Cataclysm novel slated for August, 2010
by Zach Yonzon 
Nov 6th 2009 at 2:30PM
If you're reading into this as much as I am (generally not a good idea), that could mean that the Cataclysm expansion will ship after August 31. After all, you'd think that Blizzard's marketing team would want a book that reveals what happens before the Cataclysm to actually launch before the expansion hits, right?
Well, not really. The Arthas book, which focuses on the Lich King, was released long after Wrath broke out. In short, the novels follow a completely different schedule from the game even though they all share the same lore. So I made you fret over absolutely nothing! You didn't fall for it? Ok, so I made myself fret over absolutely nothing. The book is available for pre-order at $26 on Amazon and should be chock-full of lore and hopefully explain a lot of what will change during the expansion.
Considering how a lot of people (well, okay, at least Alex and Daniel) geeked out over Golden's Arthas novel, this book promises to be a good read. At any rate, we can probably expect it to be free of super-powerful, hackneyed, Mary Sue-ish, self-projected characters like time-traveling dudes who shack up with the hottest girl or multi-racial scions who can wield all kinds of magic. I mean, it's a freaking black dragon, man. It's kind of hard to mess up something innately awesome as that.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Lore, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
korruptor Nov 6th 2009 2:34PM
christie golden was awesome in Arthas and now I can't wait to see what details she will write about Deathwing.
ben Nov 6th 2009 4:07PM
ah, i can see the first chapter already...
"The foal's breath could be seen on the cold winters day in tirisfal. 'Father, come quick!' alexstraza shouted. 'The foals givin birth!'. Neltharion looked upon the foal. It was a disgusting sight, but it had a certain beauty to it that he could not put his finger on. With one final shove, a baby appeared behind the still huffing foal. 'the miracle of life...' neltharion said. 'You were one strong baby, and you shall make a fine stallion. I shall call you... Varok.'"
(for those who dont understand the refference, this is a spoof on the first paragraph of Arthas: rise of the Lich King.)
Snailking Nov 6th 2009 2:34PM
Do they charge $10 extra for the last chapter?
Marolas Nov 6th 2009 3:04PM
They'll make the last chapter optional for readers; it won't detract from the gamepla- I mean reading experience, but people who have been "collecting" the lore for years will probably feel obligated to shell out $10.
Especially if a portion of the money is donated to a good cause: the "Improve Richard A. Knaak's Writing" Foundation.
Snailking Nov 6th 2009 3:11PM
Well, I suppose the last chapter is really a denouement. You still get the "core" story in the preceding chapters. The last one is more of a luxury item that some people will have no problem spending extra money on. After all, they're a business and if people will pay it they can charge whatever they want!
Marolas Nov 6th 2009 3:19PM
Distribution of said 'final chapter' will be "given via World of Warcraft in-game book key" that can easily be accessible through your Battle.net account and "applies to all present and future characters on a single World of Warcraft license."
It's the way of the future!
Darthregis Nov 6th 2009 3:24PM
Nah, you just pay $10 extra to have the font in pretty colours. It will stictly be a vanity thing.
Snailking Nov 6th 2009 3:32PM
You're right, I found this in the FAQ:
What characters will receive the Last Chapter that I purchase?
Once you redeem your code on an individual World of Warcraft account, every character on the account will receive the last chapter in their in-game mailbox (including any characters you create in the future). If you wish to purchase the last chapter for multiple different World of Warcraft accounts merged with the same Battle.net account, you will need to buy a separate chapter for each World of Warcraft account individually.
**Please Note** If a character transfers off of the account where the last chapter is bound the chapter will be lost.**
Amonra Nov 6th 2009 5:03PM
ESRB notice "Content may change during reading"
these are the books of he future!!
Zeets Nov 6th 2009 2:37PM
I don't get all the Knaak hate. Is there a thoughtful way for someone to explain why he's bashed so frequently?
Zeets Nov 6th 2009 2:37PM
...other than the fact that he needs to shave his mustache. That thing's creepy...
Dave Nov 6th 2009 2:39PM
Basically, people accuse Rhonin (a character he created) as being a Mary Sue. The awesomest wizard who ever was, more powerful than Illidan and dragons, and is now leader of the Kirin Tor. It seems like lazy writing and people dislike it.
I-R-PALADIN? Nov 6th 2009 2:51PM
@Dave
i never got the feeling that ronin was all that powerful it was just that he was used to controlling magic in a time when the powers of the well of eternity were dispersed and when he went back in time they were more concentrated. although i do agree that knaak is a bit of a lazy writer but u know Metzin likes him so it don't matter in the end what people think.
Zeets Nov 6th 2009 2:55PM
That makes perfect sense. I guess I was just disappointed with Arthas. It seemed like the entire book was rehashing what we already know. It was very well written, but the main draw for me was finding out what happened between the end of Warcraft III and now, and we didn't really get that. Lore-wise, we learned about Invincible and what happens in the last 10 pages (which I won't spoil here), but not a lot else. To me, it was like a professionally written wowwiki.com post with a few pieces of new info here and there.
snowleopard233 Nov 6th 2009 3:05PM
Zeets. Thank god. I was worried I was the only person who felt that way about Arthas. I agree. There really wasn’t enough material in that book for people who had already played warcraft III and yet, too much was glossed over and omitted for new players to even truly get the grasp of what was going on. Overall, it didn’t feel like its own work of fiction or even a stand-alone story.
I’m worried Golden’s going to take a similar approach with this book, but then again, I probably won’t be heading anywhere near a warcraft book anytime soon. There’s just so much better original material out there and none of the blizzard books I’ve sampled have really convinced me that their worth taking up my time.
Kylenne Nov 6th 2009 3:07PM
It really needs no explanation. He's a terrible writer whose work is somewhere on the level of the average 14 year old boy on Fanfiction.net. But I'll crit you with a wall of text anyway.
Not only does he muddy the lore with his nonsense as someone else said (see: War of the Ancients and the timeline fuckery). He has no idea how to write legacy lore figures, and they end up with atrociously flat characterizations if they're not OOC entirely. Then there's his well-documented love of Sues. What makes him so terrible is that he never confines himself to one Sue. It's like he creates an entire web of Sue-ery to make his characters look cooler than established lore figures. The cardinal rule when you're writing fanfic is that original characters CANNOT upstage the canon characters. They're to serve a specific purpose. What makes a Sue a Sue is that they are always extremely wise and powerful special snowflakes and beloved by everyone important. Rhonin is a Sue not because he's a powerful mage; Rhonin is a Sue because he's a powerful mage who was mentored by the Most Beloved Consort of the QUEEN OF THE DRAGONS (himself a Sue), is married to an entirely made up third Windrunner sister (herself a Sue), had TWINS with her, and traveled through time to meet every major lore figure of the era, outdoing them in battle and generally being a smug, self-important ass. Hack apologists will often try to justify his Sues by arguing that because he's working for Blizzard, his "lore" characters are official and he has carte blanche to do with them as he pleases. I think that's a ridiculous cop out by people who wouldn't know good writing if it crit them on the ass. I can guarantee you that no Warcraft fan was buying War of the Ancients to read about the awesome time-traveling adventures of Rhonin. Hack took what was essentially a story about the Stormrage twins + Tyrande fighting the Burning Legion, and the struggles of the Dragonflights, and turned it into a Rhonin story. For Christ's sake, Rhonin was giving Illidan MFing Stormrage tips on how to use magic. Illidan, who was repeatedly stated to be an extremely gifted arcanist, even in this awful rendition of events.
And really, all of that is on top of the fact that he just plain cannot write. He regularly commits thesaurus abuse, was apparently asleep in his freshman composition course during the lecture on "show, don't tell", and is in dire need of an editor with a spine. I'm not kidding when I compare him to a badfic writer. It's like he goes through those "how not to write fanfiction" articles and uses them as a checklist, right down to using "orbs" as a synonym for eyes. Repeatedly. In the same paragraph.
I find that people who love him typically are the same kinds of folks who will read any sort of licensed novel about their favorite game, regardless of artistic merit. You run into the same mentality a lot in the various D&D fandoms, Forgotten Realms in particular. I haven't met anyone who actually reads good fantasy, or good fiction period, who likes Hack's Warcraft stuff. I have notoriously low expectations as far as licensed fiction, particularly licensed RPG fiction goes, and even I can't deal with his stuff. Not even the MSTie part of me that loves to make fun of trashy books. By comparison, I was actually able to get through Twilight to make fun of it. Take that as you will.
RetPallyJil Nov 6th 2009 3:13PM
He saves his real efforts for Dragonlance minotaur novels, that's all.
Aisriyth Nov 6th 2009 3:17PM
I agree with Kylenne.
I do like Christie Golden however. Although, I do agree and think Arthas was mostly rewritten lore with very small amounts of new lore added.
Rainee Sue Nov 6th 2009 4:00PM
@Kylenne
Best. Wall of text. EVER.
That PERFECTLY sums up the reasoning behind people's dislike of him.
As for Golden -- I've heard about half and half like/dislike for Arthas, though to be fair, most of that lore was already established and she had very little wiggle room. (Haven't read it myself.) And have never, ever, met a single person who didn't like Rise of the Horde and ADORE Lord of the Clans.
She's got a solid track record with one notable hiccup in it. Still better than Knaak's.
Suzaku Nov 6th 2009 9:11PM
I could try and explain, but it would be easier for you to just start reading his stuff. Just the titles will do.
His books revolve around original characters, who frequently upstage the lore characters, to the point of traveling back in time and being their teachers and saviors.
Truth be told, Metzen's taste in writers is suspect. He likes Knaak and described Walter Simonson as pretty much the biggest on his own writing. While I'm sure that Metzen's thrilled for Walter to be writing the WoW comic, the comic isn't particularily good.
Golden's a solid writer. The biggest differences between her work and Knaak's is, apart from literary quality, that Golden understands and respects the lore, doesn't have a hard-on for dragons, and doesn't populate her books with super-powered original characters that hog the spotlight.