Dragon Age - The Stolen Throne Novel Announced
 

BioWare has announced a Dragon Age novel titled The Stolen Throne, penned by lead writer David Gaider. The book will be available in early March but you can download the first chapter in .pdf format now - presumably this might give some insight into the game and the quality of writing, so let us know what you think in the comments:
More information.

I won't have time to read it this week, but I'll probably get to it next week.

comment: cliche much?

There is little in fantasy writing ( and maybe writing in general) that isn't cliche in some ways. More important is wether it gives them cliches an interesting twist and can keep interest by solid language and pacing. There really isn't much in this first chapter to tell either way.

Sure there is. What I can tell is that this is right down there with Eragon: unremarkably mediocre.

You can argue until you're blue in the face that everything's been done befoooore, how dare you have the temerity to point out when something's cliche-ridden and overdone, but the fact is that it's possible to write fantasy without plonking down every single trope in the book. Oh look, it's a king-to-be who will be accompanied by a bashful young man and a "beautiful warrior maiden" in his quest to claim his rightful throne. Please. And Gaider doesn't have anything approaching amazingly incandescent prose or wonderfully witty dialogue to redeem it, either.

Urk. Dragon Age interest level down 300 points on open.

Not quite Eragon-level IMO, but still embarrassingly bad. Oh well, perhaps the game has a good character development system. Or something…

Well, maybe it will have good combat. I mean, Bioware's games always offer great tactical--

Oh wait.

Tactical indeed, I remember. When was that again? Year 2000? Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday. I had a… uhm. Wait, a bit foggy.

Boy do you guys get more and more bitter every day. I am actually looking forward to the game. Will I read the novel? not likely, how many game novels do you know of that are good?

Why do you suppose that is?

The important thing to remember is that Gaider and Bioware are answering a call for the DA fans that would like to see a cool book - just like the one Drew Karpyshyn wrote for Mass Effect.

It isn't meant to be great literature - like Ulysses or Tolstoy or Hemingway. Its meant to be a nice read for fans of DA: Origins. And maybe it will get people to read who don't read as much or not at all. As as teacher, I'm happy about this.

Because it's the easy thing to do. Easy to complain about what is wrong with things. It takes very little effort to say what is wrong with something(in your eyes) and to complain about the industry in general. It takes a hell of a lot more effort to do something about, ie make your own game. It is very easy to be an armchair critic.

I'll probably eventually take a look but when I see that quote I immediately know that AT BEST it will be mediocre. Every mediocre-to-bad novel ever written says that about itself.

And I should add that says nothing about the game. Plenty of good games have had bad novels attached.

Sure its possible, but I wouldn't look to a game-accompanying book for that wonderful read. And while unremarkable is also exactly how I would describe this, I have leafed through fantasy at the bookstore that was plain and painfully bad often enough. Also, I guess Eragon has plenty of fans, and the comparison would probably be rather flattering to Gaider. Come on, we are talking about a piece of game fiction here. If ots an entertaining light read, thats already more than can be expected.

Bio seems to be obsessed, and really the only people interested, in this universe of their's. I suppose you have to in order to generate interest but they've constrained themselves by making it a marketing decision to keep it familiar in order to continue to sell to their base of D&D fans.

As for there being nothing new under the sun, I think Robert Jordan proved that fantasy can get a good kick in the pants every once in awhile, even if WoT is a random jigsaw puzzles of historical events and mythologies.

But the game itself has never interested me, I've been more interested in the toolset from the start. Unfortunately, they've decided to remove a good chunk of the flexibility that NWN had such as designing unique levels and they've removed multiplayer.

I myself am not bitter about it just not as interested anymore.

Dude, crap writing is crap writing. We were specifically invited to comment on what we thought of the writing. I think it is crap. I could wax poetic on all the many splendored ways it is crap, but I'm not bitter enough.

You'd expect a little more substance to critique on your own writing, wouldn't you? or did the praise you receive on your cyclopean stuff get to your head already? I think from one game designer to another, so to speak, you should be a little more careful there.

Why is this a thread for critiquing Gaider's borefest all of a sudden? Useful critiques are nice, but they assume that the writer is reading and heeding them. I doubt either holds true here.

And game designers shouldn't be held back from speaking their minds due to bullshit industry politics.

As a teacher, shouldn't you know better than to make false dichotomies? Books aren't divided into "SERIOUS BUSINESS HIGHBROW LITERATURE" and "GENERIC GARBAGE." Fantasy can be entertaining and well-written enough not to be embarrassing, but without aspiring to zomg!literashure seriousness. From what I've seen of this thing, it's not even entertaining. It's just boring, overdone, been-there-done-that. It's probably entertaining only to people who haven't read very much and to whom elves, dragons and a lost king are terribly, terribly original. And to people who are subliterate enough to think that Gaider's level of writing is anything but cringe-worthy. You know, "Kiss me, you fool!" level of cringe-worthy. This level of cringe-worthy.

Look, I don't feel like defending Gaider, I did not particularly like this sample chapter. But neither did I find it cringeworthy, nor did I find it overly generic. I.e. actually NO elves and dragons and bearded dwarves so far… And wether Mr. Gaider reads here or not is beside the point. if you want to slam something, give your reasons, and if you are yourself a writer, or claim to be one (and obviously think you can do better in this case like screeg here) a bit more than a oneliner might be especially appropriate if you don't simply want to come across as an arrogant prick.

Yes, as a teacher, I encourage my students to read anything that interest them. And i agree that fantasy can be well written. However, if one of my students would want to read a novel that I thought was written in a boring style, I wouldn't stop him or her. Nor would I stop him or her reading a book about a subject I had no interest in myself. I always recommend the books of Ursula Le Guin or my fellow Dane, Lene Kaaberbol. It may not be high literature, but they are well-written with good plots; not so in Gaider's case.

I agree that his style is boring and he has forgotten the 'show, don't tell rule'. He has talking more than showing. In one instance he is talking about a guy who in times of need thinks that 'the Lord has never abandoned him'. When I read that, I was like -meh- and thought to myself what didn't he just say something like 'his heart beating in fear, he knelt down and prayed…'

The point about Hemingway, Tolstoy and Shakespeare perhaps is that these guys have survived the test of time; there must be some quality in them, meaning that we, even in modern times, see something of ourselves in them. The novel for DA: Origins written by David Gaider will probably be forgotten during the next 10 year or so.

The point is also this:
It is written because the fans of DA: Origins from the Bioware boards wanted a cool book just like the ones Mass Effect had. (and btw, I don't think Drew's that's great a writer, either…)

Using this criteria only VDWeller would get to complain about things.

Maybe I sound like (or in fact am) an arrogant prick, but I just can't be bothered, precisely because this isn't a give-and-take forum where the writer will modify his work based on consumer input. Also, there has been the occasional criticism of my work-- those people were of course banned at once…

by the way, if you have been reading my stuff, what do you think? :P

I guess I kind of painted that with a broad stroke….he has every right to voice his opinion like anyone else does. However, I find it funny how many think they could do so much better and have done nothing. Doing nothing is very easy to do. Noone can critique your work at all. I wonder what videogames have had award winning writing, I can think of…..lets see …..none.

It's fine to be critical, but I think there is a reasonable level.

It's fine to protest against criticism, but there's a reasonable level. I see you everywhere, all the time, complaining that people are sooo bitter, why don't people get along, why is everyone so negative, why doesn't everyone just agree with you about games. Flail, whine, flail, temper tantrum.

As for the rest, who's claimed they can do better? What is it about this "videogame writing doesn't win awards!" axe that you keep grinding whether or not it's relevant to a discussion? Is your reading comprehension broken? Are you reading invisible text? Is your frontal lobe warped and would you like a lobotomy, though I'm not sure if there's anything left to remove? Consumers have every right to voice opinions and, what's more, every reason to voice them. Also, look up Ebert's Law.

Those are confirmed to exist in the Dragon Age setting. Sorry. Undoubtedly, they'll show up in the novel at some point.

This is such a bullshit argument that it's not even funny.

Well, if you want to give feedback you can always do so here: http://dragonage.bioware.com/forums/…rum=135&sp=270
Although of course it wont be changed anymore, i would assume that Gaider appreciates a thoughtful crtique. It's his first after all. I think he did a reasonable job of combining instant action, setting up the theme for the story, and introducing three not too cliche characters.

As to your stuff I always planned to give a little more feedback - but right now the IT tower site is down anyway, right?

I'm amazed that there is any cross over between game writing and novel writing at all - that fact that a game dev can actually write a whole book is something in itself - and regardless of the quality of the writing it shows a huge amount of thought and effort has gone into the DA world if he can write a normal sized book about it. Forget the quality of the book, the process of writing it can only have been good for the game.

What other comparisons do we have with the game/novel cross-over? Feist is probably the only one that I can think of that's close, and again while he's not my favourite author, he's certainly well enough regarded.

Well, Feist was a well established Fantasy Author before his involvement with the Games, so its kind of the other way around there. Bioware apparently did this with Mass Effect already, but I think they hired a writer for the Novel in that case.

They're trying to establish a franchise, and writing a novel is all part of that effort. Now, as I haven't read the chapter - I can't speak for its quality, but based on the comments here it certainly doesn't seem to be about creative integrity.

Developing this kind of AAA game takes about a hundred people or more, and one dude writing a novel during the space of announcement to release - which is, what, 5-6 years? - isn't exactly a gargantuan effort. It's just another drop in the sea of winning over the audience by every means except actual art. Business is getting in the way, which is why you'll never see a truly novel AAA title for a long, long time.

"Thoughtful, constructive critiques" are only useful if the object being critiqued is subject to improvement, and the individual creating it is demonstrably capable of improving it. If something is irredeemably bad (such as Gaider's writing), the only good thing critique could achieve is having Bioware replace him with someone who can write above the junior-high-school level.

IOW, this doesn't call for a thoughtful critique politely sent to Gaider; if anything, it calls for an open letter sent to the Bioware CEO, or a front-page essay published here.

Yes, video game writing *is* mostly derivative, trite, boring, juvenile crap. But *WHY?* And why can't it be better? *Surely* there are *some* people out there who (a) understand games and (b) write well. Where the hell are they?

Wow. You'd think people were expecting A Game of Thrones here. Lighten up people - PS:T has the best writing in the history of computer gaming, and even that is nowhere near "serious literature". As far as I'm concerned, this book (like the Mass Effect and Warcraft novels) is merely a way to fill the world a bit with characters, places and history.

It does the job fairly well, but it certainly doesn't affect my decision to buy Dragon Age - I put that on my "to buy" list when it was announced several years ago (five years or so I think).

Huh, where is this hate for Gaider coming from? Irredeemably bad? Wasn't he writer on KOTOR - I consider that, storywise, one of the better games I played. So where is he demonstrably irredeembably bad? And incapable of improvement?

I don't know about irredeemably bad (mediocre, certainly), but incapable of improvement is a definite yes. Look at the writing in BG2. Compare it to the writing in NWN, KotOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect. Would anyone say anything has improved? Even if you like those games, there's not really much variation; many characters are recycled over and over, the plot is the same always, the dialogue always sounds more or less identical. Gaider isn't capable of improvement, or else he's not interested. He just wants to exploit the same formula again and again and again. That's nice if it keeps filling up his bank account, but let's not pretend he's a writer keen on honing his craft or experimenting with techniques or doing anything but churn out the same pubescent tripe he churned out ten years ago.

Oh, here's an excerpt from a short story of his:

It was OK storywise; had a nice twist in it. The dialog sucked, though, and the romance was as cringe-inducing as it usually is from Bioware.

Again: what I'm mad about is the fact that writing standards for games are so low: fucking Fallout 3 gets a Writers' Guild nomination, when that kind of writing would never come close to seeing the light of day in TV, cinema, or print. (OK, not counting self-published shoestring-budget stuff, but that's not what Fallout 3 or Dragon Age are, are they now?)

PS. Don't *do* that, Essaliad. It hurts.

If someone has ever thought David Gaider is a good writer even once, then, I think he/she doesn't read a decent novel. The last Bioware game I played is KotOR. I used to buy their games for game-play not the story. However, if the lack of good writers were just a problem with Bioware, then, it wouldn't have kept me from playing games. However, in fact, in these few years, I played Mask of the Betrayer and the Witcher. The industry seriously lacks good writers.

=D =D Have some more!

ARE YOU HAVING SECOND THOUGHTS? Yes, yes, Gaider really did write this.

Well, reading that, I have to challenge PJ's other claim - he definitely has improved :)

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree about PS:T. I found it pretentious and verbose. Somewhat like what Obsidian did with NWN2 and MotB. It's fine to have a good idea and a great plot, but don't drown the message in superfluous layers of text.

It's interesting, because someone like Tolkien - who is known for his detailed and elaborate lore, still understood how to form sentences that were at once concise and suitable. I consider him a master of rhetoric, even if I tend to lean towards less stoic material.

Unfortunately, I don't really recall the intricacies of dialogue, but I clearly remember enjoying KoTOR a lot. I even enjoyed the romantic aspect, though I'm perhaps less hard to please where games are concerned. I'm very much a "gameplay mechanics" man, and I rarely expect much from a plot. That said, I prefer the early Bioware stuff to the last couple of games.

Yeah - what he said. I recently finished Brisingr at the urging of my older son … not worth the effort for any reason other than sharing with my kids (which is definitely a good reason)