4041

I have huge problems with how Matt dealt with Brad but he has never been afraid to say it publicly and with his own goddamn name. That accounts for one of the Amazon reviews, and bearing in mind that angie is one of the few poor souls who bought the book then I don’t see why he can’t say what he feels.

To accuse the pair of them of a smear campaign on Amazon is ridiculous. In some ways Matt deserves it because of his own campaign here on QT3, but I’m deeply disappointed that it’s turning out this way.

And if half of what angie says about that book is true (as in ‘not excused entirely by some highly unlikely context’), then that there is one fucking terrible book.

4042

I’m reading ‘The Demon Aweakens’ by RA Salvatore as well currently and I’d consider the quality of both to be equal.

one of the replies on that thread… Brad Wardell is now equal to RA Salvatore in writing skill.

4043

Darn that Mike Gallant. Darn him to Hull.

4044

I can back her on this. I have the book.

I’ve only read a few chapters in but it’s pretty bad.

I said this in the main book thread. I have no idea what Angie’s motivations were in reviewing the book (political or otherwise) but the book is awful in my opinion.

4045

You are just part of the conspiracy!!!

4046

Shhhhh! Or our ninjas will get you!

4047

Man, Stardock needs to hire professionals rather than cheerleading sycophants.

Whether right or wrong, that is NOT how you do business. At least be smart enough to set up an alt handle, rather than getting in he-said, she-said arguments using your employee account.

On the he-said, she-said, I see a review that provides citations and evidence against a bootlicker who provides no evidence at all.

4048

BAH hahahahaha.

Seriously, who is doing PR over at Stardock? Anyone? Maybe Brad fired them all years ago. :)

This is getting embarrassing!

4049

Oh, just to be clear, I have no comment on any racial/immigrant overtones of the book. I think most of us understand that Angie mentioned it because it is a sad staple of the fantasy genre.

4050

Angie also read the Twilight series, so whatever her motivation is I doubt it has anything to do with Brad personally.

4051

Maybe the village of uninvolved “non-evil Black People” Angie mentions in a reply to one of the Amazon reviews was added to the first book to help set the stage for a bigger and more epic storyline that might follow in the sequels, a sequel that has them saving the world and being the best portrayal of non-evil black people in literature. And perhaps one of the olive or grey skinned tribes will switch sides and help fight against the true evil.

Shit, I think I have a great idea for a story.

4052

Wow. Bradly rushed out a stilted book to go with the released to early game? That’s poetic. And awesome.

4053

You might be right, but imagine it from his point of view. If you were in a vicious, long-running argument with someone, and then their spouse starts posting negative things about your work, I suspect you’d make the same assumption Brad did. It seems more likely than, ‘what a coincidence!’

Again, I do not pretend to know Angie or anything about her motives. But I certainly understand someone assuming that spouses might join each others’ battles.

4054

I’m sick and need help. I enjoy reading novels set in gaming worlds, even though they are often poorly written. Sad thing, I was also a literature minor in school, and love reading classic works as well.

I’ve read the halo books, warhammer, warhammer 40k, dragon age, and most any book based around worlds in games that I like to play in. With that in mind, I bought the Elemental book.

I can not actually recommend this book to anyone to read, as the actual writing is poor and the storyline is cliche. However, if I can attempt to read the intention, I think this book was that part of old RPG game manuals that attempted to tell some kind of story in the world. This is Brad’s attempt here, and in that, well, it works. If you are interested in the world, culture, and politics that Brad had in mind when designing the game, it comes through in this book.

I can’t see any racial hatred or such in here, actually, if you take a step back, this book is basically a slightly different narrative retelling of JRR Tolkien. Your heroes are in an unwinnable battle against races of evil from a different part of the world that was quiet until the big bad evil reawoke and sent them off to battle. The big bad evil is looking for the big item and the heroes rush off into the mines of moria to find this item, meet up with Smeagol whom ingratiates himself into their party, but really has ulterior motives to kill them and steal the item. Elsewhere in a different storyline, the one true king is hiding as a common knight, building a party to bring the fight to the big bad evil.

To put racial overtones on this storyline would also be implying the same thing with JRR Tolkien’s stories. While I think there can easily be parallels drawn between our history with racial relations and actually races in fantasy, I don’t believe it is a conscious effort on the authors part. Instead, it is usually a simple distillation of good and evil all the way down to the races to make the framework for the narrative easy to manage.

4055

The guy making the accusations isn’t Brad, right? So they know two-thirds of fuck all about the dynamic on this forum and about angie in particular? Bit strange that the accuser is throwing around all this shit on the back of no knowledge.

Firstly, anyone who’s been on any board that angie’s been a member of knows that she isn’t exactly browbeaten into sharing Matt’s opinions. You won’t find many people who are more ferociously independent than she is. Secondly, the gross mischaracterisation of the pair of them in that thread is disgusting.

Whoever that Stardock employee really is, he’s a fucking tool. He doesn’t get the excuse of not knowing that angie doesn’t share Matt’s hatred of Brad, because he’s trying to pass himself off as an expert.

4056

Galadin,

To put racial overtones on this storyline would also be implying the same thing with JRR Tolkien’s stories.

Yes. Which would be entirely fair. Tolkien certainly reflected his time.

4057

Whoever that Stardock employee really is, he’s a fucking tool. He doesn’t get the excuse of not knowing that angie doesn’t share Matt’s hatred of Brad, because he’s trying to pass himself off as an expert.

How dare you!!!

Can’t you see that the poor person is under so much stress, he probably made that post under duress!!!

No one can blame him for that, not PC gamer, or RPS…

oh wait… wrong dude.

4058

Although some questionable racial overtones can found in Tolkien’s books, if you really want some blatant mischaracterizations, Lovecraft is the goto guy for that (some Robert E. Howard writing as well). Arguably you could include H.G. Wells on that list, but most of his foibles are done through dialogue and first person narration – and it doesn’t ever really come across like he’s simply using his story as a mouthpiece for his own world view.

4059

Again, parallels can often be drawn between someones work of art (umm, I guess we can call it that) and what is seen around them in the world. But that doesn’t mean the author/artist intended those parallels in their work or had an ulterior motive. It is a trap to assign intent to an artist in their work unless they come out and actually say it, as works of art should be interpreted by the consumer.

That is why I think it is fair to use works of fantasy and extrapolate from them issues with racial relations. The authors are humans and often this background comes through in their work. However, I really would take a further step back with this one and look at the work Brad wrote. In this instance, the world, the story, the characters, most everything is actually directly related to what you would find in the Lord of the Rings. Does this mean that Brad is racist or that he can’t write novel experiences well and instead falls back onto the basic fantasy framework of good/evil races that has already been well established in fantasy literature?

If Brad is a poor writer, then to presume that he was intending to say something about races in his work actually gives him more credit as an author than the idea that he was actually just using the standard fantasy tropes that he is probably very familiar with.

4060

If only the explanation to your retarded posts was that you made them under duress but no, you’re really like that.