- Mass Market Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Wizards of the Coast (Feb 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0786928484
- ISBN-13: 978-0786928484
- Product Dimensions: 17.3 x 10.4 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
128,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #24 in Books > Sports, Hobbies & Games > Hobbies & Games > Word Games
- #72 in Books > Fantasy > Series
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Synopsis
When hunting parties from a small elven village and from a dwarven settlement on the far side of the mountains vanish without a trace, both sides blame the other, but a courageous band of heroes races against time to save the citizens of the tiny hamlets from a sinister force out to destroy peace, in a second fantasy adventure based on the Dungeons
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
It's nice to see Wizards making an effort to breathe some life into the iconic characters. The illustrators did a wonderful job of creating memorable and distinct images of them in the core rulebooks, but none of Wizards' supplements have gone beyond using them as examples; they might as well be called Wizard A and Fighter B for all the actual character they have. In this light, I welcomed the publication of The Living Dead as a step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, it's not actually any good as a novel. Well... perhaps I'm exaggerating. Certainly this tale of Mialee and Devis's attempts to rout an ancient undead menace made me laugh out loud many times, though I'm not sure the humour was always intentional. TH Lain makes mistakes a ten-year-old would avoid. The point of view is wobbly, the storyline cliched and predictable, the characterization inconsistent. The writing is... eurgh. The least said about that, the better. This is a short novel, and it could have been cut to half its current length if somebody had sat Mr Lain down and forced him to use pronouns and proper names instead of epithets, and to cut out half the adjectives.
But parts of it are good. The opening chapter, which was what made me shell out the cash, is atmospheric and amusing, and manages to describe D&D game effects without resorting to jargon or stupidly artificial phrasings. There are occasional flashes of this high quality throughout the book. So it wasn't a total loss.
It just could have been so much better, though.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
More brain-candy fantasy from Lain, with Iconic folk aplenty
22 Sep 2002
Format:Mass Market Paperback
The second book in the Dungeons and Dragons series that feature the Iconic characters from the 3rd Edition Player's Handbook, "The Living Dead" pits our heroes against undead villainy running amok.
The heroes from the PHB this time include Devis, Mialee, and Soveliss, along with a secondary cast of characters that round out the group. The story tends to have a lot more humour in it than you'd expect: two people end up running around a city naked in the pouring rain, for example, before the story is very far underway. There's some classic fun in this one, as well as very dark villains and sometimes gore-laden descriptive text. After all, undead are the enemy.
There's no great mental challenge to these books so far, and that's fine - this is not reading intended to change your life, after all. The length is still very short for the price, but the story - even if it is straightforward - is entertaining. This is candy for the mind, easily and quickly enjoyed, and I'll happily admit I'm hooked.
'Nathan
The heroes from the PHB this time include Devis, Mialee, and Soveliss, along with a secondary cast of characters that round out the group. The story tends to have a lot more humour in it than you'd expect: two people end up running around a city naked in the pouring rain, for example, before the story is very far underway. There's some classic fun in this one, as well as very dark villains and sometimes gore-laden descriptive text. After all, undead are the enemy.
There's no great mental challenge to these books so far, and that's fine - this is not reading intended to change your life, after all. The length is still very short for the price, but the story - even if it is straightforward - is entertaining. This is candy for the mind, easily and quickly enjoyed, and I'll happily admit I'm hooked.
'Nathan
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Resurrection
21 Dec 2003
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This book is so much better than the previous one it resurrects the just born series. In this piece we have a new cast of characters, more seasoned adventurers than in The Savage Caves and the story is of a 1000 year epic struggle involving higher powers rathern than the cave crawl of the previous book.
The pace is slower and the characters are allowed to give much more exposition, probably too much exposition with many speeches giving the history of everyone. However it does allow the characters to become much more fleshed out than the ones from The Savage Caves.
The actual adventure consists of a bard, mage, cleric and ranger trying to finally end the terror of a very powerful undead. It was actually solidly mediocre and uninspired, just what you'd expect from franchise fiction.
All in all, an improvement over the very poor The Savage Caves yet only a mediocre 3 out of 5.
A good start
10 Jun 2010
Format:Mass Market Paperback
T.H. Lain is a great writer... considering he's a pen name of many different novelists. None the less, this version of T.H. Lain got an entire story, including character introduction, character development, introduction of bad thing, introduction of a prophecy & resolution into less then 200 pages. I've seen other D&D writers do less with more.
I wont go into great depth about plot, other then to say that undead are involved: Ok, maybe a bit more... but i dont want to spoil it. Bad things are happening in a generic D&D town & suddenly the town stops being quite so generic as its revealed that this town has an almost lovecraftian past.
Ok, so this book isn't great. However, it is well written. If the author had been given the room, this book could have been brilliant: As it is it still gets four stars from me, because it did what it set out to do with style; something that isn't easy with only 192 pages to work with. One of the best in the series
-M
I wont go into great depth about plot, other then to say that undead are involved: Ok, maybe a bit more... but i dont want to spoil it. Bad things are happening in a generic D&D town & suddenly the town stops being quite so generic as its revealed that this town has an almost lovecraftian past.
Ok, so this book isn't great. However, it is well written. If the author had been given the room, this book could have been brilliant: As it is it still gets four stars from me, because it did what it set out to do with style; something that isn't easy with only 192 pages to work with. One of the best in the series
-M
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