Ravenloft Novels - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Ravenloft Novels

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
williampall
May 16, 2004 12:31:59 Greetings to all . . .

I don't think that I've ever posted in this forum, been lurking for a few days now. I love the idea of Ravenloft. I just know that there is so much of it that I don't really know where to start. Hence my coming to this forum to ask for guidance.

I currently have the 3E RLCS, and the novel Vampires of the Mists. Read both . . . I also have a friend with numerous D&D novels (RL included) that when I asked to borrow some RL novels grabbed a few at random from his shelf.

Dance of the Dead
Death of a Darklord
Scholar of Decay
and To Sleep with Evil

I just finished DotD, and am curious to get the opinion of the RL experts which novels I should look for? Should I bother with reading all of them? How many are there? Are there any I should definately skip?

I'm not reading them so much for plans of running a RL game, I'm merely wanting to . . . experience Ravenloft.

Any suggestions?
#2
zombiegleemax
May 17, 2004 8:24:44 Hello WP, and welcome!

The Ravenloft novels are:
Vampire of the Mists by Christie Golden 1991
Knight of the Black Rose James Lowder 1991
Dance of the Dead Christie Golden 1992
Heart of Midnight J. Robert King 1992
Tapestry of Dark Souls Elaine Bergstrom 1993
Carnival of Fear J. Robert King 1993
I, Strahd P. N. Elrod 1993
Enemy Within Christie Golden 1994
Mordenheim Chet Williamson 1994
Tales of Ravenloft Anthology 1994
Tower of Doom Mark Anthony 1994
Death of a Darklord Laurell K. Hamilton 1995
Baroness of Blood Elaine Bergstrom 1995
Scholar of Decay Tanya Huff 1995
King of the Dead Gene DeWeese 1996
To Sleep with Evil Andria Cardarelle 1996
Lord of the Necropolis Gene DeWeese 1997
Shadowborn William Connors Ravenloft 1998
I, Strahd: War Against Azalin P. N. Elrod 1998
Spectre of the Black Rose James Lowder 1999

You used to be able to see reviews on the Kargatane website. I know that the Fraternity of Shadows is busy getting reviews of all things Ravenloft, I'm not sure if they have the novels section up yet. By popular opinion, Enemy Within and Lord of the Necropolis are non-canonical, and Death of a Darklord and Tapestry of Dark Souls are the most disliked. Personally, I never liked Heart of Midnight for the writing style, but even a lame Ravenloft novel is still better than no Ravenloft novels at all. I do have them all in my collection, and frequently see them in used bookstores. Most are available on Ebay and are cheap, the exception being King of the Dead, for some reason fairly rare & often fetching $30 US or more on resale. Good luck!
#3
zombiegleemax
May 17, 2004 9:43:08 Don't be misled, however - Heart of Midnight is AWESOME. Highly-recommended. Make sure you read that one, Mordenheim and Spectre of the Black Rose.
#4
williampall
May 18, 2004 0:02:09 Ah lovely, Thank you Catman for the list of books . . . Before i try ebay i'll see how many of the books my buddy has . .

So I'm reading one of the most d-sliked right now huh? Death of a DarkLord . . .

Is there any specific reason why Enemy Within and Lord of Necropolis are considered Non-Canon? To many conflicts with other sources?

And don't worry MSD, I figured that even if I was told one book was absolutely horrible, I'd at least TRY reading it.

Thanks again for the info both of you.
#5
zombiegleemax
May 18, 2004 0:22:34 The writing on the Ravenloft Novels isn't always the greatest. Don't get me wrong, I have my share of them and I've enjoyed most of them. Its just that IMO less than half of them stand as novels in their own right (rather than as RL novels). To get a feel of a Darklord or domain I might read a RL novel. For general inspiration I read Stoker, Bronte or Poe.

In order the best of the books IMO are

1) Specter of the Black Rose
2) I, Strahd
3) Scholar of Decay
4) Dance of the Dead
5) Vampire of the Mist

I, Strahd: the War Against Azalin wasn't quite as good but very illuminating on their "relationship". I give it an honorable mention.

I didn't like (1) Tapestry of Dark Souls and (2) Knight of the Black Rose.

-Eric Gorman
#6
gonzoron
May 18, 2004 16:19:19
Originally posted by WilliamPall

Is there any specific reason why Enemy Within and Lord of Necropolis are considered Non-Canon? To many conflicts with other sources?

For TEW, yeah, that's the problem. That book has one of three conflicting backgrounds for a major NPC. Attempts have been made by fan's to reconcile them, (and an upcoming book, Gazetteer V may do so) but officially the latest version of his history invalidates TEW. (It is, however, a pretty good book.)

For LoN, it does have some conflicts with canon modules, but it's more of a retelling of them than a contradictin. The main reason it is noncanon is that it explains that which should never be explained: the nature of the Dark Powers. It's not a bad explanation, but from the beginning of the line up until the blurb in the recent RLDMG, the official line is that the Dark Powers are left for the DM to define or not define as he wishes.
#7
cyrus_hunter
May 21, 2004 21:35:28 There's a petition to bring back Ravenloft novels or make new ones at: http://www.petitiononline.com/rlnovels/petition.html

Just found a brand new copy of Dance of the Dead at a comic book store. It is one of the better ones. Avoid 'The Enemy Within'. It's non-canon and frankly not that good of a read. 'Tower of Doom', 'Baroness of Blood' and 'Scholar of Decay' get good marks for irony.

You just can't have a good Ravenloft novel without a steaming pile of irony.
#8
williampall
May 22, 2004 11:39:11 Oh yes . . . I enjoyed Dance of the Dead completely. in any other fantasy world she would have been able to have the happiest of happy endings . . but the Dark Powers had something else planned . . .

Mmmm . . . irony is delicious.
#9
zombiegleemax
May 30, 2004 8:34:59 Out of the grand total of three Ravenloft novels I've read, I liked Scholar of Decay the best. In fact, I liked all the ones I've read, that is Heart of Midnight and to Sleep With Evil. Oh, wait, I've read I, Strahd too. Didn't like that as much as the others, but it's still a good read.
#10
orodruin
May 30, 2004 10:32:25 I'm hardly a fan of ANY of the Ravenloft novel line. I tried to give it all a chance, and read a number of them (though I'm sure many have read more.) Unlike the others however, I've finally come to the conclusion that I'd actually prefer having NO Ravenloft novels over a bunch of lame ones. Anyway, here are the ones I've read:

Vampire of the Mists
Knight of the Black Rose
Dance of the Dead
Heart of Midnight
I, Strahd
Tales of Ravenloft Anthology
Death of a Darklord
Baroness of Blood
I, Strahd: War Against Azalin

Hardly exhaustive, I'll admit. But anyway, I thought the best of the lot was P.N Elrod's "I, Strahd", if only for the subject matter. Still kinda flawed though.

"Tales of Ravenloft" had some good short stories, and while I may be in the minority, I thought "Baroness of Blood" was actually one of the better ones.

I did NOT like "Knight of the Black Rose" (Lowder's done better) and words cannot describe how much I LOATHE "Vampire of the Mists."
#11
zombiegleemax
May 30, 2004 14:40:56 The worst thing I've found about having such weak novels is that they invariable as a result have a negative impact on the canon storyline. This is due to the desire of the authors (and likely some fans) to have the dramatic events recounted in the latest book reflected in changes to the canon universe (otherwise you get the problem of making people understand that novel events didn't really happen).
Unfortunately the dramatic imperative all too often overrides the consideration of the setting to the extent that implausible happenings which work reasonably well in a pulp novel end up becoming official parts of the timeline, and the unfortuantely common poor characterisation and general writing contributes to the effect.
Battletech (for those of you who play it) also suffers particularly harshly from this effect with much of the dross currently littering the timeline laid at the door of the atrocious novel line.
If pulp fiction is going to be produced then at least separate it from the canon events, or drastically tighten up quality and continuity control if you want to continue having a novel driven storyline.

Adrian
#12
gonzoron
Jun 01, 2004 14:04:17
Originally posted by Orodruin
words cannot describe how much I LOATHE "Vampire of the Mists."

Hmm... could you try?

Really, I'm very curious, since I and many others consider it to be the best of the bunch by far. I consider it to be one of my favorite books, period. What didn't you like about it?
#13
orodruin
Jun 03, 2004 18:21:21
Originally posted by gonzoron
Hmm... could you try?

Really, I'm very curious, since I and many others consider it to be the best of the bunch by far. I consider it to be one of my favorite books, period. What didn't you like about it?

Hmmm... ok, I'll give it a shot, but I'll probably make it short.

Basically, I hated Golden's portrayal of Strahd. As a fan of the first two Ravenloft modules, I really enjoyed how Strahd was shown to be both really scary, and incredibly tragic. He was a character who would (for example) terrorize innocent people out of pure malice, yet still be found weeping over his murdered brother's tombstone. It was a pretty tight balancing act, but the Hickmans (Hickmen? :P ) pulled it off, and that was with what little there was in the module.

On the other hand, I found the Strahd in VotM to be a cheezy, cardboard villain ("into wolf-form, my beauties" oooh, scary) with barely any hint of tragedy (or horror for that matter) about him.

Then there's the "hero", Jander Sunstar (the name alone set of warning signals in my brain) who was pretty much the standard, angst-ridden vamp who's appeared in so many trashy vampire novels since Anne Rice first got herself published (good at heart, but has guilty feelings about what he's forced to do to survive, hates his cursed predicament, etc.)

Plus, he's an elf. I realize that Ravenloft is essentially a DnD setting, and one should expect to see the occasional elf, dwarf and halfling to make an appearance, but this was one instance where the mix really didn't work for me. It just felt so inappropriate for the setting.

And naturally, he just HAD to come from the "Forgotten Realms." Whoopie. We could always do with more characters from THERE.

Well, that's off the top of my head. I probably had a few more quibbles here and there, but it's been, what, twelve years or so since I read it? Anyway, I'm pretty sure I mentioned my major issues. And (so as to not be so negative)

To be fair, I guess a lot of it had to do with expectations, I was really excited when the new Ravenloft Campaign setting was released, and I was really hyped at the thought of reading Strahd in a novel, so when the final product failed to match my expectations, the fallout was pretty harsh (PMS, the Phantom Menace Syndrome.:D ) I'm sure the book has it's merits (I remember thinking that the rather bitter-sweet, unhappy ending was pretty cool) on the whole though, it just didn't work for me. But hey, this is just one guy's opinion...

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 williampall May 16, 2004 12:31:59	Greetings to all . . . I don't think that I've ever posted in this forum, been lurking for a few days now. I love the idea of Ravenloft. I just know that there is so much of it that I don't really know where to start. Hence my coming to this forum to ask for guidance. I currently have the 3E RLCS, and the novel Vampires of the Mists. Read both . . . I also have a friend with numerous D&D novels (RL included) that when I asked to borrow some RL novels grabbed a few at random from his shelf. Dance of the Dead Death of a Darklord Scholar of Decay and To Sleep with Evil I just finished DotD, and am curious to get the opinion of the RL experts which novels I should look for? Should I bother with reading all of them? How many are there? Are there any I should definately skip? I'm not reading them so much for plans of running a RL game, I'm merely wanting to . . . experience Ravenloft. Any suggestions?
#2 zombiegleemax May 17, 2004 8:24:44	Hello WP, and welcome! The Ravenloft novels are: Vampire of the Mists by Christie Golden 1991 Knight of the Black Rose James Lowder 1991 Dance of the Dead Christie Golden 1992 Heart of Midnight J. Robert King 1992 Tapestry of Dark Souls Elaine Bergstrom 1993 Carnival of Fear J. Robert King 1993 I, Strahd P. N. Elrod 1993 Enemy Within Christie Golden 1994 Mordenheim Chet Williamson 1994 Tales of Ravenloft Anthology 1994 Tower of Doom Mark Anthony 1994 Death of a Darklord Laurell K. Hamilton 1995 Baroness of Blood Elaine Bergstrom 1995 Scholar of Decay Tanya Huff 1995 King of the Dead Gene DeWeese 1996 To Sleep with Evil Andria Cardarelle 1996 Lord of the Necropolis Gene DeWeese 1997 Shadowborn William Connors Ravenloft 1998 I, Strahd: War Against Azalin P. N. Elrod 1998 Spectre of the Black Rose James Lowder 1999 You used to be able to see reviews on the Kargatane website. I know that the Fraternity of Shadows is busy getting reviews of all things Ravenloft, I'm not sure if they have the novels section up yet. By popular opinion, Enemy Within and Lord of the Necropolis are non-canonical, and Death of a Darklord and Tapestry of Dark Souls are the most disliked. Personally, I never liked Heart of Midnight for the writing style, but even a lame Ravenloft novel is still better than no Ravenloft novels at all. I do have them all in my collection, and frequently see them in used bookstores. Most are available on Ebay and are cheap, the exception being King of the Dead, for some reason fairly rare & often fetching $30 US or more on resale. Good luck!
#3 zombiegleemax May 17, 2004 9:43:08	Don't be misled, however - Heart of Midnight is AWESOME. Highly-recommended. Make sure you read that one, Mordenheim and Spectre of the Black Rose.
#4 williampall May 18, 2004 0:02:09	Ah lovely, Thank you Catman for the list of books . . . Before i try ebay i'll see how many of the books my buddy has . . So I'm reading one of the most d-sliked right now huh? Death of a DarkLord . . . Is there any specific reason why Enemy Within and Lord of Necropolis are considered Non-Canon? To many conflicts with other sources? And don't worry MSD, I figured that even if I was told one book was absolutely horrible, I'd at least TRY reading it. Thanks again for the info both of you.
#5 zombiegleemax May 18, 2004 0:22:34	The writing on the Ravenloft Novels isn't always the greatest. Don't get me wrong, I have my share of them and I've enjoyed most of them. Its just that IMO less than half of them stand as novels in their own right (rather than as RL novels). To get a feel of a Darklord or domain I might read a RL novel. For general inspiration I read Stoker, Bronte or Poe. In order the best of the books IMO are 1) Specter of the Black Rose 2) I, Strahd 3) Scholar of Decay 4) Dance of the Dead 5) Vampire of the Mist I, Strahd: the War Against Azalin wasn't quite as good but very illuminating on their "relationship". I give it an honorable mention. I didn't like (1) Tapestry of Dark Souls and (2) Knight of the Black Rose. -Eric Gorman
#6 gonzoron May 18, 2004 16:19:19	Originally posted by WilliamPall Is there any specific reason why Enemy Within and Lord of Necropolis are considered Non-Canon? To many conflicts with other sources? For TEW, yeah, that's the problem. That book has one of three conflicting backgrounds for a major NPC. Attempts have been made by fan's to reconcile them, (and an upcoming book, Gazetteer V may do so) but officially the latest version of his history invalidates TEW. (It is, however, a pretty good book.) For LoN, it does have some conflicts with canon modules, but it's more of a retelling of them than a contradictin. The main reason it is noncanon is that it explains that which should never be explained: the nature of the Dark Powers. It's not a bad explanation, but from the beginning of the line up until the blurb in the recent RLDMG, the official line is that the Dark Powers are left for the DM to define or not define as he wishes.
#7 cyrus_hunter May 21, 2004 21:35:28	There's a petition to bring back Ravenloft novels or make new ones at: http://www.petitiononline.com/rlnovels/petition.html Just found a brand new copy of Dance of the Dead at a comic book store. It is one of the better ones. Avoid 'The Enemy Within'. It's non-canon and frankly not that good of a read. 'Tower of Doom', 'Baroness of Blood' and 'Scholar of Decay' get good marks for irony. You just can't have a good Ravenloft novel without a steaming pile of irony.
#8 williampall May 22, 2004 11:39:11	Oh yes . . . I enjoyed Dance of the Dead completely. in any other fantasy world she would have been able to have the happiest of happy endings . . but the Dark Powers had something else planned . . . Mmmm . . . irony is delicious.
#9 zombiegleemax May 30, 2004 8:34:59	Out of the grand total of three Ravenloft novels I've read, I liked Scholar of Decay the best. In fact, I liked all the ones I've read, that is Heart of Midnight and to Sleep With Evil. Oh, wait, I've read I, Strahd too. Didn't like that as much as the others, but it's still a good read.
#10 orodruin May 30, 2004 10:32:25	I'm hardly a fan of ANY of the Ravenloft novel line. I tried to give it all a chance, and read a number of them (though I'm sure many have read more.) Unlike the others however, I've finally come to the conclusion that I'd actually prefer having NO Ravenloft novels over a bunch of lame ones. Anyway, here are the ones I've read: Vampire of the Mists Knight of the Black Rose Dance of the Dead Heart of Midnight I, Strahd Tales of Ravenloft Anthology Death of a Darklord Baroness of Blood I, Strahd: War Against Azalin Hardly exhaustive, I'll admit. But anyway, I thought the best of the lot was P.N Elrod's "I, Strahd", if only for the subject matter. Still kinda flawed though. "Tales of Ravenloft" had some good short stories, and while I may be in the minority, I thought "Baroness of Blood" was actually one of the better ones. I did NOT like "Knight of the Black Rose" (Lowder's done better) and words cannot describe how much I LOATHE "Vampire of the Mists."
#11 zombiegleemax May 30, 2004 14:40:56	The worst thing I've found about having such weak novels is that they invariable as a result have a negative impact on the canon storyline. This is due to the desire of the authors (and likely some fans) to have the dramatic events recounted in the latest book reflected in changes to the canon universe (otherwise you get the problem of making people understand that novel events didn't really happen). Unfortunately the dramatic imperative all too often overrides the consideration of the setting to the extent that implausible happenings which work reasonably well in a pulp novel end up becoming official parts of the timeline, and the unfortuantely common poor characterisation and general writing contributes to the effect. Battletech (for those of you who play it) also suffers particularly harshly from this effect with much of the dross currently littering the timeline laid at the door of the atrocious novel line. If pulp fiction is going to be produced then at least separate it from the canon events, or drastically tighten up quality and continuity control if you want to continue having a novel driven storyline. Adrian
#12 gonzoron Jun 01, 2004 14:04:17	Originally posted by Orodruin words cannot describe how much I LOATHE "Vampire of the Mists." Hmm... could you try? Really, I'm very curious, since I and many others consider it to be the best of the bunch by far. I consider it to be one of my favorite books, period. What didn't you like about it?
#13 orodruin Jun 03, 2004 18:21:21	Originally posted by gonzoron Hmm... could you try? Really, I'm very curious, since I and many others consider it to be the best of the bunch by far. I consider it to be one of my favorite books, period. What didn't you like about it? Hmmm... ok, I'll give it a shot, but I'll probably make it short. Basically, I hated Golden's portrayal of Strahd. As a fan of the first two Ravenloft modules, I really enjoyed how Strahd was shown to be both really scary, and incredibly tragic. He was a character who would (for example) terrorize innocent people out of pure malice, yet still be found weeping over his murdered brother's tombstone. It was a pretty tight balancing act, but the Hickmans (Hickmen? :P ) pulled it off, and that was with what little there was in the module. On the other hand, I found the Strahd in VotM to be a cheezy, cardboard villain ("into wolf-form, my beauties" oooh, scary) with barely any hint of tragedy (or horror for that matter) about him. Then there's the "hero", Jander Sunstar (the name alone set of warning signals in my brain) who was pretty much the standard, angst-ridden vamp who's appeared in so many trashy vampire novels since Anne Rice first got herself published (good at heart, but has guilty feelings about what he's forced to do to survive, hates his cursed predicament, etc.) Plus, he's an elf. I realize that Ravenloft is essentially a DnD setting, and one should expect to see the occasional elf, dwarf and halfling to make an appearance, but this was one instance where the mix really didn't work for me. It just felt so inappropriate for the setting. And naturally, he just HAD to come from the "Forgotten Realms." Whoopie. We could always do with more characters from THERE. Well, that's off the top of my head. I probably had a few more quibbles here and there, but it's been, what, twelve years or so since I read it? Anyway, I'm pretty sure I mentioned my major issues. And (so as to not be so negative) To be fair, I guess a lot of it had to do with expectations, I was really excited when the new Ravenloft Campaign setting was released, and I was really hyped at the thought of reading Strahd in a novel, so when the final product failed to match my expectations, the fallout was pretty harsh (PMS, the Phantom Menace Syndrome.:D ) I'm sure the book has it's merits (I remember thinking that the rather bitter-sweet, unhappy ending was pretty cool) on the whole though, it just didn't work for me. But hey, this is just one guy's opinion...