Customer Reviews

Quag Keep (A Margaret K. McElderry book)

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Quag Keep (1978) is the first novel in this fantasy series. Loosely based on early Dragon & Dungeon role playing games, this work has gamers transported to another universe by touching magical game pieces. There they become their game characters.

In this novel, Milo Jagon is a swordsman drinking at the Sign of Harvel's Axe in the thieve's quarter of Greyhawk. On each thumb is a large ring and on his right wrist is a wide bracelet made of two copper bands holding a series of dice with varied numbers of sides. The dice are also copper colored and wrought with bits of gemstones for the numbers; these dice are fixed in place and do not move.

Milo vaguely remembers being Martin Jefferson, but his mind cannot hold that thought. He looks around and sees another man with a copper bracelet, but the others within the inn do not. This other man with a bracelet is even larger than himself and is dressed as a beserker with were-boar powers. He is accompanied by a pseudo-dragon.

The beserker also notices their identical bracelets and changes tables to meet Milo. He introduces himself as Naile Fangtooth and the pseudo-dragon as Afreeta. The room begins to empty until they are alone. Then two dice begin to turn slowly and a slight man enters the room. He informs Milo and Naile that they are summoned, but does not answer their questions. Although Naile objects, Milo convinces him to follow the messenger and leave the inn. As they travel, an Elf with an identical bracelet joins the group.

Milo, Naile and the Elf are taken to a tower room where they meet Hystaspes, a magician, and four others wearing the bracelets. Hystaspes introduces the group to each other -- the Elf Ingrge, the battlemaid Yevele, the priest Deav Dyne, the bard Wymarc, and the lizardman Gulth -- and explains that they have been brought to his world from another by an alien power. They also learn that Hystaspes has placed a geas on each of them to search for the one who has brought them to this world, for Hystaspes think that this mysterious power is bringing the two worlds together with probably disastrous results.

In this story, the seven gamers search first for Lichis, a powerful dragon who always takes the side of the Good and opposes Chaos. They only have a vague notion of where Lichis is laired, so they gather supplies and mounts and ride out on the quest. They are followed by the forces of Chaos.

This is not the author's best work by any means. However, it is the first novel based on a roleplaying game and reads much like a roleplaying quest. And it does have a certain flavor of the author. However, the conclusion is too abrupt and arbitrary (as happens in many roleplaying games). Luckily, there is a sequel.

Suggested for Norton fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of questing, magic and the unknown.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Noted for being the first novel about roleplaying gaming, Quag Keep is essentially a gaming adventure brought to life. The characters are varied and interesting and the battles and dialogue are well rendered, but the compulsion of the geas that binds and leads the characters means that the adventure is not only a bit linear, but that the conflicts and analyses that an actual adventuring party would go through in determining whether to stay together and go forward in the face of great risk are unnecessary and therefore largely absent. Lacking the scope and complexity of fantasy roleplaying classics like the Dragonlance Chronicles or Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series, Quag Keep is to those what The Hobbit was to The Lord of the Rings, a simpler starter story to introduce the uninitiated to the genre and prepare them for grander and more epic things to come. The recent sequel, Return to Quag Keep, by Andre Norton and Jean Rabe, improves upon the original with a less linear plot and more complex characterizations and party interactions, reflecting the changes that have occurred in RPG gaming since the days when Quag Keep first came out. Donald J. Bingle, RPGA Gamer and GM, Author of Forced Conversion (now available on amazon.com), and Contributor to Fantasy Gone Wrong (upcoming fall 2006).

Quag Keep is a book by Andre Norton about a group of adventures tied together by a mysterious bracelet attached to their arm. The adventures throughout the book look for information containing to the bracelet. While on their adventure they come in contact with a wizard claiming to know about the bracelet. The wizard says the bracelets are linked to the recent gathering of dark chaos energy in the world. What is the link between the bracelets and the gathering of dark energy? Is the wizards information true? Do the adventures find and new information pertaining to the bracelets? Find out in Quag Keep.

Quag Keep is a book of action, adventure, and mystery. It is about a group of adventures tied together by a mysterious bracelet. In the beginning the story is a bit confusing but by the end of the book the author straightens out some of the mystery. Throughout the book the main characters are searching for information pertaining to the bracelet. This causes many trivial problems for them, such as which horse they buy or where the watering hole is. These problems make the book slow going and boring. Thankfully there are some occasions of terrific actions scenes, where the author really shines, but don't expect to find many, as there are but a few. Overall I think this is an average book deserving of an average rating, but with the abundance of bestseller adventure books there is no room on the shelf for an average book. In all fairness this isn't the author's best book. I would recommend Mark of the Cat: Year of the Rat, or Silver May Tarnish.

Reviewed by a student reviewer for Flamingnet Book Reviews
www.flamingnet.com
Preteen, teen, and young adult book reviews and recommendations.

This book was first published in '78, that's before the 1st edition AD&D books were published. The book has both Greyhawk heroes and a group of players and the DM who play a 'war game' (it seems the term role-playing game was not used yet) with tabletop miniatures. The Greyhawk adventurers are a mixed group of heroes united by bracelets containing shifting dice of an alien origin. They go off in a quest to understand what it is that joins them, starting out in the fabled Greyhjawk City and visiting various places in Oerth all the way to the Sea of Dust. Also interesting to note is the way the alignments Law, Neutrality and Chaos are developed in a simple way, just like in the original D&D.

With the recent passing of Ms Norton, I am reminded of her books, which I read as a little girl back in the 70's. I must admit, this book fuelled an interest in RPGs. It's a kids book, and it's well written and it's fun, but it's not high fantasy and it's not a timeless classic, it's not George RR Martin or Robert Jordan, but so what? It's enjoyable nonetheless, and I have fond memories of all of Norton's writing from reading them as a kid. Give this book to your 11 year old, and they'll be amused as well.

I can only recommend reading this as an early entry in the post-Tolkien/gameborn fantasy genre, which all probably know by now has produced a wide variance in quality, usually related directly to how much an author lets die-roll influence plot.

In this case, characters actually roll die in the story. This doesn't happen at the beginning, when the role-players are fawning over some miniature before a very inept transition to them being trapped by a geas in a fantasy world, but after 28 pages. Nor is it an in-book nod to dice rolling (ie, it's not the pcs gambling), but literally to determine how much money appears for their use. Nor does it happen just once, it's an ingrained mechanic in the progress of the story.

I give that second star simply because it's interesting to think about the early days of Greyhawk and Blackmoor. However, this is very clunky, and the 'psychological' bit at the beginning - where the characters (in the book!) can't tell if they are the characters playing the game or the characters in the game itself - probably didn't do anything to quell the fears of those who suspected D&D of being psychologically damaging. I understand, it's part of the plot - alternate worlds and multiverses - but 30 years later it's really difficult to read that plot and appreciate it for anything other than the most direct lifting of what role-players do when they sit down to play.

In short, if you were/are a fan of Greyhawk, this is required reading. If you are not, this will be something of a slog.

It was interesting, but not that well put together. I did want to finish the book, but attempting to tie in the "real" world with the roll-playing fantasy could have been better. It was a fun read.

Pretty good fantasy book. It reminds of a series of books I read many years ago about a group of kids who played this type of fantasy game and were tranferred to the world they played in, in real life. If only I could remember what that series was! This really reminded me of it, and I enjoy reading a lightly written, character driven fantasy book. I have both Quag Keep and Return to Quag Keep. Too bad there wasn't a 3rd book written, it really begs for it. Maybe Jean Rabe will write it now that the Quag books have been re-issued.

I found Quag Keep to be a very interesting book. While it defiantly is different from the Role Playing Games we are used to and the Dragon Lance books about these games it is better for its differences. While at times the book is a little slow the storyline and characters are interesting. I don't think the book was meant to be exactly like the RPG, thus it can appeal to people who don't play RPGs. But if a person is simply looking for a book based solely on RPGs, Dragon Lance is certainly the series to read. Ms. Norton did an excellent job in the book Quag Keep.

As a fan of fantasy roleplaying games (FRPGs) dating back to 1976, I bought this book back in 1978 when it first came out, on the recommendation of a friend at the time. As Mr. Folatelli (another reviewer) has already explained it, the story follows the journey of a group of FRPG players through the very game they were playing - that is to say, TSR's Greyhawk game setting. Interesting concept, but Mr. Norton made Greyhawk seem far drearier than it was when I played it with my friends (which I did for many many years, only stopping a couple of years ago).

The World Of Greyhawk setting itself is for the most part excellent - I **still** have the original materials dating back to c. 1980, as well as the newer "From The Ashes" edition put out in the mid 1990s - but this particular book was a disappointment to me. There were a few interesting little quirks to it (like how "Geoff", a country in the world of Greyhawk, is spelled "Geopf" in the book for some reason, and the term "war game" being used more than "roleplaying game", and of course visiting places in the book that I also visited in the game itself), but all in all it was not terribly interesting to me.

Maybe for me actually playing the game is more interesting than reading a story like this based in it. Your mileage may vary of course.... and if you know of a really good book based on the world of Greyhawk, feel free to tell me about it. But I would recommend the Dragonlance series by M. Weiss and T. Hickman to the reader if they were looking for a good FRPG oriented novel to read.

As they say, "'til the stars break...."