Rating: 
Summary: Good for the youngsters...
Review: It's not that the book was bad, because it wasn't. It was a fine book to read, exciting and all that. Yet, as it was probably meant for the teen and younger audience, was completly devoid of the elements that make a great book: character devolpment, intricate plot, etc. Then again, I didn't expect it to. So, if you feel like picking up a book and just reading, go ahead and read this. If you are young, and new to Dungeons and Dragons, go ahead and read this. If you are looking for a top-of-the-line book like R.A. Salvatore's, don't read this.
Rating:
Summary: A fun short romp into hack-and-slash adventure
Review: Some books you read as the equivalent of a three course meal: you want to learn something, be highly entertained, and step into another world where your second-hand experiences give you a new thought or two to ponder, relish, and digest.
Sometimes you want a pop tart. "The Savage Caves" is such a literary pop tart. Easily digested, with a heavy dose of mind-candy fun, this book (re)introduces us to the core "Iconic" characters from the Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition put out by Wizards of the Coast. And it doesn't fail on that level: Regdar is your typical fighter, Jozan your typical cleric, Naull is very much the young wizard in awe of her own abilities, and yes, Lidda the halfling rogue reads like a catty cynical teenager - but enjoyably so.
The plot is straightforward: Dungeon delve, on behalf of a city where giant spiders are suddenly munching down on the local sheep. What's motivating the spiders? Who is behind it all? How fast can the four heroes spell, crush, stab and otherwise toast those villains? In 182 pages, that's how fast.
My only complaints being, really, the somewhat straightforward plot and the short length, "The Savage Caves" was still a single half-afternoon's blast to read, and brought out my inner geek. I was grinning to myself and pointing out the use of a colour spray spell. If you play D&D yourself, you'll notice all the ways the plot was written to accomodate the system. If you don't, likely you'll not even notice.
Brain candy fantasy, without the foil wrapping.
'Nathan
Rating: 
Summary: A fun little romp in the dungeon.
Review: The Savage Caves by T.H. Lain is a quick and fun return to what gaming should be and can be. Lain does an excellent job of giving the reader a solid little story that has re-kindled my intrest in gaming. The characters (based on D&D 3rd's ICON Characters) are fleshed out and stay true to the character class they represent. Now I am not going to say that this new series is Dragonlance or The Forgotten Realms, its a little stripped down. But thats ok. This little novel is action packed and predictable, but its so FUN. The dialog is pretty funny and a bit hokey, but he only had 182 pages. Hopefully as the series continues, Lain will give us a little more seasoning and depth, but for now enjoy a quick fun read. Forget the grand morality plays, let Lain place a torch in your hand and a mace in the other. Explore the Savage Caves, and still be back in time for bed. A good start to a new book line. Looking forward to the Living Dead.
Rating:
Summary: Savage Caves
Review: The Savage Caves is a great book for people who like fantasy. I liked this book because it hooked me into it to keep reading. It was also great because it had mysterious schemes behind the plot that makes you keep reading. The down side to the book is that it can be confusing and a tiny bit boring at times. But other than that it is a great book, you should purchase this book, and trust me it is worth your money.
Rating: 
Summary: Bland, Unintersting, but thankfully short.
Review: The story from this book is like reading an actual Dungeons and Dragons game. It's very straightfoward and reads like a D&D adventure. I enjoyed it for the most part because I play D&D and just like to read anything about it. However, T.H. Lain has got some real work to do if he ever wants to be a real author. The story is not written well at all. Some of the conversations between the characters are laughable - and not the ones that are supposed to be humorous. There are parts where I had to re-read paragraphs because his writing style just lost me. It's not really a writing style, more of a lack of writing skills. If you want a fair quick read, go ahead and pick it up... otherwise there are tons of other great fantasy books to read that are much much better.
Rating:
Summary: Bland, Unintersting, but thankfully short.
Review: The story from this book is like reading an actual Dungeons and Dragons game. It's very straightfoward and reads like a D&D adventure. I enjoyed it for the most part because I play D&D and just like to read anything about it. However, T.H. Lain has got some real work to do if he ever wants to be a real author. The story is not written well at all. Some of the conversations between the characters are laughable - and not the ones that are supposed to be humorous. There are parts where I had to re-read paragraphs because his writing style just lost me. It's not really a writing style, more of a lack of writing skills. If you want a fair quick read, go ahead and pick it up... otherwise there are tons of other great fantasy books to read that are much much better.
Rating: 
Summary: Not so good . . .
Review: To be honest, this is the only T.H. Lain book I've read, so I can only judge his writing with this particular novel. That being said, it was an all around weak effort. In itself, the story had potential .... The problem lies in Lain's writing style . . . or more precisely, his lack there of. I would call his writing as an odd cross between an early-teen novelist and a confused adult supplemental writer. Sometimes it is way too simplistic, and other times you have to read the sentence five times before you can figure out what he's talking about. Now, I expected the characters to be one-dimensional, and the plot to be straight forward. After all, it's D&D. This alone did not bother me. I didn't buy a book called "The Savage Caves" for an epic Tolkenesque saga. As I mentioned before, the tale had promise. Unfortunately, it was unfulfilled. Lain's most common criticism is that some of his characters use dialog that sounds like it comes from the 90's. This can be bothersome. But what I found irritating was his constant use of the same word over and over. The words do not flow from the pages. Everything is choppy and lacks vivid meaning. His descriptions leave much to be desired. Often you'll read phrases like this, "The cave rounded and opened up into a larger cave in which the floor leveled off, making it easier to run through the cave." What is that? Also, the editing is either atrocious or was never done in the first place. The are several typos throughout the piece, and sentence structure would make any self-respecting writing keel over and die of shock. Perhaps Lain has improved over time (he had written six or so of these books), but don't read this one thinking you're reading a literary masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: A dreadful waste of time and trees.
Review: When Wizards of the Coast revived the venerable roleplaying game DUNGEONS & DRAGONS with a third edition in 2000, they introduced a group of "iconics," representations of the various character types a player might wish to create. These characters were featured in the artwork and gameplay examples in order to personalize these elements and make them seem at least a little less generic. In the slender, shoddily-written novel THE SAVAGE CAVES, four of these iconic characters make their appearance in an adventure about saving a village's sheep. As of this writing, six volumes have appeared in author T.H. Lain's series of books featuring the iconics. Each one ostensibly focuses on a different character while still maintaining an active ensemble cast. THE SAVAGE CAVES spotlights Regdar, a resilient warrior with a huge sword. He appears in a few illustrations in the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS PLAYER'S HANDBOOK as a fairly typical fighter type, a staple of fantasy fiction and gaming. There's nothing in THE SAVAGE CAVES that makes him any less workaday. In fact, the same could be said of Regdar's companions, the painfully stereotypical holy man Jozan, the neophyte mage Naull, and the halfling rogue Lidda. Of the four, only Naull gets more than a sentence or two of motivation or background, being granted several whole pages to set up her departure from her apprenticeship under a reclusive wizard. Regdar, the ostensible "hero" of the piece, swings his sword a great deal and has the flickerings of attraction for Naull. That's it. Lidda performs the function of comic relief, uttering stale wisecracks with every other sentence of dialogue. The story itself reads as though Lain simply gussied up in prose a session or two of an actual roleplaying game. The mechanics of D&D creak just beneath the surface of the writing, and occasionally surface in odd places when characters take actions or speak dialogue that illustrates a particular point of the rules. The plot is barely a plot; the heroes go to a cave, fight things in the cave, and then leave. The end. With a more competent author behind the rickety framework of THE SAVAGE CAVES, perhaps the book wouldn't be such a disaster, but there's no indication that Lain wrote more than a single draft, or that any editor set a red pen to any portion of the work. THE SAVAGE CAVES is a grammarian's nightmare. Lain's prose is a morass of passive voice, oddball sentence constructions, repetitive phrasings and sound-alike typos that escaped the automated spell-checker. And one won't find more instances of the word "spanked" outside of a book of Victorian erotica than in THE SAVAGE CAVES. In short, THE SAVAGE CAVES is a disaster. Too simplistic for adult readers, too earthy for young readers, and too amateurish for discriminating readers of any age, Lain's effort falls well short of the mark. It's all the more disappointing when one considers what a rich field of material the author had with DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. It takes a great deal of ineptitude to take a subject so full of adventure and make it such a painful bore.
|
