Attention lore-nerds! The books...worth a read or waste of time?

Volgore

Hello!

I know that the thread title is a bit silly, because nobody can really decide if someone else would enjoy one or another fantasy IP.

While i'm generally a huge fantasy fan and have digested a megaton of books, audiobooks, games, movies, tv shows... the warcraft lore never really interested me.
Over the years, i kept hearing that it is trivial at times, uninspired, inconsecutive, far fetched, bad writing and even contradicting itself here and there. That not even Blizzard gets it right anymore, had to invent alternative timelines over their own mess and while Metzen acts up like the king of lore, he also confuses stuff. Some authors just wrote what they wanted and people argue over what is really canon and what is not.

According to all that, i always thought that it would be a waste of time dealing with what i suspected would be low quality fantasy.

Now i have to admit that the Warcraft movie sparked a new interest in the overall story and lore in me, but again i don't want to read 3-4 books to figure out that it is not worth to stick to it any further for the reasons i mentioned above. Like nobody would want to read all the Star Wars books and in the 7th book after 100 hours of reading, suddenly Kenobi is named as Luke's father or something like that.

I also don't expect alot of comments here, because..i think the percentage of players that have actually read all the books is probably rather low.

So i'm thankful for any input here, maybe somebody likes to leave his thoughts.

MikePaladin

Read a few and loved it stopped because back then was busy with University so didn't have time to read  more maybe I will continue...hmm that nostalgia of the game and of the reading feeling   only down side if I will return to read probably I will want to play again and rage quit again ....xD

Aeolyn

I enjoyed them and tbh, they gave me a much greater appreciation for the Horde as well as made the world make more sense.

Deivos

Depends, the old books don't line up as well with the changes done with the MMOs lore updates/retcons.

SBFord

While there are inconsistencies from time to time, most of them are pretty good. I particularly loved the War of the Ancients and Dawn of the Aspects is my all-time #1 favorite.

Excluding manga and short stories (though the ones about each faction's racial leaders are top notch and give a LOT of insight into each leader), this is the suggested order:

1. Rise of the Horde 
2. The Last Guardian
3. Tides of Darkness 
4. Beyond the Dark Portal 
5. Day of the Dragon 
6. Of Blood and Honor 
7. Lord of the Clans 
8. Arthas
9. The Well of Eternity 
10. The Demon Soul 
11. The Sundering 
12. Cycle of Hatred 
13. Night of the Dragon 
14. Stormrage
15. The Shattering
16. Wolfheart 
17. Thrall: TotA 
18. Tides of War 
19. Dawn of the Aspects 
20. Vol'Jin: Shadows of the Horde
21: War Crimes

Here's the link to the short stories about each faction's racial leaders:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/5245478/leaders-of-azeroth-series-complete-5-3-2012

Kyarra

I still have the book they gave you when you preordered WoW back in 2004. If I remember right, it was very interesting.

SBFord

Oh and here's the complete reading list as it aligns to each of the games that also includes manga and short stories in chronological order:

https://www.reddit.com/comments/3h4lgb/

kiraveli

I love the books, I don't even play but I read them and like to keep up with lore.
Honestly I kinda find the books better than the ingame stuff. They're more serious and more fantasy. I rolled a mage as a boost and was so disappointed because it was just nothing as fascinating as the mages in the books. 
Chronicle is a written lightweight series of the complete timeline. I was kinda disappointed with how they changed something about the dragons, but otherwise it's an option if you don't want to read everything.
The books are definitely worth it and they're always getting new books out! (Chronicle was just released the other month and Illidan)

time007

Volgore said:

Hello!

I know that the thread title is a bit silly, because nobody can really decide if someone else would enjoy one or another fantasy IP.

While i'm generally a huge fantasy fan and have digested a megaton of books, audiobooks, games, movies, tv shows... the warcraft lore never really interested me.
Over the years, i kept hearing that it is trivial at times, uninspired, inconsecutive, far fetched, bad writing and even contradicting itself here and there. That not even Blizzard gets it right anymore, had to invent alternative timelines over their own mess and while Metzen acts up like the king of lore, he also confuses stuff. Some authors just wrote what they wanted and people argue over what is really canon and what is not.

According to all that, i always thought that it would be a waste of time dealing with what i suspected would be low quality fantasy.

Now i have to admit that the Warcraft movie sparked a new interest in the overall story and lore in me, but again i don't want to read 3-4 books to figure out that it is not worth to stick to it any further for the reasons i mentioned above. Like nobody would want to read all the Star Wars books and in the 7th book after 100 hours of reading, suddenly Kenobi is named as Luke's father or something like that.

I also don't expect alot of comments here, because..i think the percentage of players that have actually read all the books is probably rather low.

So i'm thankful for any input here, maybe somebody likes to leave his thoughts.

WASTE OF TIME.  Avoid their novels.  All the ones I read were not very well written.  They might be good for teenagers I suppose.  I've read almost all the Warhammer, Dragonlance, & Forgotten realm novels, even the Diablo series.  I think Richard Knaak is the writer of some of the Warcraft and Diablo novels but the Warcraft ones were too simplistic, not very well written, plots were ridiculously simple but with battle scenes that were subpar.  Think of any Warhammer fantasy novel, remove all the gritty nature, and reduce it to a D-minus, and you have a Warcraft novel.  Warcraft lore was copied from Warhammer but is like a Disney version of Warhammer only based on a video game.  So its like comparing a novel to the back of a cereal box.  

so yes, a low quality Disney 200 page back of a cereal box fantasy novel based off a video game.

SBFord

time007 said:

WASTE OF TIME.  Avoid their novels.  All the ones I read were not very well written.  They might be good for teenagers I suppose.  I've read almost all the Warhammer, Dragonlance, & Forgotten realm novels, even the Diablo series.  I think Richard Knaak is the writer of some of the Warcraft and Diablo novels but the Warcraft ones were too simplistic, not very well written, plots were ridiculously simple but with battle scenes that were subpar.  Think of any Warhammer fantasy novel, remove all the gritty nature, and reduce it to a D-minus, and you have a Warcraft novel.  Warcraft lore was copied from Warhammer but is like a Disney version of Warhammer only based on a video game.  So its like comparing a novel to the back of a cereal box.  

so yes, a low quality Disney 200 page back of a cereal box fantasy novel based off a video game.

Killjoy. I disagree completely. War of the Ancients by Knaack is very well-written and a good story on top of it. In addition, Knaack is a lovely man. When I wrote him to secure a signed copy of the DoA collection, he kindly agreed and we maintained a very nice email conversation for quite some time while I waited for my book(s) to come. 

Some of the others, while not Tolstoy, are OK and provide a fan of the RTS and MMO some familiar but expanded lore behind something they enjoy.

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GladDog

I've read a lot of fantasy based fiction over the years, although nothing since WoW came out except to reread LOTR when the MMORPG came out.  My taste is really sci-fi and that is all I have read other than the one excursion into LOTR over the last 12 years.

I may read the WoW novels though, at least I know that I won't get s**t on like the player base did to me - twice - in WoW.  The world does have a lot of depth, that is for sure!

As a side note, I've written a novel that I am sloooooowly editing with the goal of publishing... based on sci-fi & superheroes... probably no surprise to those that know I was a City of Heroes fanatic.

Rogosh

Read Illidan its a nice setup for Legion.

Volgore

Thank you everyone for your comments so far, i really appreciate it.

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fodell54

I've read all the novels and really enjoyed them. They are all fairly well written and make for a good read. I think you should go for it. You really have nothing to loss minus a few bucks if you dislike the book.

I'd personally recommend any of the ones written by Richard A. Knaak. His books really stand out in the series.

MikePaladin

time007 said:

Volgore said:

Hello!

I know that the thread title is a bit silly, because nobody can really decide if someone else would enjoy one or another fantasy IP.

While i'm generally a huge fantasy fan and have digested a megaton of books, audiobooks, games, movies, tv shows... the warcraft lore never really interested me.
Over the years, i kept hearing that it is trivial at times, uninspired, inconsecutive, far fetched, bad writing and even contradicting itself here and there. That not even Blizzard gets it right anymore, had to invent alternative timelines over their own mess and while Metzen acts up like the king of lore, he also confuses stuff. Some authors just wrote what they wanted and people argue over what is really canon and what is not.

According to all that, i always thought that it would be a waste of time dealing with what i suspected would be low quality fantasy.

Now i have to admit that the Warcraft movie sparked a new interest in the overall story and lore in me, but again i don't want to read 3-4 books to figure out that it is not worth to stick to it any further for the reasons i mentioned above. Like nobody would want to read all the Star Wars books and in the 7th book after 100 hours of reading, suddenly Kenobi is named as Luke's father or something like that.

I also don't expect alot of comments here, because..i think the percentage of players that have actually read all the books is probably rather low.

So i'm thankful for any input here, maybe somebody likes to leave his thoughts.

WASTE OF TIME.  Avoid their novels.  All the ones I read were not very well written.  They might be good for teenagers I suppose.  I've read almost all the Warhammer, Dragonlance, & Forgotten realm novels, even the Diablo series.  I think Richard Knaak is the writer of some of the Warcraft and Diablo novels but the Warcraft ones were too simplistic, not very well written, plots were ridiculously simple but with battle scenes that were subpar.  Think of any Warhammer fantasy novel, remove all the gritty nature, and reduce it to a D-minus, and you have a Warcraft novel.  Warcraft lore was copied from Warhammer but is like a Disney version of Warhammer only based on a video game.  So its like comparing a novel to the back of a cereal box.  

so yes, a low quality Disney 200 page back of a cereal box fantasy novel based off a video game.

I'm clam I'm calm !!!! Calm Down just another snob posting rubbish comment about something majority 9 out of 10 seems to enjoy around here . ))))

k61977

I have read most of them and even bought the comics which were actually pretty good themselves.  If you enjoy the backstory from the original games and the MMO it might be a worth while read for you.  The books do fill in some of the lore gaps that you see with just the MMO. 

I am the kind of person that loved the high fantasy dragonlance saga books, so these were kinda right up my alley.

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Volgore

Just for a quick update:

This evening i got the latest book of Chr. Golden "Durotan". I did not exactly plan to start with this one, but i got a free copy and just went from there.
"Durotan" is the official story about what happened before the movie, so it rather goes along with the movie lore and i read in the Amazon reviews that it really conflicts the old story -what is not exactly what i prefer, but then again...free copy and such.

So out of interest, I read up on the internet on some characters that appear in Durotan, esp. Drek'Thar.

And here it comes...

-according to "Durotan", Drek'Thar lost one eye to a wolf and later on his sight on the other

-according to some wowpedia site, Drek 'Thar was born blind

-according to wowpedia, it is unknown if he was born blind or not

-according to "Lord of the clans", Drek'Thar got blind when he got angry

-according to Chris Metzen he got blind for overusing the elemental powers

Really? I know that Blizzard loves NOTHING more than to constantly change things, but this is ridiculous. How could someone connect to a character or a story or care for it if it changes all the time? I never had that in other fantasy lecture.

Does it keep on coming like this? If so, this is just what i mentioned in the OP.

I need more input here folks

k61977

Volgore said:

Just for a quick update:

This evening i got the latest book of Chr. Golden "Durotan". I did not exactly plan to start with this one, but i got a free copy and just went from there.
"Durotan" is the official story about what happened before the movie, so it rather goes along with the movie lore and i read in the Amazon reviews that it really conflicts the old story -what is not exactly what i prefer, but then again...free copy and such.

So out of interest, I read up on the internet on some characters that appear in Durotan, esp. Drek'Thar.

And here it comes...

-according to "Durotan", Drek'Thar lost one eye to a wolf and later on his sight on the other

-according to some wowpedia site, Drek 'Thar was born blind

-according to wowpedia, it is unknown if he was born blind or not

-according to "Lord of the clans", Drek'Thar got blind when he got angry

-according to Chris Metzen he got blind for overusing the elemental powers

Really? I know that Blizzard loves NOTHING more than to constantly change things, but this is ridiculous. How could someone connect to a character or a story or care for it if it changes all the time? I never had that in other fantasy lecture.

Does it keep on coming like this? If so, this is just what i mentioned in the OP.

I need more input here folks

The movie and books based around it are not a good place to find the lore as they changed or diluted it for the movie.  Neither is Wikipedia as I can go on and post anything I want to whether it is true of not.

Here is a link with a decent list of the books in a somewhat chronological order:

http://www.rivalcastmedia.com/articles/63/1021/

Here is another list which has more of the books listed, I didn't compile the list pulled it from the official forums:

War of the Ancients : The Well of Eternity (Novel, 10,000 Years)
War of the Ancients : The Demon Soul (Novel, 10,000 Years)
War of the Ancients : The Sundering (Novel, 10,000 Years)
War of the Shifting Sands (SS)
Rise of the Horde (Novel, Pre-First War)
Unbroken (SS, Pre-First War)
The Last Guardian (Novel, First War/WC1)
Beyond the Dark Portal (Novel, Second War/WC2)
Lord of the Clans (Novel, Post-Second War)
Day of the Dragon (Novel, Post-Second War)
Of Blood and Honor (SS, Post-Second War)
Road to Damnation (SS, Post-Second War)
Arthas: Rise of the Lich King (Novel, WC3/Third War)
Death Knight (Manga, Third War)
Vol'jin: The Judgment (SS, Third War)
Sunwell Trilogy (Manga, Post-Third War)
Cycle of Hatred (Pre-Vanilla)
Ashbringer (Comic, Third War & Vanilla)
Night of the Dragon (The Burning Crusade)
Garrosh: Heart of War (SS, Post-TBC, Pre-WotLK)
World of Warcraft: The Comic (The Burning Crusade & Pre-WotLK)
Lor'themar: In the Shadow of the Sun (SS, Pre-WotLK)
Sylvanas Windrunner: Edge of Night (SS. Immediately post-WotLK)
Stormrage (Pre-Cataclysm, Post-WotLK)
Shaman (Manga, Pre-Cataclysm, Post-WotLK)
The Shattering (Pre-Cataclysm, Post-WotLK)
Curse of the Worgen (Comic, Cataclysm)
Genn Greymane: Lord of his Pack (SS, Cataclysm)
The Council of Three Hammers: Fire and Iron (SS, Cataclysm)
Tyrande & Malfurion: Seeds of Faith (SS, Cataclysm)
Baine Bloodhoof: As Our Fathers Before Us (SS, Cataclysm)
Gallywix: Trade Secrets of a Trade Prince (SS, Cataclysm)
Wolfheart (Novel, Cataclysm)
Velen: Prophet's Lesson (SS, Cataclysm)
Varian Wrynn: Blood of Our Fathers (SS, Cataclysm)
Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects (Novel, Cataclysm)
Quest for Pandaria (Comic, Pre-MoP, Post-Cataclysm)
Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War (Pre-MoP, Post-Cataclysm)
The Trial of the Red Blossoms (SS, Mists of Pandaria)
Bleeding Sun (SS, Mists of Pandaria)
Dawn of the Aspects (E-Book, Mists of Pandaria/Pre-History)
Vol'jin: Shadow of the Horde (Novel, Mists of Pandaria)
The Blank Scroll (SS, Mists of Pandaria)

Volgore

Thanks alot!
In the meantime, i managed to get many of these books already. Some stuff is quite hard to come by and i had to search the intarwebs for a download.

I quit the 2016 movie-based pre story "Durotan" and started with "Rise of the horde" two days ago. Although both come from the same author, in my opinion Rise has a much better writing style. Deeper, better wording etc.
I didn't like the many short sentences per paragraph in Durotan and found the overall expression somewhat shallow ...as if it was written to be easier to follow for the mainstream folks that possibly buy the book after watching the movie.

I'm not very far yet, but i already remembered alot of  characters and things that i saw in the game and that now start to come together.

Amathe

I read a few WoW books when WoW first came out. They were ok. Not great, not really good, but ok.

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DKLond

Hey, I loved Vampire of the Mists and Dance of the Dead

At least as a teenager, anyway.

Simsu

I've read about 3/4th of the books (just got too busy to keep up) and what I would say is this...

WoW has done some really stupid things with the lore. I'm sure some people like what they did and some things needed to be tweaked to make everything fit, but some stuff was just dumb (super advanced space aliens flying around in crystal spaceships come to mind).

That being said, if you're at all interested in the lore of Warcraft (not just WoW) you should probably give the books a try. I'd suggest ones that aren't explicitly covered in WoW lore and then if you like those work your way into the other books. Not to say that the WoW centric books aren't good, but it may be easier to stay objective if you start outside of the big named books (Arthas, Thrall, etc).

I started with the Well of Eternity trilogy and really liked them. I'd probably suggest those to anyone looking to start getting into Warcraft lore. Alternatively, if there is a WoW character you know a little about and always wanted to know more then maybe one of the specific books would work as well.