[MUD-Dev] OT: Books

[Mike Sellers]

At 08:57 PM 12/12/97 PST8PDT, Matt Chatterley wrote:
>[Snip]
>
>I'm also a collosal fan of Raymond E Feist, whose writings are very
>stylish, if a little gory and divulgery (is that actually a word?) in
>places.

Oddly enough, I got into gaming at all sort of because of Feist.  I played
a few FRPGs in high school (during the '70s), but it didn't really take.
But then I began playing seriously (as in, every day -- it's amazing I
passed my classes) when I hit college.  My roommate, the guy I learned from
and still one of the best DMs I know, played with Feist and his crew and
used a AD&D variant he called "Midkemia" in our adventures.  Some of the
others in Feist's circle eventually created Midkemia Press in the early
'80s, which put out a few AD&D-ish supplements of varying quality and
_kept_ saying they were going to put out their FRPG (which I had since
discarded in favor of my own design, but which still influences what I do,
even down to M59).  

I think it's for this reason (and because of Feist's somewhat sophomoric
writing style) that I find his books unreadable.  To me they're a slightly
twisted version of a campaign-world he ran, and are so incredibly
derivative of Tolkein and AD&D it makes Shannara look like genius.  

Anyway, I didn't mean for this to be a rant.  But you can imagine that the
first time I saw Feist's "Midkemia" books in the store, I just about fell
over.  

Now, if he had written about the Shattered Orb saga, that might have made
the books more readable. ;)


Mike Sellers                     mike at online-alchemy.com
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