Is reading in shared universes worth it?

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by PurpleStar

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.

Oh, I enjoy it alright, that's not the problem. The problem is that it's "simple" fantasy, and there is so much else I'll be unable to read if I get into the other D&D worlds by virtue of the cross-over novels.

I'm looking to impose a limit on the D&D(-type) reading so I can also read other stuff. I'm thinking to limit it to the Forgotten Realms, Oberron, Dark Sun, and Pathfinder. The last three don't have a lot of books and everything is available as an ebook. I'll not get into Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Blackmoor and others. Not that they are no good, but a lot of books are out of print and/or not available as ebooks anyway.

[HarryT]

I must admit I've never found reading this type of fiction particularly rewarding. They mainly seem to be rather formulaic stories that are of a poor standard. I only have time to read for a couple of hours a day, and there's so much else I want to read that I've stopped bothering with this type of book.

[gmw]

I'm pretty much with Harry on this one, although for different reasons.

For me, any series tends to be enjoyed as much for the style and consistent (albeit still evolving) view of the world and characters as anything else. I've rarely enjoyed the move to a new author in the same universe, it just doesn't feel like the same story/world any more, not to me. The few times that I've seen high quality work in such shared-universe stories I mostly just regret that they didn't spend their time writing something of their own.

[Doonge]

It's the whole paradigm that seems wrong in my eyes.

I am one of those who entered FR through Baldur's Gate and Drizzt (Salvatore's work) serie. Another important protagonist from FR that made its appearance into Baldur's Gate was Elminster, so I gave this a shot. It was atrocious. I suggest you to try the Elminster serie to confront yourself with reality.

"Where", in which "World", the characters navigate is not an indicator of goodness. "Who" wrote the stuff is more of a trustful indicator.

Many authors have tried their hand in the Marvel Comic Universe, some stuff is great, some stuff is shit. I guess there's a lot of fanfiction around Harry Potter, some might be good, some is surely bad.

And even within series, if the author has no idea how to end it (and maybe doesn't want to, and want to milk the serie), the quality might vary. I'm wary of series, and now I don't hesitate anymore to have my own cut. I can ditch episodes out of my own collection, because I feel they are not necessary, or because I feel the serie can end at some point.

I have no big problem with shared universe per se. Bring it on.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Doonge

I am one of those who entered FR through Baldur's Gate and Drizzt (Salvatore's work) serie. Another important protagonist from FR that made its appearance into Baldur's Gate was Elminster, so I gave this a shot. It was atrocious. I suggest you to try the Elminster serie to confront yourself with reality.

"Elminster in Hell" is SO **** bad... one of the worst books I ever read. I might actually skip it on a re-read.

[WillAdams]

It depends on the shared universe and how it appeals to one.

Agree w/ fjtorres that _Wild Cards_ is quite good and well-worth reading.

Never got into Thieves World or Heroes in Hell --- not sure why, since I usually like fantasy. I've read some Forgotten Realms books, but have gotten burned out on the continual universe reset.

An interesting alternative to this sort of thing, w/ the same feel, but arguably better quality are the short story collections where authors are invited into a universe for some reason --- _Songs of the Dying Earth_ edited by George R. R. Martin is quite good.

[AlbertaCowboy]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

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

I got into D&D 2nd Edition before I read anything in either FR or Dragonlance, so my understanding of the novels was based mostly on my understanding of the D&D rulebooks and Monster Manual, which made world jumping fairly easy, due to the basic "rules" being very similar for the most part.

I haven't read FR in years and years, having found that R.A. Salvatore, once one of my favourite authors, just got stale for me. I didn't enjoy the last couple of series involving everyone's favourite emo angst ridden drow, so I pretty much gave up on the whole FR genre.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

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.

to TW

MZB shared portions of her Darkover (both Published and Fandom)

Would Man Kzin count as shared?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by theducks

to TW

MZB shared portions of her Darkover (both Published and Fandom)

Would Man Kzin count as shared?

I'd say it does--Niven referred to the wars repeatedly but he only had a couple of stories in that period of his timeline before opening it up. Most of what we know from that period is from the contributors and it can stand alone from the rest of the Known Space stories. (Ditto for WAR WORLD and Pournelle's co-dominium.)

Darkover, on the other hand, reads fine and complete if you just stick to the MZB material so I find it hard to argue that the anthologies are essential.

My personal take is that to count as a shared universe, a series needs to depend extensively on contributors other than the creator. For example, the Grantville Saga is clearly a shared universe but the Honorverse isn't (yet).

Sound reasonable?

[Xanthe]

I've never read the FR series, or any other based upon a RPG (at least, that I'm aware of), but I was doing the same thing with the Star Trek novelizations and books, right from when they first started to be published. I finally reached a point years ago where, though I still love Star Trek, I just didn't want to spend anymore money on its paperbacks and its associated non-fiction works. With all of its multi-verses, it got to the point where I would either have to just read Star Trek novels all the time to keep pace with the publication, or I stopped completely because I was never going to be able to keep track of all the tangents.

One of these days I'll start one of subsequent non-OST story arcs and read through it, but I'll never go back to trying to read/collect all of them.

It's rather liberating to give up an obsession.

[DrNefario]

Collecting doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with the quality of the books.

Tie-ins were probably important in getting me into reading - I remember reading Doctor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek and Flash Gordon novels in my youth - but I kind of grew away from them. I became a bit more precious about canon, and kind of felt like I was wasting my time reading things that might not even be real in the context of their own fictional worlds.

Back when I used to do a lot of tabletop role-playing, we rarely used the pre-made worlds, and it seems to me that Forgotten Realms is designed to be generic and kind of uninteresting. Dragonlance has the opposite problem, that it was largely designed to tell one story, and doesn't work that well as a gaming space. The first two Dragonlance trilogies are the only tie-ins that I still feel might be important. I see from wikipedia that there are now over 190 Dragonlance novels, which is frankly ridiculous. It does seem incredibly exploitative when you get up to those kinds of numbers.

I don't know really. There can definitely be good books which are tie-ins, but it does kind of feel like commercialised fan-fiction. And is commercialised fan-fiction even a bad thing?

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I became a bit more precious about canon, and kind of felt like I was wasting my time reading things that might not even be real in the context of their own fictional worlds.

That is something that is different in D&D: the novels ARE the canon. If I writer writes it, then it is canon, and it's how the FR are at that moment.

The one thing that makes following FR difficult when not reading sequencially is the constant reboots: for example, Mystra (the Goddess of Magic) has had four incarnations. Sometimes she's alive, sometimes she's dead, sometimes she has a different name. Same with Elminster: from apprentice to most powerful wizard in the realms to madman, his body killed and destroyed, but him not being dead and/or living in other people's bodies... the same goes for other characters.

So, if you don't read sequencially, the FR novels don't make any sense.

I see from wikipedia that there are now over 190 Dragonlance novels, which is frankly ridiculous. It does seem incredibly exploitative when you get up to those kinds of numbers.

FR is now up to 257 ebooks (at least in my Calibre library; I still have to check all the tags to make 100% sure). I've heard that Star Trek is up to 450+ novels...

I don't know really. There can definitely be good books which are tie-ins, but it does kind of feel like commercialised fan-fiction. And is commercialised fan-fiction even a bad thing?

The problem I'm having now is that it takes enough time already to keep up with FR alone. If I'm going to cross over into other worlds by virtue of the cross-over series, I'll never see the end of it.

Therefore I'm going to ignore the other worlds. The exception would be for Eberron (and the loosely D&D related Pathfinder, because there are not that many books, and I already have most of them.

Greyhawk, Dragonlance and others won't get read I'm afraid.

[DrNefario]

Maybe I should also add that I don't have any qualms about stopping when I think something's in danger of jumping the shark, or disregarding garbage even if it's meant to be canon.

It doesn't bother me at all that there are 184 more Dragonlance books I haven't read. I think I've covered the important ones.

Also, there is no Highlander 2, no Star Wars prequel trilogy, and only one Dune novel.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'd stick to the good ones, and not get too concerned about completionism.

(I'd totally forgotten about Greyhawk until you mentioned it yesterday. I still can't remember any distinguishing features, if it had any. The Forgettable Realms. )

[Katsunami]

Greyhawk, IIRC, is actually older than the Forgotten Realms. It's the quintessential AD&D campaign world. The Forgotten Realms campaign world is much bigger, more popular and better known, however.

[DrNefario]

Yes, Greyhawk was the setting of the TSR-published adventure modules when I started playing.