Tristan’s Comments (group member since May 16, 2018)

Tristan’s comments from the Di & D Reading Group group.

Well, came back after a couple of bad reading months (and my copy of the golem and the jinni was missing 30 pages right near the end ... still haven't finished it yet, though my replacement copy finally came in), decided to jump in here. Listened to the review today, and I'm about on the same page with Brian and Leslie - can't say I liked this one.

I feel like the premise was great, but I don't feel like it lived up (or down?) to it. I was hoping for a sort of 'Arthur Dent' style unlucky hero bumbling through the vampire world. Instead, and despite Fred's boring lonely-nerd exterior, Fred consistently lands in exciting adventures and succeeds almost bravely every time. He makes loads of friends, and even scores a super hot girlfriend with little to no actual effort. There isn't a single negative consequence from any encounter despite seemingly insurmountable odds. And then they all go play scrabble together.

It feels very much like a teen-boy romance/fantasy, and is very much a cotton candy read because of it. There isn't anything necessarily wrong with that, and indeed I used to enjoy thins kind of thing myself - there are books and series I used to adore that I can't get through now. I guess tastes change :)

Leslie wrote: "Welcome to the reading party, Tristan!"

Thanks! I'm very excited!

Just listening to the Di&D review now, and at roughly the 1:35 mark I realize what I was trying to say with my review: it's a puff piece.

Overall I found the book a bit fluffy but charming. I actually quite enjoyed the early boyhood bits. I think everyone has well covered the book's flaws, but despite them I did learn a lot about the man that I didn't know (I'm far from a Gygaxian scholar). I actually didn't like the ending bit - the book had as many or more endings as return of the king, and I found the multi-chapter love-in a bit boring by the ... actual end.

Hello from Ontario! Been listening since you advertised the first ep on the angry gm, and am excited to read along. Caught the GM bug early making adventures with Heroquest for any family or friends who would play with me. My first experience with d&d was finding an old dusty copy of keep on the borderlands in my parent's basement.