More thoughts about tie-in fiction

[Albertosaurus Rex]

And the story continues... I haven't finished The Quest for Karn yet, but I'm getting close. And I have to say: this book really rubs me the wrong way.

A quick aside. MtG sets are released in blocks of three. In the past, these had a corresponding trilogy of books. This led to problems: the deadlines were very strict because the books had to come out concurrently with the sets. But the sets were being developed during the writing of the book, so certain details would be off. Or things that were important in the set weren't in the book at all, and vice versa. (Legions, I'm looking at you!) And the story was often too thin too carry an entire trilogy, so they began relying more and more on fighting. (They were quickly dubbed "smash stories" by the MtG community.) For these reasons, the trilogies have recently been replaced by single novels corresponding to blocks. This should be an improvement, right? A more focused story, more time to write, etc... right?

Wrong. Most of this book could be summarized as "Running in and out of rooms (and fighting whoever is encoutered there)". 90% of the book is just that. Character development? What's that? The characters barely have any personality, there is nothing to develop!

And then there's Karn. The book is named after him, and this is a major selling point. It made me come back to MtG! Karn the silver golem was originally introduced back in 1997 during the Wheatherlight Saga, MtG's best known and logest storyline, spanning four years, thirteen sets, and thirteen books, seven of which Karn appeared in. He then had smaller roles in three further storylines. Karn is a major character that we are emotionally invested in. And now he's being corrupted by the forces of Phyrexia! This is exciting! Oh, he gets only one brief scene in the 240 pages I've read so far? (Out of 290!)

Then there's Glissa and Geth, two characters from the previous storyline sets on Mirrodin who appear to have turned traitor. Now that's interesting. Are they corrupted too, or do they have a double agenda? Also just that one scene? There is so much missed potential here.

At one point it seems like the book starts to unintentionally parody itself. We get lines like:

He had seen many rooms, and exactly none of them made any sense.

"I don't understand. What do we accomplish by this running around down here?"

Might this be the mark of a writer subconsciously rebelling at the terribleness of what he's writing? Which brings me to another point. Unless Robert B. Wintermute is a pseudonym, he has only ever written two MtG novels. In the past, established, if not terribly well known authors wrote the books. Given the strict requirements of writing these novels, does it make sense to have untested authors writing them? This is an annoying trend that started way back around the end of the Wheatherlight saga, when we suddenly got Vance Moore, one of the worst writers ever.

There are good MtG books, but this is not one of them. This is drivel. If this hadn't been a tie-in, no one would publish it and no one would buy it.

Thus ends my mega rant.