Joined: Jul 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 2,503 Karma: 57
Re: Quag Keep « Reply #16 on Dec 11, 2007, 2:12pm »
Do you have the titles of her Solar Queen series? I think there are a bunch of her books at my local Half Price Books, and I loved the original Traveller.
Dieter the Deathless, anger-fueled fighting machine.
greentongue Level 5 Thaumaturgist member is offline
Joined: Nov 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 319 Location: Orlando, FL Karma: 11
Re: Quag Keep « Reply #17 on Dec 11, 2007, 5:54pm »
Solar Queen 1. Sargasso of Space (1955) (writing as Andrew North) 2. Plague Ship (1956) (writing as Andrew North) 3. Voodoo Planet (1959) (writing as Andrew North) 4. Postmarked the Stars (1969) 5. Redline the Stars (1993) (with Pauline M Griffin) 6. Derelict for Trade (1997) (with Sherwood Smith) 7. A Mind for Trade (1997) (with Sherwood Smith) The Solar Queen (omnibus) (2003)
Well, I've started reading it again (I got about 60 pages in and got sidetracked by re-reading Man of Gold and Flamesong...), and so far it is a mixed bag - it is an interesting look at a player's-eye view of Greyhawk in the 'early days', but her prose style is taking some getting used to. By comparison, MAR Barker's style just flows, and somehow that seems strange when you consider that the environment of Tekumel is far more complex, and his corpus of writing is most likely largely academic publications (OTOH, since he is a long-time DM, he has extensive experience as a verbal storyteller...) Some of the names, too, seem....clunky: "Ingrge" for the elf - I'm more used to the Finnish-inspired names from Tolkein; something that vowel-poor seems more appropriate for a dwarf or some steppe-nomad.
I also find myself thinging "Ohhh, THAT's what the 'Geas' spell is for - for NPCs to force the players onto an adventure if they are too reluctant..."
I've read this book twice, once when I was either in middle school or early high school, and again about a year ago. Both times, interestingly, I had pretty much the same response:
"I want to like this book, 'cause I like other books by Andre Norton and 'cause I like DnD. However, the pacing is goddaful, the characters are nothing like standard characters, the monsters are unconnected to the game (demonic weasels summoned by an evil druid???) and, most of all, I really, really wanted the lizard man to be k3wl, but he was by far the most boring and useless character."
It stays in my library purely for reasons of completeness. It's really too bad, too, since an ENGAGING novel tie-in back then written by a famous author might have had an interesting effect...
Yeah, the problem with Quag Keep is similar to the problem with the D&D movie -- they don't really follow the rules of the game. There are many elements which could be D&D, but in general things don't quite match up right. QK isn't quite Greyhawk, and the D&D movie isn't really D&D.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
IMO the best novel Andre Norton wrote was The Dark Piper. Its scifi, not fantasy, but it is a great little read and has been a favorite of mine for many years. Having read it as a kid, I was leary of rereading it last year, but found I liked it as much now as I did back then.
I'm not sure I could narrow my favorites down to one book. I certainly like Dark Piper much more than Quag Keep but then I have everything she wrote that I know of.
Books from the Witch World (Estcarp) series, the Solar Queen series and the Time Traders series are high on my list. =
« Last Edit: Apr 15, 2008, 6:42pm by greentongue »
Gaaah...just finished it. Boy, was that a slog. Overall, pretty disappointing: The names were clunky, the prose style required constant thought (and not in a good way) and the ending supremely anticlimactical. There were some good bits along the way, though (I know I'm probably alone in thinking the concept of demonic weasels delightfully scary...not like anything in the Monster manual, to be sure, but I doubt that TSR had room to list everything hiding in the odd corners of the 666 layers of the Abyss.) I'm glad I read it, but I'm not going to go out of my way to look for the sequel. Next book: Jack Vance's Dying Earth series: I found a 4-in-one paperback volume at the local bookstore.
Not that this is even vaguely thread-relevant, but reading that Omnibus edition has the capability to change your brain forever (I assume you're talking about the Orb edition.) I've read the whole thing twice, and man, I have no words. Just keep in mind that "The Dying Earth" is very different in tone than the two books about Cugel and the one about Rhialto. And, if you haven't go buy The Dying Earth rpg and ALL the supplements from Pelgrane Press--they rock, and are blessed by Vance himself.
Dragging the thread back on topic, there is one thing that I really liked, a small throwaway line at the beginning about how magic users, when they reach high levels (paraphrasing it into game terms), they became "no longer completely human"... There is something delicious about that idea, but how would one go about using it in a game (and without producing a major change in the rules like adding a 'Humanity' trait)? Maybe something like the 'Metamorphosis' exhibited by characters in Chaosium's version of Nephilim?
Happily chasing game systems down dark alleys, clubbing them senseless, and rifling through their pockets for loose tables since 1978 Shameless plug
Finarvyn Administrator Dungeon Master member is offline
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 4,674 Location: Near Chicago Karma: 178
Re: Quag Keep « Reply #29 on May 27, 2010, 6:37pm »
Total thread necro here, but I've been re-reading Quag Keep and it's gotten me thinking a little....
Has anyone taken notes on the people, creatures, and places mentioned in the book? I've been thinking of doing that because it seems like there are some interesting ideas that might make for a fun OD&D campaign. Not quite Greyhawk, but something similar.
I just don't want to duplicate efforts already undertaken by others....
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
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