So, I was feeling nostalgic after finishing a recent book, and I decided to go back and read the Gord the Rogue series.

On the one hand, it really brings back good memories.  There are long sections that make me think, "Damn, now I really want to run 1e!"

On another hand, Gygax needed a better editor for this series.

On a third hand, really - has there ever been a more twinked-out uberpowerful main character?  Gord makes Driz'zt and Elminster look like pansies.  "Look at me!  I'm the Lord of Cats, have a ring that makes me invincible, the coolest sword EVAR, and can kill a few thousand demons without pausing for a break!"

-O

To my shame, when I was 18 I wrote a story about a character that was all outcast and picked on and Deep (TM), you know?  And he went off and became an uber-badass and came back and kicked the crap out of the people who'd bullied him.*  I showed it to a friend of mine, who gave me the first Gord the Rogue book, and...the similarities were, um, dramatic. :haw:  Gord is geek wish fulfilment, writ large.

Gord the Rogue books are like Dragonlance novels for me - they conjure nostalgia for some good ol' fashioned D&D, but they really aren't very well-written.  (I'd suggest Gord the Rogue needed a better writer, not an editor so much. )

*to be clear, I wasn't bullied as a teenager (at least not more than most) but I was, as noted, terribly Deep (TM) and had Angst (also TM).  Hence, writing stuff that, upon  re-reading, makes me want to kick my 18-year-old self in the junk.

I read all the Gord books back when I was running a lot of Greyhawk. Some really great ideas are scattered throughout the series, but good lord are they badly written in virtually every aspect of the craft -- pacing, plotting, characterization, dialog, description, you name it. I suspect that if anyone else in the world had written those books, they would be just as reviled as the collected works of Rose Estes. *Shudder*

Quote from: Erstwhile*to be clear, I wasn't bullied as a teenager (at least not more than most) but I was, as noted, terribly Deep (TM) and had Angst (also TM).  Hence, writing stuff that, upon  re-reading, makes me want to kick my 18-year-old self in the junk.

I've often said that if I had access to a time machine I'd go back to 1985 and kick the living crap out of my 19 year old self. In retrospect I'm surprised someone else didn't do it for me back in the day.

Quote from: GarnfellowI read all the Gord books back when I was running a lot of Greyhawk. Some really great ideas are scattered throughout the series, but good lord are they badly written in virtually every aspect of the craft -- pacing, plotting, characterization, dialog, description, you name it. I suspect that if anyone else in the world had written those books, they would be just as reviled as the collected works of Rose Estes. *Shudder*

You know, you're probably right.

To be honest, I'm reading it for the little cutscenes where you get Graz'zt and Iggwilv and the rest doing all their plotting.  They're way more interesting than Gord most of the time.

I've tried to re-read Sea of Death before, but I quite frankly can't make it more than 100 pages through it again.  I have fonder memories of City of Hawks (which was the first one I read, way back when) so I'm giving that a try.

This'll probably last until I finish my nostalgia kick, and then I'll go and read Elric or something.

-O

Quote from: GarnfellowI suspect that if anyone else in the world had written those books, they would be just as reviled as the collected works of Rose Estes. *Shudder*

What's really bad is that I kind of liked those books. (Rose Estes)
I mean, they wern't good at all, but there it is.

Quote from: Thanatos02What's really bad is that I kind of liked those books. (Rose Estes)
I mean, they wern't good at all, but there it is.

To tell you the truth, I never actually read her novels -- well, I read a few of her "Choose your own adventure" knock-offs, which weren't bad. At the time.

All that I know of her novels I learnt back on the old AOL Greyhawk boards, where her name was a blasphemy.