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Planescape: Torment Mass Market Paperback – October 1, 1999
by
Ray Vallese
(Author),
Valerie Vallese
(Author)
|
Ray Vallese
(Author)
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Print length256 pages
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherWizards of the Coast
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Publication dateOctober 1, 1999
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Dimensions4.25 x 0.75 x 7 inches
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ISBN-100786915277
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ISBN-13978-0786915279
"Rosie the Dragon and Charlie Say Good Night" by Lauren H. Kerstein
Rosie the dragon and Charlie are ready to tackle bedtime―dragon-style! | Learn more
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Product details
- Publisher : Wizards of the Coast (October 1, 1999)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0786915277
- ISBN-13 : 978-0786915279
- Item Weight : 4.7 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.25 x 0.75 x 7 inches
-
Best Sellers Rank:
#2,320,337 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #812 in Dungeons & Dragons Game
- #19,731 in Sword & Sorcery Fantasy (Books)
- #48,741 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
19 global ratings
How are ratings calculated?
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2018
Verified Purchase
You don't need to have played the game to read this book. It's great, funny and exciting, adventurous and at times even thoughtful. The characters are interesting and engaging, the story is fascinating, and it's just all-around a good book, especially considering it's a novelization for a video game! The game itself is good too, and if you like the book I recommend you try it - and vice versa! But one does not require the other. I myself have only played a little of the game, and this is a favorite book of mine.
Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2013
Verified Purchase
I love the game and the book is what is to be expectied. This book attractes you into it very quickly and you dont want to put it down.
Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2000
Verified Purchase
... you'll love the book. If you havent played the game then you won't. This book helps fill in a lot of questions re: the Nameless One and is a pleasant complement to the game.
A lot of fun.
A lot of fun.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2004
Verified Purchase
Well if you enjoyed the game then skip the book. The story is the bare minimum of the game. The characters are not really well flushed out and they don't seem to carry the level of development you see in the game. That says something when a computer game has more character development and storyline than a book.
4 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2007
I wasn't expecting this book to be very good. I mean, how often is it the case that a novel is better than the video game it's based on? I can't think of a single one, but then this is the only book I know of that was inspired by a video game. What's next, movies based on video games? Oh wait, let's not go there...
I've played through Interplay's video game "Plane Scape: Torment" and it's a tough act to follow. In fact, the book doesn't really try to follow the game all that closely, which isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself except that the book has so little to offer on it's own. In fact, I couldn't help but think that the book was trying to say "I am not the video game" over and over again while I was reading it.
Only three out of the large stock of characters in the video game appear in the book: "Mort", "Dak'kon" and "Annah". "Fall-from-Grace" makes a short appearance, but in retrospect this spares the reader an even bigger disappointment. The most intriguing aspects of "Mort" and "Dak'kon" were ripped out and I could almost see the ragged gaping holes that were left behind.
I'm afraid I could go on. There's much more to say about what the book isn't than about what it is. I can only recommend that you play through the video game (if you can find it) and try to overlook the dated software; the dialog and plot are what make it worth while. Usually that's what one would say about a book, but not in this case.
I've played through Interplay's video game "Plane Scape: Torment" and it's a tough act to follow. In fact, the book doesn't really try to follow the game all that closely, which isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself except that the book has so little to offer on it's own. In fact, I couldn't help but think that the book was trying to say "I am not the video game" over and over again while I was reading it.
Only three out of the large stock of characters in the video game appear in the book: "Mort", "Dak'kon" and "Annah". "Fall-from-Grace" makes a short appearance, but in retrospect this spares the reader an even bigger disappointment. The most intriguing aspects of "Mort" and "Dak'kon" were ripped out and I could almost see the ragged gaping holes that were left behind.
I'm afraid I could go on. There's much more to say about what the book isn't than about what it is. I can only recommend that you play through the video game (if you can find it) and try to overlook the dated software; the dialog and plot are what make it worth while. Usually that's what one would say about a book, but not in this case.
Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2004
Why did they even bother to waste ink and paper on this? The game was awesome and with a story that would have taken about 3000 pages to do it justice. Not barely 200! The story was centred around the Nameless One, who they felt like giving a name, and as we remember from the game Names Are Dangerous! We see Morte, who, for the most part, stayed the same as the sarcastic little floating skull sidekick. Although he was waay hilarious in the game. Annah and Fall-from-Grace were in the book. But they were ALLL screwed up. From the game, Annah was a Tiefling theif. And Fall-from-Grace was a high society succubus. What happened? In the book, Grace was the tiefling and Annah was the sucubuss! Huh?! Plus Fall-from-Grace was only in it for like two pages!
Maybe the writers should have played the game and see what kind of story they needed to live up to. With a game drenching in personal torment, life, and philosphy...it was dripping with the need of a good novel (after all it WAS a novel in game form). Maybe the makers should have made the book.
Most of the important encounters were either summarized horrible or just plain taken out. Like the talk with Ravel, or the deva, Trias The Betrayer, and the FREAKING TRANCENDENT ONE, the MOST IMPOTANT NPC IN THE GAME VERSION WAS BARELY IN THIS ONE. He pretty much handed himself over to ADHSDHASDJHALSDJHS or whatever it was those idiot writers
Maybe the writers should have played the game and see what kind of story they needed to live up to. With a game drenching in personal torment, life, and philosphy...it was dripping with the need of a good novel (after all it WAS a novel in game form). Maybe the makers should have made the book.
Most of the important encounters were either summarized horrible or just plain taken out. Like the talk with Ravel, or the deva, Trias The Betrayer, and the FREAKING TRANCENDENT ONE, the MOST IMPOTANT NPC IN THE GAME VERSION WAS BARELY IN THIS ONE. He pretty much handed himself over to ADHSDHASDJHALSDJHS or whatever it was those idiot writers
8 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2000
How come the story was so brilliant in the computer game, and yet this novel is so bad? Is this story too big to fit into a book? Does it have too many scenes? Does the game end up providing you with vastly more background than a book ever can? Is user-interaction a key part of the story? "No", I think the answer must be: a good book of the story is possible. But this novel is not it. This novel is just badly written.
The book is bad, and far worse than the original computer game. The story in the computer game was mature, sophisticated, complex and intruiging; but the book in most ways seems targetted at 8-14 year olds. The sophisticated story is in conflict with the childish writing.
I had bought the book hoping to have some of the beautiful, dramatic scenes from the game played out in full -- such as the memory from Dionarra's stone, for instance. But the book manages to fit only a (remarkably) small number of events and scenes in its 240 pages, and in an unusual choice it has included the boring events and omitted the dramatic ones.
There is an interesting problem: how on earth can you write a novel in which the main character has no name? The book struggles clumsily with this stylistic problem, eventually naming him "Thane" at the end of chapter 3.
The authors seem to have written it as a 'soap book'. Every single chapter ends on a cliff-hanger, which is invariably resolved within 3/4 of the first page of the new chapter. It gives the book an unexciting tick-tick-tick periodic pace, like a metronome. I can't imagine why they did it.
The book's dialog and characterisation are irritating. The hero, Thane, has been given mind of an awkward, innocent 12-13 year old -- struggling with adolescent falling-in-love, with trying to make sense of the world and other people. This is incongruous given his role in the story. Annah speaks in irritatingly over-the-top Dickensian slang. Dakkon has the speech and mannerisms of a late-20th-century rational liberal humanist.
The book is filled with these things: descriptions of the world as if it were a wholly new thing to Thane as though he were innocent and adolescent; and awkward conversation that expresses over and over again Thane's internal uncertainties.
Thane in the book reminds me a lot of Rincewind from Terry Pratchet's Discworld novels -- because of his adolescence, and because he is an unpowerful character, always running away from things, never having a clue about what is happening or why. He doesn't have any of the remarkable, insightful dialog from the game; when he defeats his nemesis it is by clumsy accident. (Unfortunately this book exhibits none of Pratchet's humour).
To a large extent, the book's dynamics are in accord with its protrayal of the hero: the chapters and events sweep past, with the hero an impotent and perplexed participant, passive. The reader is also perplexed and impotent. The book's 17 events (one per chapter!) are like a fairground ride going past different scenery -- neither the hero nor the reader have no idea why, or how, or what comes next, and nor can they really engage with the events or shape them.
The book is bad, and far worse than the original computer game. The story in the computer game was mature, sophisticated, complex and intruiging; but the book in most ways seems targetted at 8-14 year olds. The sophisticated story is in conflict with the childish writing.
I had bought the book hoping to have some of the beautiful, dramatic scenes from the game played out in full -- such as the memory from Dionarra's stone, for instance. But the book manages to fit only a (remarkably) small number of events and scenes in its 240 pages, and in an unusual choice it has included the boring events and omitted the dramatic ones.
There is an interesting problem: how on earth can you write a novel in which the main character has no name? The book struggles clumsily with this stylistic problem, eventually naming him "Thane" at the end of chapter 3.
The authors seem to have written it as a 'soap book'. Every single chapter ends on a cliff-hanger, which is invariably resolved within 3/4 of the first page of the new chapter. It gives the book an unexciting tick-tick-tick periodic pace, like a metronome. I can't imagine why they did it.
The book's dialog and characterisation are irritating. The hero, Thane, has been given mind of an awkward, innocent 12-13 year old -- struggling with adolescent falling-in-love, with trying to make sense of the world and other people. This is incongruous given his role in the story. Annah speaks in irritatingly over-the-top Dickensian slang. Dakkon has the speech and mannerisms of a late-20th-century rational liberal humanist.
The book is filled with these things: descriptions of the world as if it were a wholly new thing to Thane as though he were innocent and adolescent; and awkward conversation that expresses over and over again Thane's internal uncertainties.
Thane in the book reminds me a lot of Rincewind from Terry Pratchet's Discworld novels -- because of his adolescence, and because he is an unpowerful character, always running away from things, never having a clue about what is happening or why. He doesn't have any of the remarkable, insightful dialog from the game; when he defeats his nemesis it is by clumsy accident. (Unfortunately this book exhibits none of Pratchet's humour).
To a large extent, the book's dynamics are in accord with its protrayal of the hero: the chapters and events sweep past, with the hero an impotent and perplexed participant, passive. The reader is also perplexed and impotent. The book's 17 events (one per chapter!) are like a fairground ride going past different scenery -- neither the hero nor the reader have no idea why, or how, or what comes next, and nor can they really engage with the events or shape them.
48 people found this helpful
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