Forums » Elder Scrolls

TES Novels - we want more!

    • 56 posts
    April 14, 2014 10:44 PM EDT
    I like reading. Its how I pass the time when I have nothing better to do. And Ive read all the notes, books and journals on Skyrim, and most in-game books in previous games. I even read their only novels, The Infernal City and Lord of Souls.

    I was a big fan (still am) of the Warcraft franchise before I discovered TES, and Ive read their books for the nth time now. And with their next book (War Crimes) coming up this May, I again remembered my surprise in learning that with all the depth of TES, they only published two of them! I remembered researching about Arena's first release (1995-96ish). You would think that after all these years, they would've published several books by now, to give their fans more of their lore and clarifications on some of it. But they only published on recently. And its not very good. I mean, its definitely not bad, but it could be better.

    What do you think, guys? Dont you think its about time Bethesda published some more TES books? It would certainly clear up so many questions, while we wait for the next installment. :-)
    • 51 posts
    April 15, 2014 11:57 AM EDT

    I'd really like them to put out more novels, but only if they were written by someone who could do the setting justice.  Infernal City and Lord Of Souls weren't decent at all.

    • 365 posts
    April 15, 2014 12:59 PM EDT

    I take it you mean actual books, not the books in-game? 'Cause that does sounds pretty awesome.

    It'd be neat if they published more in-depth books around the wars over-seas in the Third Era, Valenwood armies, and backstories on Dominion plans and heads of organizations and stuff.

    Like, bits throughout the book that have mini profiles on important people throughout Tamriel and stuff.

    I'm getting hyped about my own ideas.

    • 152 posts
    April 15, 2014 3:38 PM EDT

    I would love to have more books, especially some based during the Great War and other holes in the lore

    • 149 posts
    April 15, 2014 5:09 PM EDT

    This would be nice, but it needs to handled properly. The Greg Keyes novels were nice in some aspects, but the plot and characters were pretty weak. If TES does get any more books made, they need to be written by someone who can better use the source materiel.

    All this said, if there was some way in the world I could take a shot at it... :P

    • 56 posts
    April 15, 2014 10:04 PM EDT
    Yeah, the writing was a dissapointment. Oneness had me read the two again yesterday, and I still didnt understand why Letine acted the way she did.

    I dont know about other games' books, but Warcraft isnt very good in its writing either. But at least its definitely better than Greg's.

    And I just found out yesterday that Bethesda usually takes 5-ish years to get to their next installment. Morrowind was 2002, Oblivion on 2006, and now Skyrim on 2011. If you include DLCs thats about 3-ish years per game. Thats a long time to wait. Sure, time flies quickly, but still...

    There is just too many loopholes for comfort in TES lore. A lot of the articles about something comes from educated guesses and the rest is speculation. Its okay if the franchise is relatively new, but its been going on for more than a decade now its not exciting anymore. Its frustrating. I dont like not knowing.

    Also, I dont remember this being mentioned in the lore, but some argonians believe that the Hist actually came from Oblivion. If its true (the "other" Hist in Umbriel certainly works very similar to Tamrielic Hist) that would explain why argonians somewhat resemble daedroths. :-D
    • 622 posts
    April 15, 2014 10:08 PM EDT

    A series that actually has decently written books would be the Assassin Creed books. I have only read two of them (Black Flag and another I borrowed off a friend that I can't remember the title of but was based off Conor) and they were pretty good. Filled in missing details from the games. I haven't read the two TES books but I would love to see more of them.

    • 56 posts
    April 15, 2014 10:28 PM EDT
    Black Flag is by far the best AC book Bowden has written. I dont know why I like it best. I guess his writing style has improved a lot. Or the fact that the book is Edwards journal, unlike in previous books where it was always third person.

    EDIT: Oh, and Forsaken was a journal as well. The story of Connor's father and Edward's son, Haytham Kenway. I liked it as well. But I like Black Flag best.
    • 40 posts
    April 16, 2014 12:55 AM EDT

    Halo is also on the fairly short list of games that have decent books under their name.