, Infestix and Iuz. Then there is Tenser, Mordenkainen and Bibgby . . . And you now picture me with a bag of dice slapping against my thigh, gathering with bespectacled nerds at night, and role-playing until dawn to save the world from evil . . .
No comment.
Suffice it to say this series of novels by Gygax is quite entertaining at any level, from gamer to reader. And if you can find them, (a really big “if” here), I recommend them as a fun, fast read. And if you are like me having grown up in the late 70s and early 80s playing ‘the game’, then these particular novels are the “dicing on the cake”. . .
The complete series, in order of publication, is as follows;
1) Saga of Old City (Oct. 1985)
2) Artifact Of Evil (Feb. 1986)
3) Sea Of Death (Jun. 1987)
4) Night Arrant (Sep. 1987)
5) City Of Hawks (Nov. 1987)
6) Come Endless Darkness (Mar. 1988)
7) Dance Of Demons (Nov. 1988)
June 1, 2016
I'll just have to cry uncle on this one. After a 20-page recap of what came before--the fact that it has crawled so far up its own internal details to warrant such summary is a warning sign, in my mind--the story divides its time between Gord's running firefight and combat and raid into the depths of the Abyss, and the tactical battle among demons/devils/daemons in various nightmare realms for possession of the Theorparts, the magical plot device. One hundred pages of this, with no real texture or variety, and I was out of beans.
Part of it was that no amount of powers, abilities, or toys could possibly make Gord interesting, despite Gygax's insistence. Gord is, at the end, just a burlap bag to pour in awesomeness, to be the Champion and to get to the end of the story. I was tempted to skip over his sections entirely, which is a sad statement for a "GORD THE ROGUE" book.
Second were the unending demonic battles filled with tactics, which read like some wargaming session report. I can see some of what he tried to do, what he touched on: the planar conflict is reflected in the mundane world in the form of conventional wars and natural disasters and wholesale destruction. The multiverse is caught up in this, with alternate Oerths in flames, star empires marching to battle, strange vast entities wrestling and flopping in the void. But it is a paragraph in mentioning and away.
I'm not sure that justice can be done to the concept, but Gygax barely tries. He steps away from the potentially amazing into some bizarre treknobabble-style fiddling with energies and forces and tactics and tricks.
And there's the overwhelming pointlessness of it all. The entire point of the story, the very end, is the destruction of Gygax's Greyhawk itself, his Oerth. His final departure from TSR Hobbies was not kind, and left him needing to license his own setting in order to write in it. So this is its cataclysmic destruction, a final F-U to everything that was. In its epilogue, he introduces the world of Yarth, which was--drum roll--the intended setting for his follow-on RPG, Mythus Dangerous Journeys.
Part of it was that no amount of powers, abilities, or toys could possibly make Gord interesting, despite Gygax's insistence. Gord is, at the end, just a burlap bag to pour in awesomeness, to be the Champion and to get to the end of the story. I was tempted to skip over his sections entirely, which is a sad statement for a "GORD THE ROGUE" book.
Second were the unending demonic battles filled with tactics, which read like some wargaming session report. I can see some of what he tried to do, what he touched on: the planar conflict is reflected in the mundane world in the form of conventional wars and natural disasters and wholesale destruction. The multiverse is caught up in this, with alternate Oerths in flames, star empires marching to battle, strange vast entities wrestling and flopping in the void. But it is a paragraph in mentioning and away.
I'm not sure that justice can be done to the concept, but Gygax barely tries. He steps away from the potentially amazing into some bizarre treknobabble-style fiddling with energies and forces and tactics and tricks.
And there's the overwhelming pointlessness of it all. The entire point of the story, the very end, is the destruction of Gygax's Greyhawk itself, his Oerth. His final departure from TSR Hobbies was not kind, and left him needing to license his own setting in order to write in it. So this is its cataclysmic destruction, a final F-U to everything that was. In its epilogue, he introduces the world of Yarth, which was--drum roll--the intended setting for his follow-on RPG, Mythus Dangerous Journeys.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 17, 2021
There is much to be thankful to Gary Gygax for, he invented Dungeons and Dragons which brought such joy to so many people, for example, but his forays into fiction are surely not a thing to thank him for.
Dance of Demons is the last of his Greyhawk novels and much like his previous ones it is pretty terrible. By this time Gygax had acrimoniously separated from what was then TSR, the company which sold D&D and there was clearly a lot of bitterness in the air. In this last volume he decided to burn his remaining bridge by just destroying the world that he had created.
This could be the premise for a pretty interesting novel, but it wasn't to be. Gygax writes in an overly florid way which commits all the worst sins of fantasy writing. The two greatest of these are his penchant for long, drawn-out, battle sequences, which are really dull and the creation of an overly complex cast of pretty indistinguishable characters. There must be some 20 different demons here all with nearly unpronounceable names and paper-thin characterisations for whom you care nothing if they live or die. It feels like the novel should come with a 500 page volume of extra material fleshing out the world and characters, I kind of need to see Gygax's notes to make sense of this, or even care. By the end the universe is destroyed and our main characters live on in parallel realities, thank god I don't have to read 100 page battle scenes again.
Dance of Demons is the last of his Greyhawk novels and much like his previous ones it is pretty terrible. By this time Gygax had acrimoniously separated from what was then TSR, the company which sold D&D and there was clearly a lot of bitterness in the air. In this last volume he decided to burn his remaining bridge by just destroying the world that he had created.
This could be the premise for a pretty interesting novel, but it wasn't to be. Gygax writes in an overly florid way which commits all the worst sins of fantasy writing. The two greatest of these are his penchant for long, drawn-out, battle sequences, which are really dull and the creation of an overly complex cast of pretty indistinguishable characters. There must be some 20 different demons here all with nearly unpronounceable names and paper-thin characterisations for whom you care nothing if they live or die. It feels like the novel should come with a 500 page volume of extra material fleshing out the world and characters, I kind of need to see Gygax's notes to make sense of this, or even care. By the end the universe is destroyed and our main characters live on in parallel realities, thank god I don't have to read 100 page battle scenes again.
August 24, 2025
It's not spoiling anything to say I've known since the late 80s that when Gygax was forced out of creative control for Dungeons and Dragons, he would use the last book of his Gord series to preserve the intellectual property of his world, Greyhawk, by destroying it in canon. It's not a spoiler because it doesn't necessarily mean that the bad guys win, and there is an advertisement for a Yarth game module I've never heard of in the back. That being said, not all that much of the book takes place on Oerth. A large part of the story takes place on plains of the abyss, where it follows devils, demons, and daemons who are at war, so it helps to have read Monster Manual and Monster Manual II to keep the names of major players, like Graz'zt, Cambion, and Demogorgon straight because they get almost as much page time as Gord and his friends. Then there are alternate plains that are touched on in previous books. While there is no stopover in Hommlet in this one, one of the nice aspects is that Leda, Gord's drow lover from Sea Of Death is back, so even though the destruction of the whole multiverse is fast approaching with the Ultimate Evil finally unleashed, the two finally pursue their romance with a a bit more depth, which still isn't much, but makes for some added depth. For those who haven't read any of my reviews for the previous books in the series, I'll say this again: Keep a dictionary handy when you pick these up, because I thought I had a decent vocabulary until I started digging into this guy's prose.
September 24, 2024
The final book in "Gord the Rogue" series and the true final book in the "Greyhawk Series", is
a complex book written by Gary Gygax. The book brings to a close the adventures of Gord and his allies as they free and then face off against the ultimate evil, Tharizdun.
The book alternates between the adventures of Gord and his allies as they seek to assemble the key to free Tharizdun so they may attempt a one-in-a-million quest to destroy evil forever, and the conflict between the various demon factions who control the three parts to the key.
The book has amazing elements around the complexity of the demon realms, the various demon lords who live there, and great descriptions of the epic battle between Gord and his foes. Where the book lets down is in the conclusion. Evil is both victorious (in defeating Gord) and defeated (as Evil and its allies) are trapped away for a millennium due to the machinations of powers outside of the word of Greyhawk. Unfortunately, the conclusion reduces Gord and his mission to a misdirection and lessons the adventure overall.
a complex book written by Gary Gygax. The book brings to a close the adventures of Gord and his allies as they free and then face off against the ultimate evil, Tharizdun.
The book alternates between the adventures of Gord and his allies as they seek to assemble the key to free Tharizdun so they may attempt a one-in-a-million quest to destroy evil forever, and the conflict between the various demon factions who control the three parts to the key.
The book has amazing elements around the complexity of the demon realms, the various demon lords who live there, and great descriptions of the epic battle between Gord and his foes. Where the book lets down is in the conclusion. Evil is both victorious (in defeating Gord) and defeated (as Evil and its allies) are trapped away for a millennium due to the machinations of powers outside of the word of Greyhawk. Unfortunately, the conclusion reduces Gord and his mission to a misdirection and lessons the adventure overall.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 30, 2022
Final book in the Gord the Rogue quintology. I enjoyed the first four in the series but this last one was a struggle to read. The language used as both dialogue and description of the storyline was suddenly as in old English and the story often was written at a 100 mile up observing level instead of descriptive at the level of the characters and the use of the names of various creatures without describing the creatures only really works for those who are very, very knowledgeable about D&D. A very dissatisfying conclusion for the series in my opinion.
June 29, 2021
Just really not good at all. I'm glad to be done with these books, and based on the way GG ended the series, I feel like he was too.
An interesting tidbit (to me) these old books always have ads in the back. The first page of ads was for GG's next book called Exploration of the Yarth Necropolis . I cannot find any information on this book. My guess is that it was never actually published.
An interesting tidbit (to me) these old books always have ads in the back. The first page of ads was for GG's next book called Exploration of the Yarth Necropolis . I cannot find any information on this book. My guess is that it was never actually published.
March 22, 2024
If you want to see how an author deals with a fantasy world, after disagreements with his former publishing/commercial house, then read this book. I give it 5 stars because it concludes the saga, but... if Gygax were still alive, he should find the strength to rewrite at least the ending.
November 15, 2019
This was the second series of fantasy books I ever read. It made me fall in love with D&D, and led me to paper top role playing.. It all started with this series of books!
March 21, 2022
One final review for my definitely *final* read through this series (2022).
Tedious, inconsistent with itself and with other books in the series, and so full of Deus ex Machina as to make my eye rolling audible.
Sorry, but Gygax as creator of D&D gets full love. Gygax as author gets a mighty thumbs down.
-------------------------------------------------------------
This review is from my recent re-read, some 30 years after I first read this book.
Tedious and not terribly interesting. There's more I could say, but the lens of time has helped me really see Gygax for what he is: a somewhat shitty author whose books and adventures are "monty haul". I was glad to be done with this series.
Below is my review of this book, written in my 40s based on my memories of the book as I read it in my early 20s.
-----------------------------------------------------
The big finale to the wonderful Gord the Rogue series.
If you hadn't already known this, books 3, 4 and 5 were written by Gary Gygax after he was fired from TSR. Because of this, he has his revenge on the company he founded by destroying the entire multiverse in the World of Greyhawk setting, and re-birthing it from anew. His way of saying that it was his world and his world alone to do with what he pleased.
I, for one, applaud Gary for this. May he Rest In Peace.
Tedious, inconsistent with itself and with other books in the series, and so full of Deus ex Machina as to make my eye rolling audible.
Sorry, but Gygax as creator of D&D gets full love. Gygax as author gets a mighty thumbs down.
-------------------------------------------------------------
This review is from my recent re-read, some 30 years after I first read this book.
Tedious and not terribly interesting. There's more I could say, but the lens of time has helped me really see Gygax for what he is: a somewhat shitty author whose books and adventures are "monty haul". I was glad to be done with this series.
Below is my review of this book, written in my 40s based on my memories of the book as I read it in my early 20s.
-----------------------------------------------------
The big finale to the wonderful Gord the Rogue series.
If you hadn't already known this, books 3, 4 and 5 were written by Gary Gygax after he was fired from TSR. Because of this, he has his revenge on the company he founded by destroying the entire multiverse in the World of Greyhawk setting, and re-birthing it from anew. His way of saying that it was his world and his world alone to do with what he pleased.
I, for one, applaud Gary for this. May he Rest In Peace.
October 27, 2015
Unfortunately, I knew the biggest plot twist before I read the book (namely, that Gord isn't able to destroy Tharizdun). Even so, I found the book enjoyable. As with all other Gord the Rogue book, this isn't high literature, and it won't change your view of life. But if you're looking for a few hours of entertainment (and can put up with some needlessly obscure words), this book may fit the bill.
September 21, 2013
Pleasantly surprised, very much enjoyed the book.
February 12, 2016
Good fantasy read by the creator of dungeons and dragons. Recommended
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews