The Spirit Realm

From Nanyea at Casters Realm: http://www.crgaming.com/

OCEAN OF TEARS by Stewart Wieck is on sale now at local bookstores and the station store.

I swung by the local Borders, immediately started flirting for the employee discount then noticed this book on the shelves, just got in. Stewart is a local houston writer who cofounded eqrpg.com and helped develop the World of Darkness, Whitewolf (tm).

'The glory of the great elven city of Takish Hiz is no more, victim to the evil god Innoruuk's foul plot. A gruesome piece of Norrath's history, the elves' flight from the destructive wrath of the gods ended in disaster-and gave the Ocean of Tears its name.'

This is the second EQ Novel.

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its pretty good so far btw 6.99 suggested retail price!

was the first book. Was pretty good, but sorta sucked following a Erudite Pally through the world of Norrath... Ill still give this next book a try. Wish they would just go ahead and commision R.A. Salvatore to write one. But meh, what are ya gonna do?

I agree with Glori. I'm reading A Feast For Crows now.

Salvatore isn't a hack, but he's the Stephen King of the Fantasy Realm. Wrote some great books, now even the crap with his name on it sells, and there's enough to fertilize Africa, truth be told.

Jordan did well for three books ... now ... well, do you really need 3 pages to describe a gust of wind and how it travels through a room, carrying with it the dust and ashes of blahblahblah? I'll never pick up another book of his again, after forcing myself through seven books.

Sure, there's better than LoTR ... but without LoTR the Fantasy genre wouldn't be what it is today. You have to appreciate the work for what it did, not what it contains. And, if you want to get technical, read all his OTHER books as well. There is so much lore and history that Tolkien wove together it's staggering. The man was a genius.

Martin ... thank God for Martin. I gave up on Fantasy until I read A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings and a Storm of Swords ... and now A Feast for Crows. I've been hooked since, and now I'm twitching in my seat for A Dance of Dragons so I can find out what happened to Dany and Tyrion and what happens with Stannis and Jon Snow. (Although so far you get glimpses here and there.) Plus, Martin doesn't drag on. Every chapter accomplishes something, even the ones with the minor characters, like The Onion Knight ... and unlike Jordan, I can't skip whole paragraphs without missing anything. Plus Martin doesn't insult your intelligence as a reader. I did *not* expect the ending to the first book, and I still cringe thinking about it. It reminds me a lot of "I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar." /sniffle

Now, if only they'd let me write one of those EQ books . . . or a trilogy I always loved the lore.

I still need to pick up the latest George RR. Martin book, planning on reading it while out for thanksgiving at relatives houses =)

As for jordan, i think the series was good up till Fires of Heaven, then stuff just stopped happening... I mean, in the last book (not the one that just came out, i havent read it yet) did ANYTHING at all happen?! He's a good writer, but i think the whole Wheel of Time 'franchise' got to his head, leading to the producing books for the sake of selling something rather than for the sake of telling the story.

I had the privallage of reading A Game of Thrones months before it was released because someone I went to highschool with worked at the publisher's, and Iv'e been hooked on the series ever since.

Agreed; after Fires of Heaven, it was rough. I'm still trying to get up the strength to finish off the series. Got everything through Winter's Heart (I think that's it) sitting on the shelf. Haven't read through the EQ books, but I thumbed through the first one at Barnes and Noble the other day. Looked interesting.

Okay admittedly there was a lull in the Wheel of Time series...book 10..well I prefer to believe it never happened....the entire book tells what every single character ever introduced was doing during the ending of book 9...yeah it sucked. HOWEVER, Knife of Dreams, the one that was just released is the best of the series imho. He doesnt draw everything out nearly as much as he has been prone to do, a lot of major events happen, and the whole plot advances toward the end of the series. It was very good. As far as the Martin books go, I haven't been able to read them yet but my sister in law has them and keeps telling me I need to. If they are as good as you all say they are, I will have to try them.

h and for those who think Wheel of Time got boring....try re-reading the whole series right after finishing it. There are things that happen in the first 3 or so books that mean absolutely nothing until boomk 9-11 and so on. Every time a new one gets released I read the whole series over again. This latest book marked the sixth time I have read the series and I have yet to go through it without finding something that has whole new meaning after reading the later books. I am not just refering to the obvious, like Min's viewings, but even mundane things like scenery or a phrase spoken by a common person in an inn. There are tons of little things that are geniously linked to the later books. But unless you have a photgraphic memory, or read the series over again you will never find them lol.

Yeah. I loved the original Sword of Shannara books (my friends hated me for that, Tolkien-only freaks) but didn't make it through the Elfstones series... didn't seem to have focus any more.

I thought the original Dragonquest series was fantastic... but I quit after that awful Dragondrums crap.

I loved the original Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, but by the time I was done with The White Gold Wielder, I was ready for it to end... I mean, it's a depressing series, but it just got way way way under the bottom, too-depressed-to-even-kill-myself depressing.

Some of the Piers Anthony stuff was very good, but anything with more than four volumes just seemed to lose me. Compare A Spell for Chameleon (perfect) with... wow, there are 29 of them now; I quit at 5. I liked the Apprentice Adept trilogy, it was nice and tight... oops, it's up to 7 now. Ick.

This makes me soooooooooo glad that the Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy never went any further (please, if it did, don't tell me).

About the only massivly multivolume series I enjoy is the Dune books, even the pre-Dune trilogy about the Old Duke was spot on, fit all the lore, and was super enjoyable to read... although, honestly, the most recent trilogy with all the robot (I mean Butlerean Jihad) stuff... eh. I can't see a non-enthusiast wading through all that bullshit. I've read each of Frank Herbert's Dune books at least five times, but I would not reread that last (first) set if you paid me minimum wage to do it.

So, everyone, if you write a great book or series, and people love it, and you wrap up most of it nicely at the end... congratulate yourself and go write something else. Don't drag your poor characters (and your poor readers) through the pain of drawing it out into a 6, or 12, or 29+ book series. Please.

Forgot Covenant, didn't read them all but loved what I read.

Those were his first books. You should read the Sci-Fi he's written since. The GAP sequence is especially... well, awesome. A lot more action than Thomas Covenant's books, though I'm a huge fan of them too. Hell, the Gap sequence deserves awards just for the pithyness of it's titles :p

I'm like another poster, right now I'm all for RR Martin. Never liked Sci-Fi at all, tried the Phillip K. Dick series, just couldn't get into it. Tried some others, but my love is old souther literature like Faulkner, random philosophy like Kahlil Gibran, and of course prety much any old cheap Fantasy novel, but since you ole might ogre face have recommended them maybe I'll give it a shot.

Well, having read through more of this thread I am afraid I will be boiled in oil for saying this but I will say it anyway.

LotR was a work of genius.

I tried to read Salvatore's Drizzt novel (whatever it was called) and could not even finish it. That is drivel. I guess I could try one of his later books and see if he is any good.

I was unable to finish Jordan's first book also. I will admit this was mostly due to his characters being so completely unlikeable to me. I might give this series another try but since there are 13987435 sequels maybe I should just save myself the trouble.

GRR Martin. I read the first book and thought it was excellent. Started the second book but got tired of the jumping back and forth. Friends told me the third is better and that number 2 was the weakest of the first three. Reasonably good writer. Original story.

The Thomas covenant stuff was great. Read the first two trilogies. Truely unique unique story and the writing was brilliant. I tried to read his Sci Fi stuff but could not finish the first book. It was clear he was out of his element.

Tolkien is the guru of modern fantasy imo. I mean how many authors come up with a imaginary race (elves), invent a whole new functional language for them, create the world they live in, and tell their story. Oh and along the way, the Hobbit and LOTR are spawned. There's probably very few fantasy writers today that didnt cut their teeth on Tolkien. That being said, here are my fav fantasy books:

Brother Initiate/Gatherer of Clouds - Sean Russell - Awesome oriental fantasy world, where even the bad guys are admirable.
Belgariad/Mallorean Series -David Eddings - very sophomoric by today's standards, but fun reading nonetheless. He got better in
Sparhawk Series - David Eddings - a more grown up series, but fairly light and entertaining.
Dark Elf Series - R.A. Salvatore - I regard Driz'zt stories as his best work, he should have stuck with those and stayed a star writer. Instead he ventured out and frankly almost all his other works with diff chars/settings were mediocre if you are feeling kind.

Sci Fi
Sten Series - Chris Bunch and Allan Cole - Just an awesome series of books, following a pair of black operatives in a very complex far future galaxy. Extremely well written series.
Matador Series - Steve Perry - one of my favorite series, the complex far-thinking plotting of the main char amazes you as it unfolds.
Tuf Voyaging - George R R Martin - havent read any of his newer stuff, but these stories about a trader who becomes an ecological engineer are both entertaining and imaginative. If you haven't read them and you like Martin, get yourself a copy.
Armor- John Steakley - a bit dark, but I wish he had written more and made it a series, he left it open for such, but nothing more that I know of.
The Man who Used the Universe- Alan Dean Foster - Excellent story with a twisty plot that unfolds as you read.

Current reads are - Across a Nightingale floor, Symphony of Ages series - Elizabeth Hayden

Salvatore isn't a hack by any stretch of the word, nor is his stuff "drivel". that said, everybody is going to look at an authors stuff differently, thats just the way things are. Personally I dislike tolkien's works, and I abhor Harry potter, but I read almost anything just to experience it. Except Harry potter

Back to the real subject, which got majorly derailed, The second eq book isn't too bad, but its slow to start. Its nice in how it elaborates on some of the npc's in the game history, though I questioned several times while reading where he was getting some of his information. I was most interested in listening to him describe the areas, he does a remarkably decent job. Vastly better than the first book though, I thought the first one was pretty atrocious.

Brokkem, I agree that Armor was an excellent book (at least I loved it when I read it but I was pretty young then).

As for those who argue that Salvatore is not a hack, I can only say that we are all entitled to an opinion. By my standards he is a hack. I have only read that Drizzt thing but it was so full of plot holes and inconsistencies that I put it down and never picked it back up (if you did not notice the plot holes and inconsitencies then you were not paying attention). His writing style was adequate, but not great. I have no clue if his later works were better.

Perhaps I will give his stuff another try someday and be won over but based on that first book I have to say he is a hack. It was a very poor piece of work.