World Famous Comics: The Temple of Elemental Evil (Greyhawk Classics)
The Temple of Elemental Evil (Greyhawk Classics)
By: Thomas M. Reid Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Average Rating: Binding: Mass Market Paperback Label: Wizards of the Coast Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 320 Publication Date: 2001-05 Release Date: May 01, 2001
A sinister force, long thought destroyed, stirs in the land. As a she-demon bent on wreaking worldwide havoc struggles to escape her prison and a foul demigod plots to bend her to his will, a band of desperate heroes must infiltrate the very heart of darkness in a daring attempt to stop them both.
What Happened? It seems as though every solid author has some odd skeleton in his or her closet, some anomalous blip that's best forgotten. For the standout author of the Scions of Arrabar, Insurrection, and the current Empyrean Odyssey, this is the 'what the?' entry of Thomas M. Reid.
This book read like proverbial stereo instructions, as though someone took notes while playing D&D and painstakingly transferred every word and line into something approaching novel form. If that is your cup of tea, by all means devour this book. If you're like me and don't prefer hilariously bland regurgitation you may agree with some of what I have to say regarding this odd foray into writing.
First off, Greyhawk was basically a dead medium from the start. Not a good place to be but we did receive the amazingly well done Tomb of Horrors from its brief run, so it wasn't all bad.
The Temple of Elemental Evil is populated by characters so bland or oddly defined that there's really not a base to start from. The generic wizard (who's *master*, a theoretically strong-mage-like veteran from whatever picnic/quest happened at the hilariously badly named temple the first time around, was oblitirated in a few minutes by some bipedal hyenas...err, Gnolls, out of nowhere. Pansies train wussies, so I guess it works...) The stereotypical womanizing thief. A feminist druid. A large, silent, hairy, devoid of personality fighter...who, I might add, apparently *carves a flute with a knife and plays it by a fire*. Since being a Bard is something to be ashamed of at best, I can understand if this guy tried to mask his falsetto voice by never talking and his pale skin by gluing hair all over himself. Somehow, I doubt Mr. Reid had those intentions. A notable favorite was the whiny Paladin that shows up out of nowhere and recites a page long poem (*see DM explanation in the margin of the playbook...oops) describing each of these wrecks in detail. Oh, goodness.
The majesty just increases from there. A nebulous goal highlighted by the death of the only marginally interesting character about twenty pages in. Awesome. From there it's basically a lot of plot fumbling in the dark. Did I mention the antagonists are hilariously bad?
-Generically evil priest -Vain idiot fighter-type guy (Think Vega from Street Fighter 2) -Generic Monk (Who screams something like 'You can't hit me!' before someone decides that his lower intestine looks like a knife-sized ATM slot) -There were probably a few more lackeys, but honestly, I really don't want to re-check the book to verify that.
The plot was so disjointed, it was honestly funny. The environments were paper-thin, the characters moved through each bland event like they were on a track, and this sequence just never let up. The capstone on the monotony came when the party freed the supposed individual they came to find (yeah, there was no explanation given to why he was there or why he'd been taken either). In response, said prop piece basically gave them a 'thanks! bye!' and took off. It gave me a visual picture of him saying that via text bubble and promptly fading away, a'la Code Name Viper for the venerable NES.
There was an end to it all, but seeing as how the story was so laughably bad, it was more a release than anything else. Mr. Reid has done some brilliant work in the Realms which I have thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend (his odd wannabe-James-Bond-turn in the 3rd Arrabar book aside), which just serves to make this excursion into writing so much worse. After completing this book I bear no hate for it. Reading it is more like entertaining that smelly dude who collects 'treasures' and lives with his mother at age 45 by letting him use your cell phone; a basic selfless gesture that will likely leave you with your head cocked in confusion for some time to come.
"... and Melias fails his saving throw..." The Temple of Elemental Evil is a novelization of the classic Dungeons and Dragons module of the same name, Part of the Greyhawk Classics line of book adaptations of old D&D adventures. I'd picked this up because I really enjoyed the PC version of The Temple of Elemental Evil. I think the idea of turning some of these classic D&D modules into novels is a brilliant one. It's just too bad that Wizards of the Coast so obviously considered this line of books to be second tier.
The novel actually reads pretty well. We start in a forest, following a wizard and his adopted apprentice, heading to a reunion in the town of Hommlet. Trouble ensues and after a brief battle in the woods, Shanhaevel the apprentice winds up heading into Hommlet alone.
Before you can say 'the adventure begins' he and a group of strangers have been sent off to investigate activity surrounding the ruins of a Temple that had caused some trouble in the past. Really there's not a whole lot more to the story than that. I'm personally not a fan of the hoary old 'defeat the Empire/save the world' cliches that run rampant through so much fantasy. This is a nice, little pocket adventure of some novice adventurers taking on a task that pushes them to their limits. The module was originally an adventure created for low-level characters and the novel reflects that. Don't go in expecting an epic, globe-spanning adventure and you will probably enjoy it.
The characters are nicely written but a bit flat. The structure of the book seems a bit off and the pace is a little too hectic. I got the feeling that these problems had more to do with length restrictions imposed by the publisher than any deficiencies of the writer. Thomas Reid seems like a competent author and at times his writing is very nice. However things are often rushed. Before the companions have been together a full day they are risking their lives for each other and a romance has blossomed.
A major character seems to just arrive out of nowhere and there weren't really any scenes of 'should we trust this guy or what?' Also, the best part of the book was a stand off at an abandoned farm house. It was very well written, but the odds just seemed so unbelievable. And at the end you can see that the author was under pressure to wrap it up in under X number of pages. The details in the last third were kind of haphazard and sloppy.
I think a few more chapters would have solved the problems this book had. The writer showed a number of different times he was up to snuff, but just wasn't able to stuff such a large package into such a small box.
I wouldn't really be able to recommend it to anybody except for those that have nostalgia for the original module or the computer game. However I can say that I do have that nostalgia and enjoyed the book enough that I would have picked up a novel of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil if Thomas Reid were ever to write it.
Not very good...could have been way better. I did not like this book, despite the content. I was looking forward to it very much, having played D&D for over 20 years.
First, the author has little ability to create good characters. I didn't care for any of them. Plus, he just throws things in or leaves you wanting more. There was a cool scene where the good guys capture some bad guys and they were going to interrogate them....could have been a great scene, but the author basically stated, "the bandits were charmed, the alliance got their info, and then they sent the bandits on their way."
The author needs to expand on dialogue and characterization.
Boring!
Good book if you liked the AD&D module I stopped reading these Dungeons & Dragons novels about the time I finished high school (1993). I saw this book and had to get it since I have played the AD&D Temple of Elemental Evil adventure so many times with my friends.
The good: The author doesnt stray far from the information in the module, so it brings back a lot of memories. But thats about where the good ends...
The bad: I have no interest in being a literary critic, usually I either like a book or I don't. But with this book I found myself thinking about how poorly written it was. I mean its really bad. There is no character development. This book could be used in a literature class as an example of bad writing.
But I am still giving this book 4 stars. Mainly because the author stuck to the facts in the module. And I was able to enjoy it for that reason despite the poor writing and shallow characters. My recommendation for others is if you enjoyed the AD&D adventure, this book might be fun. If you arent familiar with the adventure, don't bother with this book.
I REALLY REALLY wanted to like this book, but... How in the world (or Oerth, for that matter) can the main characters fall in love in less than 18 hours of story-time? That's right, less than 18 hours (and 48 hours into the story they share a KISS, "'Be careful,' she said, and leaned in to kiss him once, softly, on the lips."): the novel starts off at sunset, and suffice it to say, with no spoilers, stuff happens; the main character gets to town just after sunset; more stuff happens; meets the co-main character for all of ten minutes, and during a fight where they exchange: seriously, 12, TWELVE, words! they fall in love?!? The next morning they meet again, have maybe a full paragraph of conversation, another battle, someone dies and suddenly I'm reading a Dawson's Creek episode! I AM NOT KIDDING!! Reid is a pretty good writer, and his work is easy and fun to read, and yes, I read the whole novel; I have to say, except for this absolutely incongruent and totally unnecessary blossoming love between the druid and the elf, it's an OK book. Don't expect anything new, and you'll never read this one again: it's no Black Wizards (Doug Niles) or Time of the Twins (Weiss & Hickman), but it's diverting and somewhat engaging, thus the tree stars. Borrow it, or if seven bucks is no big deal, buy it with moderate expectations. Another bothersome element, and a small spoiler here: At the beginning, the elf and his master are on the way to Hommlet. They've been riding for three days straight, in the rain and early spring chill. At sunset they are attacked by a small platoon of Gnolls, all of which they kill, but the master buys it with an arrow to the heart. Insert sappy ellipses-full death scene. The elf has an emotional outburst before deciding to continue on. He has his master's horse and takes it with him to Hommlet, but decides that, instead of also taking his master, he'll just bury him in place; that's right, don't forget it was sunset, overcast and early spring when the battle started; so it's gotta be dark by now, but the elf still decides to dig a hole, and with what I still haven't figured out...so he digs the hole, gathers a bunch of rocks for a cairn, plants his boss, and soldiers on to Hommlet. Now he has already said that Hommlet is an hour away, nonetheless, he gets there and it's still light...?...he goes inside and despite his grief (and he's gotta be exhausted, right?) he's able to laugh at jokes and eat three chicken pot pies (or the Oerth equivalent); then engage in another battle (with seven-foot + bugbears and such!), put out a raging fire; sleep for a few hours, then get up the next morning and STUDY HIS SPELLBOOK while eating a very English breakfast, later joining the other adventurers and engaging in lively and jocular conversation (while falling in love with a woman he'd be hardpressed to remember the eye color of, at this point, having only been near her for twenty minutes of story time)...I could go on and on (and the "By Cuthbert"-s and "Boccoab!"-s get very tiresome every three pages...), but why bother? I think you get the point...for good, mature, structured, modern D&D fiction (no cliches, or worse, cliche language and romance)check out the new Watercourse trilogy (and be appreciative of the Ayn Rand Fountainhead allegories).
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