The Dragon Age Books are still terrible

The Calling:

Like its predecessor, it is poorly written. Make note, I can forgive a fantasy novel for being poorly written. My first fantasy novel series, Raymond E. Fiest's Midkemia novels, were downright awful, writing wise. If the story, if the history, culture, and plot are good I can forgive a little bit of using the same words over and over again to describe difference scenes. I can forgive grammar errors and poor articulation. I loved those books. I still do. Pug, you have a sweet ass world.

The Dragon Age books, sadly, have neither.

Gaider never really gets the concept of translating video game into text. Fiest's novels were similar in that they had a video game counter part that did wonderfully on the market (Betrayal at Krondor is an old game, but from my generation, a well reviewed one.) Granted, he wrote the books first, and the game was created later, but the translation went a lot more smoothly.

Gaider tries to write the books as if we were describing the video game. Combat systems in a video game are just that: systems. A game will have much more combat in it than a book because that is one of the draws of a video game: using tactics and models to achieve the desired outcome. If a small band of people were to actually fight the hordes of darkspawn you meet in the Deep Roads in DAO, they would likely not make it out alive. Health potions will not take you from 0 to 100% health. Injury kits will not really bring you back from the dead. These are models created to simulate combat, but more importantly, add another aspect of fun to the game.

Any spell cast in the book can easily be attributed to a spell used in the game, down to the specific effect it has on the enemy or ally, which is often designed to deal with way more enemies than actually would be fought if you didn't have an unlimited supply of lyrium. When it comes to spells in fantasy novels, keep them rare, keep them mysterious, and keep them as something extraordinary. It should not be as easy to cast magic as it is to swing a sword.

In Fiest's case, it was a book turned into a game, whereas the Dragon Age books are books wrought from a game, so perhaps there is a little more difficulty in transition. But as I said in the previous post, the best way to honor and expand on the predecessor, DAO, is not to have the previous generation do all the things that the game focused on. This means, if you put the characters into the Fade during the game, which proves to be a great, interesting, and unique part of the game, having Maric and crew do the exact same thing does not enhance that experience. It degrades it.

Based on the books, I can only assume that every Fereldan has a demon trap them and their friends in the dream-like fade, only to have one of them have the fortitude and strength to break free of the dream and gather their allies one by one in their own respective dreams. This must be true.

Gah. Ok on to the meat of this.

Cast o' characters: Genevieve, Maric, Duncan, Fiona, redshirt meat shields, Utha, Bregan, The Architect

Genevieve: Commander of the Grey Wardens in Orlais, she comes to Maric to ask for his aid in finding her brother, Bregan, who went to the Deep Roads for his calling, but it turns out, is not dead yet. Now, am I the only one who thought the Grey Wardens join the Legion of the Dead or other dwarven parties when they went to their Calling? They didn't just go in alone? Well because if that is true, that idea was thrown out as an obstruction to the plot device. Bregan had gone in alone, but his "special connection" to his sister let her know he still lived.

This character is terribly drawn. She is either a hard-ass, or longing for quiet domesticity, which wasn't terrible in and of itself. She is painted as a woman, who, all her life all she wanted to do was become a Grey Warden. But to become a Grey Warden, her recruiter demanded her brother, Bregan, also become one. As he advanced in the ranks, jealousy ensued on her end, and resentment from him. This is not bad.

What is bad is that all the monotonous reiteration to paint her as she is, a battle hardened warrior who has inner personal issues but nonetheless remains committed at least to the cause of the Grey Wardens, in the last couple of chapters she just looses any credibility. She breaks form the party to confront Bregan, who is by now a darkspawn. When he tells her there is a way to end the blights (by making all humans in the world to drink the darkspawn blood, basically making everyone darkspawn eventually) she accepts this without question. She does not ask how the Architect and Bregan intend on ended blights. She just hears that they do. Are we really to believe she is the calculating commander the whole book tries to portray her as, but she does not ask this seemingly important information before deciding to side with the darkspawn? really?

Duncan: I never trusted Duncan in DAO. He pretty heartlessly recruited and killed Ser Jory and I never forgave him for that. When Alistair lamented Duncan's loss, I consoled him, but never actually said anything good about the man. I kinda wondered if he didn't actually have an insidious plan up his sleeve and we'd see zombie Duncan at the head of the darkspawn horde.

When you have different people thinking different things about a character, that is a good thing. It means they are complex individuals.

Thanks to this book, I no longer harbor any such suspicions. Apparently Duncan was an Orlesian-born, Rivanni blood thief in Orlais. Funny, his accent in DAO seemed pretty standard Fereldan to me. Also he was a theif who even after his induction into the Grey Wardens, simply enjoyed pick pocketing as much as he possibly could. He did this throughout the book. It is even a major plot device.

I lost so much respect for Duncan during this book.

Maric: Same as always, naive. Only this time he is king of Ferelden, yet somehow manages to evade all his palace guards and Loghain to join the quest alone. right.

Fiona: Since Maric never got over killing the woman who nearly destroyed everything he stands for (see previous post) he has to mope over her till the end of his days. Well, if he can't have an Orlesian elf bard, how about an Orlesian elf mage, grey warden? Her role in this entire book is to become Alistair's actual mother and let Maric be emo about Katriel.

Utha: Same comments as Genevieve. Gray warden, silent sister, yet at the mere mention of the existence of a plan by the darkspawn Architect to end the blight, she signs on, no questions asked.

Bregan: one dimensional character. From the start in his non-corrupted state to the end where he is a darkspawn, all he does is hate his sister for making him a gray warden. At the very end he attributes this to becoming a darkspawn and lets himself be killed. huh? Your every bitter thought really just because you are now a darkspawn, not because Gaider had one and only one purpose for writing you into existence?

The architect: I haven't played Awakening yet, but I hear he is important there. I have no opinion on him based on the books. He's a cylon, he's got a plan, got it. He also has no personality (which is fine) and Gaider manages still to annoy me with his recycled descriptive terms.


Ugh. I hate these books. On to something good. Time for the Game of Thrones.