Really, LKH?

[http://users.livejournal.com/belladonna_/]

Okay, so I checked LKH's Ravenloft book out of the library.

I know, I know, but I had about 10 minutes, really needed a book, couldn't find my first 60 choices, and it was right there, staring me in the face. So I'm reading along, and it's pretty bad, but I think par for the course for a DnD tie-in? I dunno, I don't have much experience with them.

For those of you not familiar with the Ravenloft concept, it seems to be a fantasy world where there's magic and wizards and evil vampire things and monsters and stuff, and the Very Nature of Magic is Bad Bad Bad. The main character is a young girl named Elaine with Special Spooky Powerful Powers. Like I said, it was pretty crappy, but marginally readable... until I get to page 178, and this little gem of a chapter closer:

"A house divided upon itself cannot stand. Elaine couldn't remember who had said that. She hoped that whoever it was was wrong."

*HEADDESK*

Seriously, y'all. It's only, like, the most famous presidential speech ever in the history of ever - a presidential speech which I do *not* believe took place in Ravenloft. And yeah, okay, Jesus said it first, but I don't think he's a character in the Ravenloft universe either.

(*headdeskx2*)

Also - and this was a minor irritation, comparatively - she hyphenates "thank you" throughout the novel. As in, "thank-you."

Really? Really, LKH? Really?

Comments

[world-of-eos.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I got that book from the library as well, at one point. I know it was a Hamilton book that had something to do with an RPG, or something. I got maybe three pages in and dumped the book because it stank of failure.

The other pre-Anita book that I read (Night-something. Nightseer? I think?) fared a little better by me. Not by much, though. Nothing in that fucking book was ever resolved. It was like LKH had written five or six books with the same characters, than selectively ripped out chunks of each book and stapled them together to make a Franken-novel.

[klmorgan.livejournal.com]

*g* It was Nightseer, and LKH did that deliberately. I remember reading in an interview somewhere that if the book had sold (it didn't), she was going to expand it into a series. Instead, she wrote Anita, and it sold.

[safrialailo.livejournal.com]

I've got the rerealised "Castle Ravenloft" adventure of the more vintage kind. I have no idea what LKH's contribution was like but it better NOT have involved making strahd mr uber sexy, because he just totally ISN'T that was kinda the point. I'm planning on running the original adventure starting next wednesday, should be awesome fun.


As to david eddings, his books aren't thick enough to kill a man and come ON people at least he's FUNNY. (I started out on fantasy in david eddings and whilst he's someone i feel i've ...outgrown to a certain extent I still have a soft spot, i just wish he didn't constantly recycle his characters.