The Broken Hourglass - Story @ Official Site

Having returned from GDC, this week's update for The Broken Hourglass is the first chapter of a four-part story titled Moonshine:

"It's hard to live in a world that is dying," Larius says, delivering this lofty pronouncement in the pious tones of a drunk. A drunk so sloshed that the very air is causing him to wobble slightly. But be that as it may, I cannot stop my eye from rolling, though I do it looking away so he won't see. I hate it when he's like this.

"Don't be such a sop, Larius," I tell him, and he fixes me with a sour look that has anger at the edge of it. He's long on bark and short on tooth these days. Still, one never knows what day he'll decide to reassert his position as the leader of our duo.

Larius and me go way back, long enough to have a solid history of friendship and animosity. I suppose that I really would be his protégé and not his friend, if we were being honest. But I'm not. Honest, that is. I don't hold to honesty. It rarely does as much good as a kind and careful lie.

More information.

Unlike most of the ghastly material usually described as 'fan fiction', this is actually a pretty well-written story.

It's quite novel-- and to me agreeable(!) -- to see the game world described in fiction instead of gushy hyperbolic media-speak.

Originally Posted by magerette
Unlike most of the ghastly material usually described as 'fan fiction', this is actually a pretty well-written story.

Well, strictly speaking it fails any reasonable test to define it as "fan fiction" as the author is a game designer (making her a first-party, "authorized" source rather than a third-party, "unauthorized" writer) and was paid to write the story.

But semantics aside, I'm glad you enjoy the story approach to building our world.

Excuse my bad. That undoubtedly explains why the story didn't suck.

On the Fly was pretty good, and I'll be following this one also.