Is reading in shared universes worth it?

Katsunami · 07-08-2014, 07:05 PM

As some may know, I recently completed my collection of (A)D&D Forgotten Realms (e)book collection. It means I own *every* Forgotten Realms ebook ever published, and I own the ones that are not (yet) available as ebooks in paper. In the past, I read a quite a lot of them and I fully intend to read them all, starting at the beginning.

In addition, I also own all but one of the Pathfinder novels (as they were suggested to me, they looked good, and got many on a big sale), which written or co-written by some of the Forgotten Realms writers and editors. On top of that, I also have most of the Eberron books (if my lists are correct I'm only missing three, or one series), and one Dark Sun and Greyhawk book.

I started out reading the Forgotten Realms novels after first playing Baldur's Gate in 1998, progressing from AD&D 2E to 3E, to 3.5E, to 4E, and now (it seems) to D&D Next, where characters and gods die and get raised or reincarnated, sometimes multiple times over a timespan of hundreds of years. It makes this world hard enough to follow, all on its own.

I got into Eberron because of some cross-overs in the Forgotten Relams series. That's also where the Dark Sun and Greyhawk book came from; because they are part of a cross-over series. Some series are comprised of books from two (or three) worlds.

I'm not even talking about the rest of the novels and series in the Greyhawk, Planescape, and other campain settings such as Birthright, Blackmoor, Dark Sun.... and on and On and ON.... !!

And there we have the problem.

It's hard enough to keep up with the Forgotten Realms alone, let alone trying to read, remember and understand every possible cross-over into every other D&D campain setting, and then read all the books in THAT setting. Pathfinder (related to D&D, but completely separate) makes it especially hard because of all the web tales, fanfic-that-becomes-canon-if-its-popular, 'journals', and other related stuff. That part of Pathfinder is actually much bigger than the novels at this point. I don't follow that, but if you'd want to understand ALL the references in the books, you'd need to read it.

In short, I'm starting to feel that I'm wasting my time on low-end fantasy, on worlds that get tangled up and crossed over, under and through one another with links that can't be untangled by anyone with unlimited money to buy, and time to read, re-read and remember everything, and the feeling that books are being written for the sake of writing another $6.59 book. Everything keeps getting bigger and bigger.

I'm thinking about keeping the Forgotten Realms books (the FR is 'my' world, as I started there and know it best, by far) and the few other books from Eberron, Dark Sun and Greyhawk to complete the FR/Other cross-over series, and split off the rest into another library. Actually, I'm thinking of ditching (read: wiping, deleting) them.

Has anybody been in a similar situation before, and felt the same?

I have already resolved that I'm NOT going to involve myself with writers such as Mercedes Lackey, Margaret Weiss and Tracey Hickman, and some others, as they essentially do the same: write book upon book upon book, entangling one or more series or worlds.

I'll only follow or start reading writers who write clean series: from one book to the next.

eschwartz · 07-08-2014, 07:10 PM

Can't say I've reached that breaking point yet. Then again, I haven't gotten nearly as far into FR as I'd like to.

Katsunami · 07-08-2014, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Can't say I've reached that breaking point yet. Then again, I haven't gotten nearly as far into FR as I'd like to.

Where are you now, in the Forgotten Realms?

Another option would be to not delete anything, and just keeping the Pathfinder and Eberron novels complete. There are not that many. Pathfinder only has 21 books, and Eberron not much more.

Besides Forgotten Realms, Eberron (both by Wizards of the Coast) and Pathfinder (by Paizo, but mostly written by the same authors), I could just ignore the rest, as a lot of the older D&D material is not even available as an ebook, and the print books are often out of print anyway.

(PS: I also don't have, or read, the (A)D&D core books. What I know of D&D rules all comes from the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series. I only read the novels.)

Penforhire · 07-08-2014, 07:28 PM

I haven't read those RPG related book series. Probably why I never got burned out on shared world series. I still have fond memories Thieves' World, started and curated by Robert Asprin.

AnemicOak · 07-08-2014, 07:33 PM

Never really got heavily enough into FR to want to read them all. I pretty much just picked and chose some to read here and there. RA Salvatore and Elaine Cunningham come to mind.

I did read, and still own in paper, all of the old Battletech novels (unless you count MechWarrior: Dark Age) but probably would have burned out on those if they'd gotten to be as large of a catalog as FR is.

Katsunami · 07-08-2014, 07:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Never really got heavily enough into FR to want to read them all. I pretty much just picked and chose some to read here and there. RA Salvatore and Elaine Cunningham come to mind.

The early ones by them are great books. You can read them completely stand-alone if you'd want to.

Quote:

I did read, and still own in paper, all of the old Battletech novels (unless you count MechWarrior: Dark Age) but probably would have burned out on those if they'd gotten to be as large of a catalog as FR is.

Forgotten Realms has 257 ebooks. At least, I THINK I have tagged them all correctly, but I'll check that tomorrow. There are 21 books that are only available in paper, as far as I've been able to determine.

FR Catalog:

Spoiler:

AnemicOak · 07-08-2014, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Forgotten Realms has 257 ebooks.

Yeah, I don't love any universe that much, I think Battletech topped out at around 60-65 books. I'm a fairly big Star Wars fan and even when I was a bigger fan than I am now I burned out on those (and Star Trek) fairly quickly.

dickloraine · 07-08-2014, 08:29 PM

I would say it is only worth it, if you actualy enjoy the books. I for example don't like them anymore. I've read some of them as a teenager and even later on. They are in my opinion okay to read for fun once in a while, but they lack on so many things, that I wouldn't consider them anymore. There are so many good fantasy books out there, that have better characters, more interesting worlds, are better written, have better plots or all of this, that I have no time for them anymore.

And you are right by saying it is nearly impossible to follow all of them. I don't have exactly your problem, but most fantasy is in a series format. And each books in this series are doorstoppers. And between each book of a series lies a year minimum. I needed ten years to complete the malazan book of the fallen. Game of thrones is still going. Wheel of times more than a dekade. The dresden files are at book 15. Joe Abercrombie writes on and on. The gentleman bastards are planing the next sting. More malazan books are coming. The stormlight archivies look like they will go on for a decade and I could make this list longer and longer still. To follow all this series and remembering what was going on is getting more difficult the more new series I begin... And since there are long gaps between the publications, I begin many new series. In my more younger and more vulnerable years, I would have finished every series I begun. But now I drop a series I do not like anymore (none of the above of course), because there are so many good books out there. It is realy impressive, how big the fantasy market has become. Where it was not that easy to find the next book to read 15 years ago (at least in germany and maybe another factor is that I now read english novels too) I do not have this problem anymore.

P. S. There is one weis and Hickman series that I enjoyed, which is completed and never expanded to. Don't know the exact name anymor, but something like dragon elves or lost kingdoms.

xg4bx · 07-08-2014, 08:45 PM

The closest I ever came to getting into shared universe novels (outside of some FR and Dragonlance) were those put out by Abaddon Books i.e. Tomes of the Dead, Afterblight Chronicles, Pax Britannia, etc. At most though these are maybe 3 dozen books total (and unfortunately a few of the series are defunct) and are currently continuing in ebook-only novellas here and there.

eschwartz · 07-08-2014, 10:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Where are you now, in the Forgotten Realms?

Already read (series):

Drizzt (Through Charon's Claw)
Stone of Tymora
War of the Spider Queen
Lady Penitent
Starlight & Shadows
Cleric Quintet
Empyrean Odyssey
Haunted Lands
Avatar Series (1 & 3)
Finder's Stone (book 1)
Songs & Swords -- Harpers subseries

(non-series)
Evermeet
some anthologies

If I've read part of it, I will try to finish it first, but unfortunately my TBR is quite long.

If you'll notice, I started with Drizzt and expanded from there, into dark elves and stuff by the same authors. For the most part.

fjtorres · 07-08-2014, 10:12 PM

Shared universes?
I have no aversion to actual "shared" universes like THIEVES WORLD, WAR WORLD, MAN-KZINTI WARS, or (my favorite) WILD CARDS.

Corporate universes though, I usually avoid; I've picked up some standalone STAR TREK novels and the NEW FRONTIERS run (Peter David being the main reason). STAR WARS, BATTLETECH, and the various D&D stuff I avoid. Not because I expect them to be bad (I understand most are quite good) but because once you get into them there is no end anywhere in sight and they seem to exist mostly as fan service for followers of the games/movies/TV shows. Not being all that...devoted...to the source material, I'd rather not get sucked in.

susan_cassidy · 07-08-2014, 10:55 PM

I assume that by "campain" you actually meant "campaign", but I'm not 100% sure.

PurpleStar · 07-08-2014, 10:57 PM

I've collected Star Trek novels for decades and still do to this day. I say as long as you still enjoy your Forgotten Realms then keep on reading. That's all there is to it.

tubemonkey · 07-09-2014, 12:16 AM

I'm not a fan of series books. I much prefer standalone novels. I don't mind trilogies, provided they stop after three books. That said, Dune is one of my all-time favorite books and I've made a onetime only exception for this series. I will complete it. I've been collecting the audiobooks for three years now and currently have 13 (soon to be 16) of the 18 in the series.

Katsunami · 07-09-2014, 04:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eschwartz

If you'll notice, I started with Drizzt and expanded from there, into dark elves and stuff by the same authors. For the most part.

I think 90%+ of the FR-readers either started with Drizzt/Drow/Salvatore, or when starting to play Baldur's Gate.

07-08-2014, 07:05 PM	#1
Katsunami Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,111 Karma: 34000001 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: KPW1, KA1	Is reading in shared universes worth it? As some may know, I recently completed my collection of (A)D&D Forgotten Realms (e)book collection. It means I own every Forgotten Realms ebook ever published, and I own the ones that are not (yet) available as ebooks in paper. In the past, I read a quite a lot of them and I fully intend to read them all, starting at the beginning. In addition, I also own all but one of the Pathfinder novels (as they were suggested to me, they looked good, and got many on a big sale), which written or co-written by some of the Forgotten Realms writers and editors. On top of that, I also have most of the Eberron books (if my lists are correct I'm only missing three, or one series), and one Dark Sun and Greyhawk book. I started out reading the Forgotten Realms novels after first playing Baldur's Gate in 1998, progressing from AD&D 2E to 3E, to 3.5E, to 4E, and now (it seems) to D&D Next, where characters and gods die and get raised or reincarnated, sometimes multiple times over a timespan of hundreds of years. It makes this world hard enough to follow, all on its own. I got into Eberron because of some cross-overs in the Forgotten Relams series. That's also where the Dark Sun and Greyhawk book came from; because they are part of a cross-over series. Some series are comprised of books from two (or three) worlds. I'm not even talking about the rest of the novels and series in the Greyhawk, Planescape, and other campain settings such as Birthright, Blackmoor, Dark Sun.... and on and On and ON.... !! And there we have the problem. It's hard enough to keep up with the Forgotten Realms alone, let alone trying to read, remember and understand every possible cross-over into every other D&D campain setting, and then read all the books in THAT setting. Pathfinder (related to D&D, but completely separate) makes it especially hard because of all the web tales, fanfic-that-becomes-canon-if-its-popular, 'journals', and other related stuff. That part of Pathfinder is actually much bigger than the novels at this point. I don't follow that, but if you'd want to understand ALL the references in the books, you'd need to read it. In short, I'm starting to feel that I'm wasting my time on low-end fantasy, on worlds that get tangled up and crossed over, under and through one another with links that can't be untangled by anyone with unlimited money to buy, and time to read, re-read and remember everything, and the feeling that books are being written for the sake of writing another $6.59 book. Everything keeps getting bigger and bigger. I'm thinking about keeping the Forgotten Realms books (the FR is 'my' world, as I started there and know it best, by far) and the few other books from Eberron, Dark Sun and Greyhawk to complete the FR/Other cross-over series, and split off the rest into another library. Actually, I'm thinking of ditching (read: wiping, deleting) them. Has anybody been in a similar situation before, and felt the same? I have already resolved that I'm NOT going to involve myself with writers such as Mercedes Lackey, Margaret Weiss and Tracey Hickman, and some others, as they essentially do the same: write book upon book upon book, entangling one or more series or worlds. I'll only follow or start reading writers who write clean series: from one book to the next. Last edited by Katsunami; 07-08-2014 at 07:12 PM.

07-08-2014, 08:29 PM	#8
dickloraine Guru Posts: 631 Karma: 7544528 Join Date: Apr 2013 Location: Berlin Device: PRS 350, Kobo Aura	I would say it is only worth it, if you actualy enjoy the books. I for example don't like them anymore. I've read some of them as a teenager and even later on. They are in my opinion okay to read for fun once in a while, but they lack on so many things, that I wouldn't consider them anymore. There are so many good fantasy books out there, that have better characters, more interesting worlds, are better written, have better plots or all of this, that I have no time for them anymore. And you are right by saying it is nearly impossible to follow all of them. I don't have exactly your problem, but most fantasy is in a series format. And each books in this series are doorstoppers. And between each book of a series lies a year minimum. I needed ten years to complete the malazan book of the fallen. Game of thrones is still going. Wheel of times more than a dekade. The dresden files are at book 15. Joe Abercrombie writes on and on. The gentleman bastards are planing the next sting. More malazan books are coming. The stormlight archivies look like they will go on for a decade and I could make this list longer and longer still. To follow all this series and remembering what was going on is getting more difficult the more new series I begin... And since there are long gaps between the publications, I begin many new series. In my more younger and more vulnerable years, I would have finished every series I begun. But now I drop a series I do not like anymore (none of the above of course), because there are so many good books out there. It is realy impressive, how big the fantasy market has become. Where it was not that easy to find the next book to read 15 years ago (at least in germany and maybe another factor is that I now read english novels too) I do not have this problem anymore. P. S. There is one weis and Hickman series that I enjoyed, which is completed and never expanded to. Don't know the exact name anymor, but something like dragon elves or lost kingdoms. Last edited by dickloraine; 07-08-2014 at 08:32 PM.

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07-08-2014, 07:10 PM	#2
eschwartz Ex-Helpdesk Junkie Posts: 19,421 Karma: 85400180 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)	Can't say I've reached that breaking point yet. Then again, I haven't gotten nearly as far into FR as I'd like to.

07-08-2014, 07:28 PM	#4
Penforhire Wizard Posts: 2,230 Karma: 7145404 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Southern California Device: Kindle Voyage & iPhone 7+	I haven't read those RPG related book series. Probably why I never got burned out on shared world series. I still have fond memories Thieves' World, started and curated by Robert Asprin.

07-08-2014, 07:33 PM	#5
AnemicOak Bookaholic Posts: 14,391 Karma: 54969924 Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Minnesota Device: iPad Mini 4, AuraHD, iPhone XR +	Never really got heavily enough into FR to want to read them all. I pretty much just picked and chose some to read here and there. RA Salvatore and Elaine Cunningham come to mind. I did read, and still own in paper, all of the old Battletech novels (unless you count MechWarrior: Dark Age) but probably would have burned out on those if they'd gotten to be as large of a catalog as FR is.

07-08-2014, 08:45 PM	#9
xg4bx Are you gonna eat that? Posts: 1,633 Karma: 23215128 Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Phillipsburg, NJ Device: Kindle 3, Nook STG	The closest I ever came to getting into shared universe novels (outside of some FR and Dragonlance) were those put out by Abaddon Books i.e. Tomes of the Dead, Afterblight Chronicles, Pax Britannia, etc. At most though these are maybe 3 dozen books total (and unfortunately a few of the series are defunct) and are currently continuing in ebook-only novellas here and there.

07-08-2014, 10:12 PM	#11
fjtorres Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,732 Karma: 128354696 Join Date: May 2009 Location: 26 kly from Sgr A* Device: T100TA,PW2,PRS-T1,KT,FireHD 8.9,K2, PB360,BeBook One,Axim51v,TC1000	Shared universes? I have no aversion to actual "shared" universes like THIEVES WORLD, WAR WORLD, MAN-KZINTI WARS, or (my favorite) WILD CARDS. Corporate universes though, I usually avoid; I've picked up some standalone STAR TREK novels and the NEW FRONTIERS run (Peter David being the main reason). STAR WARS, BATTLETECH, and the various D&D stuff I avoid. Not because I expect them to be bad (I understand most are quite good) but because once you get into them there is no end anywhere in sight and they seem to exist mostly as fan service for followers of the games/movies/TV shows. Not being all that...devoted...to the source material, I'd rather not get sucked in.

07-08-2014, 10:55 PM	#12
susan_cassidy Wizard Posts: 2,251 Karma: 3720310 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: USA Device: Kindle, iPad (not used much for reading)	I assume that by "campain" you actually meant "campaign", but I'm not 100% sure.

07-08-2014, 10:57 PM	#13
PurpleStar Wizard Posts: 1,625 Karma: 11387182 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Canada Device: Kobo Clara BW, Kindle Paperwhite (11th Gen)	I've collected Star Trek novels for decades and still do to this day. I say as long as you still enjoy your Forgotten Realms then keep on reading. That's all there is to it.

07-09-2014, 12:16 AM	#14
tubemonkey monkey on the fringe Posts: 45,746 Karma: 158575914 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Seattle Metro Device: Moto E6, Echo Show	I'm not a fan of series books. I much prefer standalone novels. I don't mind trilogies, provided they stop after three books. That said, Dune is one of my all-time favorite books and I've made a onetime only exception for this series. I will complete it. I've been collecting the audiobooks for three years now and currently have 13 (soon to be 16) of the 18 in the series.

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