By Caroline Spector
If you don't know what Earthdawn is, you might want to Google it for a more detailed explanation, but in brief it is a fantasy roleplaying game inspired by the Shadowrun game, but set in the ancient past in a world of magic and myth. It was supposed to be a different sort of fantasy, darker and more flavoursome, but it found itself caught between the inability of writers to provide something different to the generic format and the incomprehension of gamers who wondered at the way in which it shook off old stereotypes. As a result, sales were poor and the novel line, for which Scars was intended, failed. In fact, Scars was part one of a trilogy of which only the third and final part, a Shadowrun novel called Worlds Without End, was published. But now, at last, fans have the chance to read the rest of it (part two, Little Treasures, should be out soon).
Scars is a difficult novel to appraise. Obviously, if you are a fan, you must buy it to finally sate that curiosity which has burning within you. But, would anyone else want to read it? I suppose that's not an important question to the publishers, as it is aimed squarely at the fans, but others of you, reading this review, might be curious.
It certainly has its good points, generally avoiding falling into the pitfalls that can afflict the average fantasy novel. Caroline Spector is a pretty good writer and the setting is strong and different enough that many will find it interesting to read the tale of the elf Aina who survived the horrors of the Scourge only to suffer the personal attention of one Horror in particular over the centuries. Unfortunately, non-fans will probably not find it as interesting as fans, lacking the ties to the games that inspired - fans will be interested to see the name Aithne Oakforest but anyone else will have no idea who he is. I'm not too sure that the average fantasy reader would find it that entertaining - and that's a real shame as it has a lot of potential. Still, if you did Google Earthdawn and were intrigued, you might want to see if you can still find this on Amazon...
By David Eddings
I was a bit surprised to see The Belgariad being slagged off in the pages of Knights of the Dinner Table magazine recently. Alright, not everybody has the same tastes and it was a salutary lesson in 'get to know the reviewer' before applying their views to your reading habits, but it was definitely one of those moments when you wonder if you have been reading the same author. I had to give him a little benefit of the doubt as, although David Eddings is one of my favourite authors, I mainly knew him through his later novels - I'm sure I must have read The Belgariad before, a few bits seemed familiar, but it was only recently that I sat down and read through all five volumes - and it confirmed what I already knew, David Eddings is a good writer. Although there is probably a degree of cliche in the series (beyond the fantasy trope of young boy grows up to be hero which is at its heart), they did not jump out at me and probably have less to do with him being derivative than with the fact that it has been around for over twenty years and likely the subject of some plagiarism. Or, perhaps, it is the fact that I do not read as much in terms of fantasy fiction as hardcore fans of the genre. Either way, it did not strike me as cliched - in fact, I found it to be the opposite, a breath of fresh air : the characters are believable and not cardboard cutouts as in some novels, the world (while a little naive - eg everyone seems to speak the same language!) manages to be an interesting place whilst tending to draw inspiration from stereotypes (perhaps because many of them are subverted) and it has a good deal of humour. Despite the rather large number of pages in total, I found myself rushing through it, eager to find out what happened next and only relinquishing it from my hold when I literally became too tired to hold it. I read a lot of fiction books and there are not that many authors who can keep my attention like this (others would be the likes of JK Rowling and Clive Cussler). It's not necessarily 'deep', but if you are looking for a good fantasy series that will capture your imagination, then you could do worse than trying The Belgariad. And, if you like it as much as I did, then there is The Mallorean for when you finish! Wonderful!