Customer Reviews

Keep on the Borderlands (Greyhawk Classics)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I found that this book was better than Ru Emerson's first Grayhawk book, Against the Giants, but had some of the same problems. While the characters are more fleshed out in this book, and the pace is a little more subdued (there are actually are some down times), I still found the overall plot to be thin and weak. Two groups of caravan guards meet up at an old Keep in the hinterlands and decide to team up and go after some bandits that are terrorizing the Keep. Why? Well, for treasure of course! For glory! Because they are bored with being caravan guards! Those are at least three of the reasons given. So off they go, bumbling around until they actually find and destroy the bandit camp.
Next the Castellan wants them to go off into the wilds and defeat a bunch of monsters living in some caves. So off they go! Why? See above. While the characters do have some depth and interact with each other in a believable manner, the plot tends to be thin because the reasons for these adventures are thin. The best parts of this book concern the swordswoman Eddis and the little girl first known to us as simply Blot. There are some truly touching moments when Eddis realizes what she gave up for the adventuring life (family, kids) and whether or not it was a good choice for her. She also realizes that she actually likes kids and maybe would like to raise this little girl. The worst parts of the book occur anytime Jers appears, which is unfortunately a lot, since he is a main character. Jers is a cardboard alpha male, consisting of so many testosterone-laden stereotypes that it is hard to imagine that he can walk around, much less fight. He is impulsive. He has little thought for his life or anyone else's. He seeks after glory and treasure. He has no social skills whatsoever. He is a 12-year old in a 25-year old's body. I found this character to be particularly unbelievable. He's like Howard Stern with a sword.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this book is the hastily contrived ending, which was a little too abrupt for my taste. This is a similar problem to Emerson's other book, Against the Giants. If you do read it, don't expect much out of the ending, 'cause it's not there.

Anyway, if you are into the game and like to read, you will enjoy this book, particularly if you have gone through the module. If you are just a fantasy fan, move on- there are way better books for you to spend time over than this one.

So very little happens in this book. The whole thing is just "fight a bunch of monsters, make camp, fight some more monsters, go back to town, fight some more monsters". Seriously, it's a book version of the game Baldur's Gate. I know that it is a book written off of a D&D module, but, to me, there ought to at least be a story outside of [fight] & slash, rest, [fight] & slash. There is just the tiniest hinting at developing the characters and even then, it is just to define them as a certain ...type. The only reason I even bothered to give it 2 stars was because the combat is decently written. It was a fast read and not entirely unenjoyable, but I would not recommend this book to anyone who had not played the module.

Wow, how the devil did somebody let Ms. Emerson turn this in as a final draft, much less actually publish it this way? The fight scenes are terrible, characters are terrible for the most part, the descriptive text is non-existant. It does have some elements from the module tacked on, but for the most part, we get a generic 'hunt the bandits' storyline for half the novel, with the Caves of Chaos putting in a cameo toward the end. Monsters are strictly name-drops, calling them briefly described would be over-stating the matter. That ruins any sort of menace or atmosphere if you ask me. Don't just tell me it's an orc, describe the blasted thing! Have the characters react to it with more than a 'yeah, we ran over and killed some' attitude. What's with tacking on dozens of expedable red shirts? Oh, that's right, to try and create a sense of menace by killing some of them off. A more polished story would do the same by exploiting atmosphere and a dose of horror in evoking the monsters - both how they look and what they do. This is just terrible. 'Keep on the Borderlands' was one of my favorite modules, I get more kids played that one than anything else over the years. It deserved a decent novelization, not this feeble effort. It takes alot to be worse than a Roland Green 'Conan' novel, but this one manages it in spades.

Reading Keep on the Borderlands appeared to be like going through a rather impersonal memoirs of "How I tamed the Borderlands", written by Eddis and Blorys, mercenaries inc.

Eddis and Blorys came from 2 different armed escort companies protecting convoys into the Keep at Borderlands. As a reward for their thwarting attempted raids, the castellan tasked them with hunting down bandits and what-nots that threatened the security of the region.

This novel is obviously not about high-level adventurers, which was fine in itself 'cos I get bored with high-level fancy stuff like Elminster casting a spell to detect all but the most powerful enemies from the safety of his lair. Eddis and Blorys had to get down and dirty, going through hostile wilderness to search out the lairs of the raiders, and wipe them out.

But the boring part was that for most of the book, they did not encounter anything that posed serious threats, and they could go on fight after fight against superior numbers.

There was a little attempt made to characterisation and PC interaction, but the basic simplicity of the plot (to rid the raiders) sort of made it rather unexciting.

What could have made the book much better was instead of finishing abruptly, an analysis of the impact of the clean-up on the Borderlands to be presented.

On the whole, fine for beginners, yawners for others.

Well, I haven't played the original module, but I have enjoyed the other Greyhawk books, so I did pick this one up. As everyone else has pointed out the story is pretty simple. Basically a couple of caravan guard groups get together to wipe out bandits and monsters. That's really the whole book. It is simply a quick forest/dungeon crawl. There are no real surprises or twists and honestly I found the end a bit anticlimatic and just a little silly. It is an ok read for and afternoon or evening, but you might think about picking up something else first. On the other hand, I did enjoy Ru Emerson's other Greyhawk book, Against the Giants, a bit more, the characters and story are just a bit more interesting, though it reads much the same way.

One of the worst books I have ever read. Avoid at all costs.

As someone who spent many a teenaged day huddled over the Dungeons & Dragons module of the same name, it was an exercise in nostalgia to pick up a copy of "Keep On The Borderlands". Those warm and fuzzies, however, took a backseat to a struggling story and cardboard characterizations.

Eddis is a female fighter who joins forces with a pair of brothers to help the ruler of an isolated fortress rid his territory of a gang of deadly bandits preying on travelers. Mission accomplished, the party is called upon for an even harder task, cleaning out a hive of caves where various monsters live and breed.

The Caves of Chaos, as they are called, will be familiar to many 40-somethings like myself who grew up with D&D and played the introductory module "The Keep On The Borderlands". D&D co-creator Gary Gygax wrote the module, and devised a well-furnished setting to help any novice adventuring party and Dungeon Master figure out what was what in a fun, fast-paced way.

Published in 2001, 21 years after the module, Ru Emerson's novel uses Gygax's setting as the basis for her tale. It's fast-paced, and Emerson does some interesting things early on with one of the more minor elements of the Gygax module, that being the gang of thieves. Give her credit too for some well-crafted combat sequences. But you really need that sense of nostalgia to keep reading as the story begins to grind down in the second half, when the Caves of Chaos take center stage and Emerson uses Gygax's room descriptions in place of a story.

There's an odd, prevailing generic tone to Emerson's descriptions of people and places. We never get a name for the Keep, or the territory it is located in. Eddis and her band are assisted by several soldiers from the Keep, none of whom are named as anything more than "Keep men". Clint L. Werner's description of them here as "red shirts" is right on; often after a battle Emerson doesn't even bother to inform us whether a fallen Keepster is dead or just wounded.

Similarly, we are told of the spells cast, and monsters fought, without any attempt at capturing the look and feeling of such things. Other fantasy books make you feel the guttering torchlight and demonic incantations. This one instead reminds you of a parent about to yell at you for staying up in the basement so late with your friends. Seriously, I played with half-asleep dungeon masters who put more into their table-setting than she does.

Late in the game, Emerson tries to introduce a romantic angle. This only detracts from an already-wanting focus on the Caves, half of which are left unexplored. I didn't mind that so much; since I have the module I'd rather read Gygax's descriptions anyway. But there's really no payoff here, just a flat ending involving an evil priest that feels like Emerson was trying to wrap things up as quickly as she could, knowing she'd already gone over the desired page count.

I can't entirely knock this novel. I liked the first half alright, and wished the author made more of an attempt at fleshing out her characters and giving the story's second half her own spin. Instead she leans on the original module so much you wonder why the then-living Gygax didn't sue for a co-author's credit. But if he read the rest of the novel, he probably had his reasons.

Instead of breathing life into these old modules they make flesh them out with predictable plots and one-dimensional characters. So much more could have been done with this book that one small review cannot cover even a 10th.

I have been looking for books that followed D&D adventures. The story and the writing were often not the best. I often found some of the descriptions hard to follow. But is was basically a fund book that had much of the flavor of a D&D game.

It's an interesting concept to write books about classic modules. I purchased "Keep" because I felt I would relive old memories from when I played it. However, the characters in the book did things a lot differently than we did so many years ago and the nostalgia just wasn't there. However, it's not a bad read, just not what I expected.