I don’t wanna be a negative nancy, so I’m looking to going back / exploring other mediums to try and enjoy what WoW has to offer. Any recommendations for add-ons that’ll tell me about interesting questlines from Vanilla -> MoP? I picked up the Immersion add-on so everything at least looks a bit nicer. I’d like to check out the dragon storyline from WotLK to Cata (?) and everything Nurubian, but unsure on everything else.
Also, are there any WoW books you’d recommended I should pick up? At the moment I’ve got:
Ashbringer (Comic)
Lord of Clans
Rise of the Horde
Before the Storm
I’ll probably check out the Malfurion book, but any others?
Well, leaving aside for a second the excesive focus on a single character, there are a series of flaws that i noted that made it, in my opinion, worse than other pieces that came before or after it.
If you want undiluted Night elf focus and development, it comes rather lacking. Everything it offers on said front, the WotA trilogy does better. Tyrande and Malfurion are portrayed far less consistent, and often require of sudden Deus Ex Machinas that seem to come out of the blue.
Characters presented by said novel are made up on the spot, and never again have any notable presence in the setting (game or future novels) or any impact beyond said novel. Thura Saurfang, Lucan Foxblood (a human that suddenly becomes instrumental above any other elf because he is apparently far better equipped to travel into the Emeral Dream),…It almost feels like fanfiction.
The events that transpire there, have zero significant impact on the Warcraft setting. True, there are notable threats and all, but are solved on the spot without having to worry about them ingame. The only point that gets carried forth onto cataclysm, is Fandral’s imprisonment.
In all, i’d rank the novel rather low. Not as low as Knaaks trilogy about dragons, but still, for all the acceptable material you can get, i’d say that one isn’t really that good.
Specially regarding what the target audience (those interested in Night elves and Malfurion) would want out of it.
As i said before, the War of the Ancients trilogy is far better on said regard.
Tastes, I quite like them. I think Christie Golden has a nice way of describing characters’ emotivity, while Knaak has an extremely dry and didascalic style, which sounds bad put it this way, but it also makes his books feel more old style, like chronicles.
Of course.
I relay dislike both of them. Especially Golden is writing character in such a way they simply inconsistent, insane or simply insecure to me. She also doesn’t seem to understand what the word neutral means. At least those are her “more recent” wow novels (it’s going on for many years now).
It’s not only his dry style. He inserted weird self inserts, or other strange characters and in my book he destroyed the entire Night Elven culture from WC3. Of course it’s hard to say to what part he was told those things from Blizzard. i disagree with your last point about feeling like Chronicles. But that’s not important really.
On this I can agree, but to be honest I dislike the entire narrative premise of the War of the Ancients. Time travel isn’t for me, even though it didn’t cause significant alterations in the timeline. But I always assumed those decisions weren’t made by Knaak.