Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" discussion

This was actually linked in the comments in the SF Signal Mind Meld piece, but I thought it also deserved some attention ... (It's written by Ari Marmell, whose Widdershins books I quite enjoyed.)

http://suvudu.com/2010/01/poniards-an...

Joseph wrote: "This was actually linked in the comments in the SF Signal Mind Meld piece, but I thought it also deserved some attention ... (It's written by Ari Marmell, whose Widdershins books I ..."

Great link Joseph. On the D&D tie-in novels Marmell mentions, the Dark Sun trilogy -Tribe of One- is embedded with S&S mores & tropes...

Periklis wrote: "Great link Joseph. On the D&D tie-in novels Marmell mentions, the Dark Sun trilogy -Tribe of One- is embedded with S&S mores & tropes... "

Dark Sun was always one of my favorite TSR campaign settings just because it wasn't Not-Medieval Not-Europe. I've managed to accumulate most or all of the novels but haven't read anything after Troy Denning's Prism Pentad (The Cerulean Storm etc.). More for the infinite list ...

Joseph wrote: "Periklis wrote: "Great link Joseph. On the D&D tie-in novels Marmell mentions, the Dark Sun trilogy -Tribe of One- is embedded with S&S mores & tropes... "

Dark Sun was always one of my favorite T..."

Yes, Dark Sun & Planescape. The Pentad was wildly uneven in terms of writing (some books just read like a transcript of a gaming session) but loved the overall plot. The tribe of one books can be read after that and are way better in terms of writing, too.

My big problem with the Prism Pentad (assuming I'm not misremembering -- it's been years) was that (view spoiler)[in the end, after five books, it just didn't matter -- they went through this great quest and killed the Dragon King, who was immediately replaced with an emergency back-up Dragon King -- trying too hard to split the difference between "epic, world-changing adventure" and "we can't make any major changes to our setting". (hide spoiler)]

Joseph wrote: "My big problem with the Prism Pentad (assuming I'm not misremembering -- it's been years) was that [spoilers removed]"

Yes, the last book was full of moments like this. Stats before story. I remember hearing the dices roll after turning each page... :p
Don't think Denning is a bad writer though, I'm eager to try his Planescape novel, Pages of Pain.