Customer Reviews

White Plume Mountain (Greyhawk)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

White Plume mountain was a rite of passage for gamers such as myself years ago, and Paul Kidd has a grand time bringing us all back home again in his new novel. His book has all the makings of classic fantasy. A rugged hero to root for, an evil villain to boot, and a sassy Faerie sidekick to make us wonder how come our games didn't have pixies like her! The mountain scenes are well done, and even though some of the other interesting rooms were missed. You do get a feeling of Deja-Vu reading them after all of these years. A fun read, and enjoy it!

Paul Kidd is a comic book writer, and it shows. The author doesn't spend a lot of time establishing mood, or world-building, or even using depth in his characterization. He concentrates on action and witty banter, like the game the book is drawn from.

The characters are mildly archetypical, with vague and unrealistic motivation; the villains are of the Trying To Take Over The World and Insane Wizard With A Plan varieties, and there's even commentary from characters internal to the story parodying the aspects of "heroism" found in everyone's earliest stabs at playing the game. There are humorous moments related to the plot, but some of the tropes of gaming itself are the butt of the joke in a number of scenes.

The characters unashamedly spout anachronisms at every turn-- you can almost see the players pausing between handfuls of Cheetos to rattle off a modern idiom or two. The faerie is like something out of a Boris Vallejo ilLUSTration: there's a point where the word "naked" is used to describe her condition twice in a matter of about five sentences. When she's not nude, she's busy trying to assemble an outfit which is as suggestive as is possible for an adolescent male to imagine-- which is the whole point of the joke, obviously.

The book adamantly refuses to apologize for its lack of modern fantasy acoutrements such as rich motivations and character complexity... and bludgeons its way through to win your heart regardless. If you seek serious fantasy fare, or mindless Dragonlance drivel, look elsewhere.

This book is beer and pretzels-type fare, with all the swashbuckling and lack of seriousness that implies... but unless I miss my mark, Paul Kidd has also embedded the book with some serious commentary on the D&D game itself, and how it has evolved in the years since its infancy.

In fact, unless I'm ascribing more genius to the work than Kidd intended, the book acts as a deconstruction of legacy D&D campaigns and even the modern angst-ridden White Wolf-style gaming heroes... and it works!

I don't play any role-playing type games, although I have read several of D&D's novels, mostly in the Forgotten Realms series. Having said that, I must say this is the best adventure novel from D&D, and one of the most entertaining fantasy novels I've read in a long time.

The ironic thing is, White Plume Mountain almost seems to be a satire of D&D, if not an outright parody of it. The characters of the Justicar and Polk, are especially earnest, while the author is showing us that he doesn't take them too seriously and neither should we.

And the real strength of the book is the characters' interplay. There's a real sense of fun here, while also poking fun at the wholesale manslaughter present in many sword-and-sorcery type novels.

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the books in the series.

I was dubious of another Greyhawk book after "Against The Giants", but this has proven a worthy purchase.

Kidd's style is light, packed with action, wit and... it works!

The characters of the Justicar and Escalla are excellent. You get a great sense of their personalities, far more so than most books in the D&D genre. The supporting characters are also particularly well fleshed out (Polk the Teamster, with his adventuring "wisdom" is a delight).

It's not often I'll laugh out loud when reading, but it happenned a couple of times during this book, a testament to Kidds' style and handing of the characters.

It's not all humor however, some great dungeon-crawling is mixed in and overall the blend of action and humour results in a book that is well worth a read.

Now this is AD&D at its finest! Magic, Melee, and mirth all rolled into one.

I throughly enjoyed this book, though I would have liked to see to dungeon adventure be a little longer and names given to the other adventurers in the group, but this book was a great, quick read; perfect for the person that longs for a good game of AD&D.

I won't give away any of the plot, but those of you that played White Plume Mountain many moons ago will enjoy the story line. The Justicar is the dogmatic dispenser of justice while Escalla provides the witty comic relief and Cinders provides the pyrotechnics.

I look forward to the continuing adventures of the Justicar, Escalla, and Cinders in "Descent to the Depths of the Earth".

I thought this book might be a "pure" telling of an adventure into White Plume Mountain, as in the original AD&D module. Winds up that no, this is 30 years later, AFTER whomever has defeated Keraptis in the module. Still, it incorporates many elements from the original module that leave one feeling nostaligic for the old adventuring days. The prominent use of anachronisms is pretty annoying, as is Escalla's use of terms like "J-man" and such when referring to Justicar - obviously incorporations of modern slang. That's great for Disney movies trying to hook the kiddies in, not so great for AD&D novels trying to hook the hardcore fantasy geeks like me in. Still, the flaws were few and the kudos are many. I really enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to reading more of the Greyhawk series.

Unlike most game-generated novels (end the horrible showcase the excellent Dragonlance saga became), this one does everything it should, and several things I didn't expect. The Justicar is an excellent example of a D&D protagonist taken too seriously (as most gamers tend to do), but is so well set off by the modernized faerie Escalla that the story wouldn't have worked any other way. The tongue-in-cheek game references add levity at the proper moments, and for those of us who played the module the book was based off of, the entire task of completing White Plume Mountain was more than enough to encourage reading. It is everything I require in a good work of fantasy, and has remarkable re-readability. The lack of overt sexual tension was a welcome relief, and when it finally surfaced in "Descent into the Depths of the Earth", it was so well done as to be wholly fitting. I recommend this book to anyone looking to relax for a couple of hours into a good book.

OK, enough of the reviews complaining that this book isn't "serious" AD&D fare. This book brings back memories of running this campaign years ago, and we used humor and had fun while we role-played. A refreshing, entertaining, and fun book. I've loaned my copy to my wife, daughter, and several students at school. They all enjoyed it, even the one student who said it contained more "corny" humor than he liked was grinning while he retold parts of it to his friends. The only complaint I have is that Mr. Kidd cannot write as fast as we can read.

This book does not have the complexity of Tolkien, Hicks/Weis or Peake. It won't make you a better person philosophically. The characters do not undergo any great "arc." In fact, it doesn't offer you much of anything. But "fun" it has in spades.

The pixie's character is leaps and bounds the most interesting and once you get over the shock of her modern-day idioms, they become her forte. Cinders is the next on the "best of" list of characters followed by "the" Justicar and then Polk (I suppose). After that, the caste of character plummets to barely tolerable and worse.

For the module oriented, the story seems to be a mix of the original S2 and the newly released edition. Personally, I feel the quality of the book decayed once they reached White Plume but I'm biased against these, in my opinion, ridiculous eco-systems (or lack thereof).

If you're into this sort of book (I'm not but I'm an S2/rerelease reader), I recommend this one strongly. Even if you aren't, the faerie's humor will keep the "not usually my genre" people interested.

The book *is* fun and it *is* funny.

Finally a novelisation of an AD&D module that actually FEELS like a fantasy roleplaying session. No glum, doom-laden portents or stomach-curdling angst here! Nope, just good old fashioned dungeonbashing that paints the walls arterial red and leaves the room smelling like roast chicken - hacking, slashing, spellblasting and, above all, FUN! Paul Kidd remains faithful (for the most part) to the original TSR module (one of 1st ed AD&D's classic dungeoncrawls - I still have nightmares about that crab...) whilst adding a great deal of meat and cleverly intertwined subplots to the bare bones. The party makeup is a tad unconventional (to say the least) and their antics poke fun at some of the eccentricities of fantasy roleplaying (that 10' pole always perplexed me as well...). All in all a most refreshing, pyromaniacal read although those who have played the actual module first will probably find it more rewarding.