Revisiting Legends of Lone Wolf

After I started my nostalgia-filled binge of the Lone Wolf game books, I decided I'd also revisit the novelization, or at least what I had of it. Being a kid on allowance money at the time I couldn't buy everything I wanted, and at the time I didn't really have a concept of books actually going out of print.

So as it turns out, I only have the first two volumes of Legends of Lone Wolf by Joe Dever and John Grant. The series ran for four installments in the US (though from my understanding the UK's Book 2 was broken into Books 2 and 3 in the US), but ran for twelve in the UK. Eventually, about ten years ago a small publisher actually reprinted them in a set of three omnibuses, but they are once again out of print and the publisher's web presence has disappeared, so they are likely defunct. With the recent passing of John Grant, and Joe Dever's own passing in 2016, I'm afraid it's unlikely we'll see these again unless their estates are active about working something out.

Which is too bad.

It's not that the books are amazing reading, now that I'm older I can better understand why sales were poor enough that the series dropped off here, but there were attempts to better flesh out the world in ways the game books couldn't. And Dever, who seemed to really like other people playing in his world (friends and fans being able to write sanctioned spin-off game books like World of Lone Wolf and Autumn Snow), handed off a lot to John Grant.

Grant builds up a lot of the cosmology of the Lone Wolf series, so we know more about the deities and the inner workings of the Darklords. Things that we can't know from the game books themselves because Lone Wolf has no need to consider them or because he's in no position to know himself. And since Legends of Lone Wolf was written while the Grandmaster series was in production, it's not surprising that a lot of the worldbuilding in Legends ends up being imported into the series proper.

It's possible a lot of this worldbuilding was also Dever's work, but the character Alyss was definitely Grant's creation, and she too was eventually imported into the main series.

Legends also makes a number of changes in perspective since we're no longer trapped within Lone Wolf's point of view. Vonotar, who is a minor recurring villain in the series, is built out as a villain equal to Zagarna, the leader of the Darklords when the story begins. Banedon is expanded into a deuteragonist role and gets tons of page time for his own mission.

Though the game books never present their female characters as less capable than their male counterparts, you're also hard pressed to see one even show up. Legends fixes that with lots of women in all walks of life; from the obvious peasant roles to being sentries in the king's army to Kai Lords in their own right. Most of the random soldiers with speaking roles are still male, but at least it's clear that women can and do fight. (Special nod to the king's clerk who carries on his duties in the strategy meeting while also dealing with the grief of losing his wife on the battlefield. It's a role reversal I didn't expect.)

Okay, so there are these good things. Why didn't Legends of Lone Wolf work?

I think part of the reason is that the overlap between people willing to read Legends and also play the game books was smaller than anticipated. If you already read the game books, why would you want to read someone else's playthrough? The first novel, Eclipse of the Kai, is a prequel, which was a good way to start, so we can see how the series' defining events came to pass, but the second book is weaker when Lone Wolf is going through a series of events that the reader may have already experienced, especially since they don't serve much narrative purpose other than to delay Lone Wolf from getting to Holmgard to warn the king.

It's something that's fun to play—dodging Kraan attacks, encountering the prince, crawling through old ruins—but outside of the game environment, one Lone Wolf segment reads much like another Lone Wolf segment and you probably could rearrange the middle ones without much consequence.

The books don't appear to be targeted to outside readers either. Even though I think they are friendly to new readers from a lore perspective, they're written like a grimdark fantasy story, but published at a YA length. There's a fair amount of blood and guts, descriptions of organs coming out of wounds. Sex is probably the only thing the series draws the line at (though nudity still happens to both genders).

What happens in the story is fine for books aimed at adults, and it's certainly tame compared to more modern grimdark, but YA traditionally deals with issues relevant to teenagers, particularly issues with coming of age, taking on responsibilities, and finding a place in life.

That's not to say that Lone Wolf and Banedon don't have these issues (or even new character Qinefer), and they're teenagers, but they're also in a warzone and their personal issues are not given much space since arguably they have bigger things to worry about. So even though the books star teenagers, and the books' length tilt them towards YA, they don't read like intended for that market. I think if these had been fatter volumes geared towards an older, more general audience, these might have had more success. (Like the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms books, which have been read by adults and teenagers alike.)

Another thing that bothered me is that some of the additions to Legends just didn't work for me. For instance the expanded cosmology was good, as well as finding out how Vonotar betrayed the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star and joined the Darklords, but after a while I got tired of seeing Vonotar's perspective so much, especially once he got to the point of narratively supplanting Zagarna as the main villain.

All the Zagarna and Vonotar scenes ping-ponged across the map too. Literally, with some scenes out in Sommerland, then back in the Darklands, then out in Sommerland, and back in the Darklands, while at the same time Lone Wolf and Banedon are making desperate travels to the cities that matter most to their missions. While we don't have a timeline for how long it takes them, it should be a couple days at most, and somehow the villains manage a lot of back and forth even allowing for flying mounts.

Also, while I like the addition of women in everyday life and in martial roles, the two new characters don't fit well in the space they're given.

I remembered Qinefer's name before I started my reread, but that fact that was all I could remember probably says how much of an impact she made. And on reread, I'm really not sure what kind of a role she's intended to play. Of course, I only have up to the second volume of the US release, and she's not introduced until halfway, but Alyss groups her with Lone Wolf and Banedon as three people who are critical to the survival of Sommerlund.

As an older reader I do like that Qinefer is a girl of color in a predominately Nordic-themed country, and the fact she's a ridiculously capable fighter feels like a play for more female readers, but narratively her skill and anger at losing her family puts her in the same space as Lone Wolf, except without being a member of the Kai. She's really not good at anything other than fighting, and we know Lone Wolf (by virtue of being Kai and the titular character) is going to be our warrior hero.

I think I might have liked Qinefer if she had a different take on her grief or skill rather than feeling like a lesser female clone of Lone Wolf. For instance, if she'd been an intelligence fighter, coldly killing loads of Giaks through ambushes and traps, that would be a contrast to Lone Wolf's combat rage, which is already used liberally in the same book.

I also really hated her bathing scene. Granted Lone Wolf himself bathes nude in the first book, Qinefer is the one who gets a shapeshifted monster peeping on her. The story remains in her perspective, but the narration about her being comfortable with being seen while also being an underaged teenage girl feels like a level of author perv I didn't need to see.

And saving the best for last, my biggest problem with the Legends series is Alyss. She's author John Grant's pet character, and according to a quotation from him on the Lone Wolf fan wiki, she's appeared in numerous other works of his since because he simply could not get her out of his head.

Alyss is a sort of demigoddess, whose power to influence events is constrained for "reasons" so even though she knows a lot of the potential future, at best she can nudge things one way or another rather than rewriting the timeline to better suit her preferences. This allows her to easily one-up Vonotar every time they meet, but at the same time she can't actually do any lasting damage to him because the future says certain things must come to pass and them's the breaks.

The problem with Alyss is that she takes away so much of the agency of the main characters. Lone Wolf not being in the monastery during the slaughter? That was Alyss's doing. Lone Wolf not returning to the monastery in time after realizing it was under attack? Also Alyss. Banedon not dying on any of multiple occasions? That was Alyss.

She's also really annoying, liking to bluff when she's already ridiculously powerful, and talking to poor Banedon like he's an idiot when he's obviously trying to deal with incredibly unusual circumstances. (And I'm sorry Banedon, I know you're a teenager and have hormones, but you've got terrible taste in women.)

Alyss, though she purports to like people, is just incredibly arrogant and unsympathetic towards those she's helping, and often complains about people not being grateful, but she's doing it anyway. So while everyone else is bleeding guts and trying their best to succeed, Alyss flits about the story making snide comments or doing a magic trick or two before prancing out of sight again.

I didn't like her when I first read Legends and I still don't like her as an adult. Narratively she doesn't serve much of a purpose that couldn't be given to other characters (by allowing them to actually save the day like they're supposed to), so I can't really see any justification for having such a powerful character around. Her restraints only exist because without them Alyss really would single-handedly save the day.

If the other books come back into print again, I'd still read them, but it's just because I'm already a Lone Wolf fan and I want to see what I missed. And even if Banedon has poor taste in women, I really do like following his story since it's one we rarely get to see in the main series.

5 Very Long RPGs For Being Stuck at Home

Chances are a lot of us are stuck at home right now, even if we don't want to be. And I like playing RPGs, so I figured I'd put together a list of five I enjoyed that are really long and are also available digitally so you can pick them up without going out of the house.

Persona 5 (PS4/PS3) - This is a popular one. The dungeons are huge and when you're living your school life there's a never ending list of things to do that will push you to play "one more day." Combat is presented as being fairly simple, attack enemies by hitting their elemental weaknesses, and if you knock all of them down, then your team of Phantom Thieves get to gang up on them for bonus damage. But the really deep part of game design is in the Persona fusion system which allows you to create Personas with different elemental strengths and weaknesses, and that's all pre-combat preparedness.

The story itself is probably too long for its own good, but the cast is entertaining and the presentation is incredibly stylish. You'll never appreciate the artistic trappings of a game's UI like you will in Persona 5. There's even an updated rerelease Persona 5 Royal coming out at the end of the month with a new playable character and additional story that takes place after the previous last boss.

Dragon Age: Inquisition (Windows/PS4/PS3/XB1/X360) - This one isn't too long if you want to rush it, but there's tons to explore and more side quests than you can shake a stick at. Maybe there are too many side quests, but this is a game that encourages you to wander through every nook and cranny you can find, and if you're looking for a time sink, it delivers. Combat is in real time, but you can pause whenever you need and overall it's pretty forgiving.

The story is probably not the strongest one in the series, but it's serviceable. As per custom, there are multiple ways to handle the majority of the key situations your Inquisitor ends up in, and generally they feel satisfying. The Inquisitor is a bit shoehorned into a particular type of personality since they removed the Nice/Sarcastic/Angry voice options in Dragon Age II, but the rest of the cast benefits from the studio's talented character writers. Except maybe Blackwall. I think he hates me.

Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS) - I haven't played Three Houses yet, but you can't go wrong with Awakening, which set off the current Fire Emblem renaissance. It's a strategy RPG in a series that was previousy known for being brutally hard, but there's a casual mode now so you can enjoy the game more for the story than worrying about your favorite character getting permanantly killed off in battle. Combat is generally handled through a rock-paper-scissors method except with lance-sword-axe so you know which units are good against which.

Since every unit is a person, you'll likely end up caring about the various faces in your army, and you can even hook them up with each other (and due to the plot, you'll also meet their time traveling children). It's not terribly realistic, but it's rather fun pairing off as many people in your army as you can, and every courtship has its own unique dialogue. Some couples are incredibly funny, and because the combat bonuses for a couple fighting together are pretty good, there's little reason not to get them hitched.

Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker (3DS) - Though I enjoyed both Devil Survivor games, I'm going with the second for this list because it's more upbeat than the first game, even if it's still about the world coming to an end in the span of a week. Like Persona, it's part of the Shin Megami Tensei meta-series of games so you have demon fusion that works much like Persona fusion, but the demons are now teammates that join you in battle, which takes place on a typical strategy RPG grid.

There are actually two storylines, each with multiple endings, in Record Breaker, giving you quite a bang for your buck. One is the original Devil Survivor 2 storyline, and the other is the Record Breaker pseudo-sequel (since it's to an ending you can't actually achieve), and with New Game+ it's easy to replay and knock out additional endings just to see what you missed. The game's cast is large, but there's enough time to get to know all of them, especially if you're replaying.

Disgaea 1 Complete (Switch) - This was originally released on PS2, and I haven't played the update, but it's much the same game as the original (which also means incredible difficulty), just with prettier graphics. It's another strategy RPG, but flavored with comedic demons. You'll get the most mileage out of it if you're already an anime fan as Disgaea gleefully skewers trope after trope, whether it's villain monologuing or an appearance by the color-coded "Prism Rangers."

The characters are incredibly shallow and funny because they know they are. Demons pride themselves on being awful and immoral, and of course the cute angel that shows up to join the party makes everyone sick in the best possible way. I'm not sure I can coherently say what the story is in this game, save that it's about 90% comedy, 10% tear-jerker, and even demons have hearts, though they wouldn't want to admit it.

Hunkering Down

I almost didn't write a post this week, but I figured I'd at least say that I'm fine. I'm in southern California and if you're following the news at the moment, you may know that California's governor, Gavin Newsom has been declaring a number of emergency measures over the past few days; restrictions on gatherings, asking the elderly to self-isolate, etc.

My work has taken some measures of its own, and I'm fortunate that my day job is flexible enough that this is possible. In fact, I spent a fair amount of last year working from home while the doctors were trying to figure out what was wrong with me, so I know that 90% of my work I can do remotely without issue. The tricky thing is going to be working with my coworkers when everyone else is doing so at the same time, since they might not be as prepared for it, and we do have some equipment we needed to take with us.

I'm also an introvert who doesn't need to go out much, so the idea of staying home for an extended period of time doesn't bother me, and I'm fortunate enough that I was well stocked for food even before people started panicking. I didn't have to brave the grocery stores and I have faith that essential industries will remain working. As I was telling a friend, the panic buying is only inducing a temporary shortage, and regional distribution systems are still in place so grocery stores will fill up again as people get used to our current situation.

There's a lot that isn't good right now, but I remain hopeful that this cuts back on the spread of the virus while medical researchers get a better handle on how to deal with it. Stay safe, everyone.

RPG Talk: Reader's Pick Poll #2

As a thank you to my Ko-fi supporters, I'm now holding my second poll for the next game to cover in my RPG Talk series. This is a more refined list from the last time, to better focus on games that people have already expressed an interest in seeing me play.

You can vote for more than one game, and whichever wins will be the next RPG I cover on this blog.

Turnaround time will probably be 2-3 months depending on which game eventually wins.

Polling will be open for at least a couple weeks. You can vote HERE.

Jack of Spades Novella Complete

Jack of Spades is all done! I've been serializing my novella at Curious Fictions since November, and after eight installments, the novella is finally complete.

Jack of Spades follows Gerard Adher, a formerly privileged young man, who lost everything when Colony Director Bennet established himself as dictator and ordered the murder of Gerard's parents and sister. After failing to assassinate the director, he and his fellow conspirators were thrown into a lethal prison for the entertainment of the new government. Each day is a fight simply to survive, and Gerard has gotten good at it, to the point where he no longer thinks about why or for what he is surviving at all.

But he does know one thing. Their group was betrayed, and the traitor is still among them.

You can read the first chapter for free and at the moment the novella itself is only $1 for non-subscribers. If you subscribe for a month, you'll have access not only to Jack of Spades, but several of my other stories that are not freely available on the web.