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Post by thealmightymudworm on Feb 27, 2014 18:43:57 GMT
As hynreck is promising to complete a trio of reviews for the novels (whether shortly or not), I figured it was worth having this resurrected scrap of thread ready.
From TUFFF (Sep 2009)... That difficult third Chadda Darkmane novel... Do you have it? Have you read it? Do you believe that Marc Gascoigne wrote it after Ian Livingstone gave him a bunch of disparate ideas - "ooh it needs a balloon, Chadda, Yaztromo, a funky Elf girl, some Shapechangers, and that bloody crow Vermi-whatsit!" Also, the chapter with the balloon maker made no impression on me as a feckless youth, but now is, unintentionally, the best bit in the book.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Feb 27, 2014 18:44:38 GMT
From TUFFF... I found all the FF novels hard going (because they aren't particularly good) to be honest! I'm not sure I've even ever finished reading Shadowmaster, although it is packed with good stuff about Allansia. But what's going on with Yaztromo? He seems to be much younger and fitter than in all of his previous outings. He's slimmer, younger, and isn't wearing glasses - looks like he's been on 10 years Younger to me!
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Feb 27, 2014 18:45:44 GMT
From TUFFF... But what's going on with Yaztromo? He seems to be much younger and fitter than in all of his previous outings. He's slimmer, younger, and isn't wearing glasses - looks like he's been on 10 years Younger to me! Maybe he had a fight inside a mountain with a Balrog that we didn't get to hear about and is now already planning a holiday out on the ocean to the west... (328) Despite your best efforts, you find yourself decaying in front of a computer screen. Your adventure ends here.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Feb 27, 2014 18:46:45 GMT
From TUFFF... Actually, throughout the book Yaztromo doesn't stop moaning about how old and useless he is. He can't even tell Weasel is a fraud. There's some huge continuity bugs in various dates mentioned in Shadowmaster as well. It really strikes me that Ian just dumped a bunch of notes with Marc G, who then had to rewrite the whole thing. Kinda like Keith Martin and Legend of Zagor maybe? Impudent Peasant!
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Feb 27, 2014 18:47:32 GMT
From TUFFF... Good point, although Russ Nicholson seems to have re-imagined him! It does indeed feel like a hotchpotch of IL type ideas. Now the Zagor Chronicles, now there's an issue (a low point in FF in my opinion!)...
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Feb 27, 2014 18:48:01 GMT
From TUFFF... From a collecting point of view I'm really happy. I found a copy of Shadowmaster a few weeks back after searching for over 10 years. The only one of the novels I'm missing now is number 3 of the Zagor Chronicles. From what I've read here, I won't be putting any of these books at the top of my reading list, but it will be nice to get that last book eventually and complete the set.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Feb 27, 2014 18:48:55 GMT
From TUFFF (Aug 2011)... I liked the idea that if a Shapechanger stays in one form for too long, it starts thinking like whatever it's mimicking. Apart from that, not a great book.
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Post by hynreck on Feb 27, 2014 19:53:53 GMT
Got me beaten to it!! That's fine though. I've started writing the review today, got a chunk done. Will do another chunk tomorrow, if things keep quiet. And then who knows...? I will try hard not to let months fly by, this time!
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Post by hynreck on Mar 7, 2014 17:36:25 GMT
I actually finished reading this book, the last in the Chadda Darkmane trilogy, around the end of last year, so by the time I’m actually writing this (and perhaps far from finishing, if my Demonstealer review is any indication) two months have passed already. Enough time to forget important details, I reckon. Sigh. Seems like a constant with me. So yesterday I picked it up, trying to remember a bit more about it, and damn it, while it did refresh my memory - ever so slightly - it also made me remember something I wanted to put into my Demonstealer review. Of course it did.
So here it goes, and by way of keeping the amazing suspense, let’s first see what triggered that memory: As I was flipping through the pages, mostly using Russ Nicholson’s amazing illustrations as reminder of what happened in the story (wonderful, yes, but I constantly found myself struggling with Yaztromo’s depiction, my vision of him being of a far more feeble man, balding perhaps, more in line with the text; not this semi-youthful and strong-looking bearded tuggee from the Temple of Doom), I find myself reminded of how some set pieces, near the beginning, felt inserted, constructed only to make the big bad seem, well, really bad, you know? These scenes of destruction, of innocent people being slaughtered left and right, sometimes quite randomly, serves only that purpose, and if done with subtlety, then are not quite so jarring. Otherwise, they stand for what they are and can be annoying. I like my dosage of death and destruction linked to the main story, thank you. If I wanted pointless mayhem… well I’m not so sure what I would read actually, but I could always go and sound the alarm in GoldenEye, with an infinite ammo cheat on and wait for the waves of soldiers to show up and the carnage to begin. It’s fun but it’s not much of a story.
Tropes, tools for telling a story, are supposed to blend in and not stick out, they are not supposed, usually, to give you constant reminder that what you’re reading is a construct. You are supposed to sink into the story, not be taken out of it every time you spot one. Of course, being well-versed in said tropes will render the effort of sinking in slightly more difficult, true, and so this is not a perfect world, but the author’s got to share the burden of hiding his tropes as well as he can. It’s a tough assignment, and I’m certainly not claiming I would be better at it than anybody else.
Fortunately for Shadowmaster, those scenes at the beginning are not as bad as I may make them sound; they do tie in with the main plot, even if still gratuitous at times, and they do not overstay their welcome, but they did remind me of similar scenes in Demonstealer which are a bit more guilty of this. Yes, finally I’m getting there.
I’m targeting those horror-tinted bits where we follow the point of view of random, hapless victims, who will clearly die to serve as flesh vessels for the demonic aids. This is typical horror movie prelude stuff (oftentimes can be found in more than just the prelude, truth be told), and while I expect it in such cases, I was a bit surprised of finding such examples here. Of course, in Trolltooth Wars there was an whole chapter devoted to this technique, the attack on the village - quite horrifying - so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. Perhaps it just came with the legacy required of continuing a story already set with a certain style by another author, just like keeping Chadda an unlikable jerk most of the time seems to have been a requirement.
It’s not that I would have cut those scenes, exactly. On their own they are quite effective, and if nothing else, informative of the Modus Operandi of the skinless demons. But after 2 or 3 times it became somewhat redundant (there’s at least 3 instances I can remember). After the first informative time, it became a horror porn show, probably design only to appeal to our basest voyeurism desires or as padding. I’m not offended, though, as I believe it’s far from being the biggest offender in regard to a book meant to entertain, myself being quite a fan of exploitation cinema. No, the biggest offender in the room here would still be the boredom aspect of Demonstealer. But enough about that.
The closest similar scene in Shadowmaster would be the scene with the mercenaries guarding the convoy, from somewhere to somewhere (sorry about that), skirting some barren hills apparently dedicated for easy-to-pull ambush. We get the point of view of a family man, get lots of personal details so that we can feel about him, and for a while I was hoping he would make it through, just so that this chapter would have a stronger link to the rest of the book than just: we’re showing you how we get the bodies (for Cawliss’ army of mutants). But then, his companion, a veteran mercenary girl, gets offed quite easily and still in denial, a bit surprising really, not the denial part which I find credible enough, but the fact that she’s supposed to be a veteran and should react accordingly (apparently she must have been a veteran of countless trips where nothing happens and so had her senses dulled), and so I somehow knew that nobody would survive. The man in question is on a horse, and could have fled I suppose, but instead decides to give the bad guys a run for their money, and dies heroically and epically. Fine. But man, you had a family to care for! Don’t you think that your selfish decision might have doomed them all?? Oh well, I’m getting too invested in details yet again. That’s what happens when you have little ones at home that you care for. You would take a bullet for them, but for them, first and perhaps only; not for some merchants paying you a pittance.
Again, it’s not that those scenes don’t deserve to be, they have their reasons to, but they feel overly dramatic (they are for sure) and exploitative. But then again, it’s a case of show, don’t tell, and I’ve myself mostly been in favour of that approach, generally speaking, enjoying quite a few books out there (or movies, or games) that did show instead of telling, and for which I had no problem whatsoever. So maybe I’m a bit biased in this case. Most likely, the fact that I often find myself bored out of my mind probably lead me to find fault on every pages. But who’s to blame for that?
Though, I’ll admit I wasn’t as bored reading this book as I was with the last one. Doesn’t mean that time flew by all the same, but let’s move on from there. I don’t know why exactly, the story left a better impression on me this time around. Seemed more grounded, more straightforward, with a classical approach that reminded me of some simpler times, perhaps; McGuffins are stolen, heroes gather, bad guys must be stopped; let’s storm the castle and see what happens from there! The Conan the Barbarian approach, fitting for a big guy such as Darkmane: I’ll get myself a wizard, a thief, and a Valeria look alike and we’ll be all set to go, no problem!
Thinking about it now, I realize that Demonstealer’s story wasn’t that much more complex. In my critic of that book I was saying that it was a bit of a failing, especially when pitted against Trolltooth Wars. Shadowmaster suffers from the same simplistic problem, but simple doesn’t always mean bad, and can be quite entertaining if well done. This book felt to me as if it dragged less than Demonstealer, with 10% less padding, perhaps. I guess what it comes down to is taste, as usual.
Of course, there’s still plenty of annoying stuff to bring it down a few notch away from a good book. One that you would probably pick up once more in the next ten years, say. Everybody in it still seems to be a jerk to everybody else. Chadda seems less inclined this time to be so, good for him (particularly good for us), as it shows evolution, which is the basis of any well done characterisation, something that was a bit lacking with the big amonor aficionado. At the end, Darkmane even starts to have different views about the world itself, and how he was wrong about many things, and basically start realizing how much of a prick he’s been all his life. That a big wtf moment there for the reader who’s probably been accustomed, up to now, to never see any change whatsoever in Chadda, the guy plainly refusing to doubt his core believes.
Actually, this time around, while the thief is a reliable sleazy douchebag liar, true to his nature, it’s Yaztromo, I believe, who wins hands down the crown for biggest jerk. How’s so? Well, it might just be me, of course, but beside being condescending to nearly all around him, with his air of superiority while actually being quite useless (except at the end, granted, but he just benefitted from a huge artefact boost, otherwise he would have been dead), it’s his attitude toward his pet crow that makes him look particularly bad. Maybe I am not suppose to feel for a stupid bird (crows’ are far from stupid, by the way), and yes, the bird is an annoying element who’s main purpose is to be comic relief (that makes two with the thief), but it helps out whenever it can and as best as it can and never gets any thanks for any of it, Yaztromo raining his usual abuse on the poor thing all the time. Of course, it is outclassed in most situations, but what the hell do you expect if you bring your pet bird to a stealth infiltration mission and a war against numerous opponents? To scout ahead and tell you enemy positions? Oh wait, it did just that, now move along Yaztromo and try to be useful instead of lagging behind and forcing Darkmane to pick your ass up and carry you most of the way (as a matter of fact, Chadda also picks up the thief too, so it can be really funny with the right mind. That… or pathetic).
I probably need to wrap this up, before I start ranting in circles. I’ve mostly said what I wanted, I believe, and would just add tiny bits to this, by mentioning the obvious but funny Hippie Elf Balloon-Maker and his mysterious cat as another wtf moment but interesting and funny, nonetheless. It’s hard to figure if the author was lacking imagination here by going the stereotype way (we all know, since the dawn of Tolkien, that elves are tree-hugging lovers, just like our good old hippies of days past (but which one came first?)) or just having a bit of fun, contrasting type against the very square Darkmane. I’d rather believe the later.
Also, bonus points for the elf lady (sorry about forgetting the names, as always) and particularly the thief. They are both rather useless characters that are hard to care for, in light of their weirdness/glaring flaws, and I was all ready to write them off as a waste of space, but by the end they kind of redeemed themselves a little, making me care enough that when (SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY YOU SHOULDN’T READ REVIEWS OF AGES OLD BOOK IF YOU WANTED NO SPOILERS) they died, I felt for them, which, quite frankly, surprised me a lot. It touched me, and I wanted to tell Mr. Gascoigne, here and there: well done Sir, you’ve managed to make me care. For the first time in this trilogy. Pop open a beer you deserve one.
So that’s it. That’s the end of the trilogy. Those are not books that I would feel inclined to read again, but all things considered, Shadowmaster kind of did well in this context. It didn’t feel like such a time waster, more like a decent way to kill time. Sure, there’s better out there, but for those with interest in the Fighting Fantasy world, I would recommend it. As long as you don’t go and expect greatness… but if you’ve been through the first two books, by then you will know that!
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Post by a moderator on Mar 7, 2014 20:55:15 GMT
It's never made clear whether or not Yaztromo's crow is the same one from atop the signpost in The Forest of Doom, but if so, that adds a whole new layer of unpleasantness to the wizard, as that crow used to be human.
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Post by hynreck on Mar 10, 2014 12:31:15 GMT
Interesting thought. If Vermithrax, now I remember the name!, was once a human, what kind of unspeakable thing did that man (at least I supposed it was a man) did to justify that special treatment? Hmm...
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Post by a moderator on Mar 10, 2014 13:57:13 GMT
It needn't even be that unspeakable. The crow in TFoD can talk, and has the possibility of being transformed back for a price, whereas the penalty for being stupid enough to try attacking Yaztromo is the significantly harsher transformation into a frog (miles from any decent water source) with no option of ever getting turned back.
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Post by hynreck on Mar 10, 2014 14:25:30 GMT
Maybe Yaztromo relies himself on his one-time magical items? All out of crow-dust or something so switched to frog? Could be that Yaz suffers from wild mood swings and passes judgment as he sees fit on the moment? He did seemed a bit like that in the book... If Vermithrax is the same crow as the one in TFoD, then by all means he should have paid off his debt by now. Which only reveals how low Yaztromo's willing to go: everytime the crow brings enough gold, Yaz goes something like that: Now, Vermithrax, you took your time bringing back the gold, and see, with inflation and all, plus penalties for delay not respected, I gotta charge you ten more. Be careful now.
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