Project Lore

After completing the Tides of Darkness over my vacation, I could not wait to dive into Beyond the Dark Portal.  Aaron Rosenberg returns to pen his second Warcraft novel, this time teamed with long-time Blizzard novelist Christie Golden.  With my appreciation of ToD well documented, I was in heavy anticipation to get to the other side of the portal and be re-introduced to Outlands from a whole new perspective.  Having Beyond The Dark Portal's plot pick up almost exactly where it left off in ToD seemed like it would be quite a treat.

The deep connection to the previous novel wasn't all that gravitated me toward reading the series back-to-back.  Beyond the Dark Portal, developed by Cyberlore Studios and not Blizzard Entertainment, was the game that managed to pull me away from Command & Conquer camp and into the Warcraft universe.  Therefore, good ole nostalgia played a hefty role in my decision. Enough about why I chose to read the book and more about the book.  Originally, I believed that I would enjoy reading more about my favorite characters from Tides.  However, I think the writers went a little overboard, relying too heavily on the previous characters and not introducing any new noteworthy persons.  If you haven't read any of the previous novels then there are new focuses -Ner'Zhul, Deathwing, his three children and the rest of the Black Dragonflight for instance - but they are the only worthwhile characters.  For those that have read the previous novels, then minor characters like Kargath Bladefist and Danath Trollbane will be the most notable new faces. While the returning characters may annoy some, we are treated to the addition of some other races, including the Gnomes, Draenei, Naaru and a more in-depth look at Goblins than ever before.  Despite the lack of all-new major characters, Rosenberg and Golden kept the epic plotline of the game moving with added detail, numerous details and links to World of Warcraft's incarnation of Outlands, sticking with the mature action sequences and solid dialog.  I was pleasantly surprised that Rosenberg was able to keep BtDP's dialogue in check.  In my opinion, Golden's dialogue is always her weak point. If you haven't read any of the other Warcraft-inspired novels, then this is not a good starting point.  There are several reasons why one should avoid Beyond the Dark Portal as their introduction to the written Warcraft universe. This is mostly because it is a direct sequel to the aforementioned Tides of Darkness, reusing many major characters from that novel and continuing the plot.  It also continues Khadgar's story from The Last Guardian.  Simply put, this isn't the strongest book in the series, period.

If you want to get started then grab the compiled introductory trilogy. It'll start you off on three separate storylines and you can go from there.  The Archive, rather than the separate books, also comes with Chris Metzen's short story - 200 pages - Of Blood And Honor which details major events in Tirion Fordring's life.

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Aaron Rosenberg, like many of the authors Blizzard has been hiring, has managed to write for some hot properties. The New York/New Jersey native's work spans StarCraft, Warcraft, Star Trek, Warhammer, and he also manages to design roleplaying games. Even with all of this material, I somehow managed to never read anything by him. That all changed due to my recent buying spree and trip to the Caribbean. On the culmination of those events, I had nothing better to do than leap into World of Warcraft: Tides of Darkness as if it where my first teeth-mashing kiss.

Rosenburg's first crack at the Warcraft universe is a pretty solid starting point. The folks over at Blizzard allowed him to take control of numerous renowned characters including Turalyon, Alleria Windrunner, Orgrim Doomhammer, Gul'dan, Kurdran Wildhammer and everyone's favorite Archmage, Khadgar. Arthas' father, King Terenas, Champion of Stormwind Anduin Lothar, Zul'Jin and the brothers Blackhand also make substantial appearences. With all these characters entwined in the Second War, Rosenburg had the ability to drastically shape one's expectations for these key characters, while creating a sense of urgency, hatred and even betrayal.

Aside from giving this lore nerd more back story to the Second War, I absolutely loved the author's ability to describe the epic battles in all of their stages, from planning and tactics to execution. Without the move to more mature writing – the descriptions of battle become very violent and gory – I do not think the author would have been doing the struggle between the two factions justice.

We see the introduction of the Paladin class, lead by Uther the Lightbringer, and their antithesis, the first unofficial death knights, created by Gul'dan but lead by Teron Gorefiend. Not a single mention of the gnomes though - I guess Rosenberg overlooked them. Despite the slight to SolidSamm, I enjoyed the book from cover to cover and implore any and all lore nerds to pick it up. After all, it is one of the best WoW-branded novels.

Time to go Beyond the Dark Portal.

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An interesting post cropped up over on the video game journalist social network a few weeks back and it got me thinking. In said post, the OP innocently asked what his peers thought about novels based on video games properties. While most gamers know that a movie based on a game equals a waste of two hours, the threat of a book, let alone a series of novels, on one's free time can be far more detrimental. The best example would be the epically bad Doom novels, and to a lesser extent, the long-running Resident Evil franchise.

The consensus ended up being the same as with movie tie ins. Generally speaking, the idea of a video game branching out into movies or novels was branded as a bad idea, with the Doom series being an example of a failure on both ends. Yet there is always the exception that proves the rule.

For Blizzard's part, the novels based on their properties were mentioned as some of the best out there. The Warcraft-inspired series of novels will be hitting book 12 (although not all in a single series) with Christie Golden's upcoming Arthas-based novel coming in April 2009. It is probably worth mentioning that some people believe the book will coincide with the release of Icecrown Citadel.

Wrath of the Lich King has really got me back into the whole “lore nerd” routine and as such, I just had to pick up the newest novels when I came across them while doing some holiday shopping. What? You never get gifts for yourself?

For those who haven't read anything from Blizzard, there is a nice little spoiler-less Novel Guide over on WoWWiki, although it has not been updated recently (which I may take care of later today). For starters, Night of the Dragon came out alongside Wrath, so that is no longer unreleased. This is especially awesome because Richard A. Knaak has done the best novelization work in the Warcraft universe, in my humble opinion. Pick up the Warcraft: War of the Ancients Archive (containing the entire second series) for proof.

Fun facts on the Warcraft novels:

• None of the World of Warcraft-branded novels actually tie directly to events in the MMORPG.  They come before, after or are entirely new events.
• All of the cover art is done by Blizzard artists.
• Much of the lore to be incorporated in the canceled Warcraft Adventures was reworked by Metzen and the writers for the novels. Most notably Lord of the Clans by Christie Golden, which is titled after the video game's subtitle.
• Richard A. Knaak has written five of the eleven published novels, all of them linking to each other. This includes a book from the original series, the three book run of the second series and the just published Night of the Dragon.
• The original series spoils much of the earlier RTS games, the second series spoils some of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, while the World of Warcraft series has spoilers all over the place.

During my shopping spree I picked up three novels, the latest pair in the World of Warcraft series, Tides of Darkness by Aaron Rosenberg and Beyond the Dark Portal by Aaron Rosenberg & Christie Golden and Night of the Dragon by Richard A. Knaak. The stack of literature will come in handy for my vacation at the end of the year. I just have to read them slow enough to grasp all of their plotlines separately, rather than having them meld into a single entity in my pea-sized brain, like the numbered StarCraft series did.

Anyone else enjoy the Warcraft/StarCraft/Diablo novels?  The Warcraft universe has the best novels with Knaak's numerous contributions standing out.  However, the single best adapatation of the universe would have to be Lord of the Clans.  In fairness to the other writers, Golden had a huge advantage due to the help from Metzen and the other writers who penned the adventure game.

What about other franchises?  Halo?  Mass Effect?  I saw a Gears of War book while I was browsing, surely that has to have a more fleshed-out plot than both 360 titles combined.

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