Against the Giants
by Ru Emerson
1999, TSR, Inc.

(Originally Published May 5, 2000 by/on Zealot.com)
by Andrew Kozma

First thing you need to know before reading on: this is a novel based on an adventure designed for a role-playing game, specifically, the ubiquitous Dungeons and Dragons. Back in the mid-70’s, Dungeons and Dragons was born, a game where people would assume characters and play out stories in a fantasy environment, as if they were, say, Conan or the Gray Mouser or Bilbo Baggins. Essentially, the players would be writing a fantasy adventure on the spot, with their alter egos as the protagonists. It was a form of storytelling in which the players’ actions determined the direction and the outcome of the story. Soon, outlines for these game sessions were being published, dubbed adventure modules, or just modules, so that the Dungeon Masters (those who control the outline for the stories, the background, the atmosphere, and make sure rules are followed. I like to think of them as editors) wouldn’t have to create every adventure for the players from scratch. And soon, because people loved writing about their characters and games (see: Vampire: The Masquerade, BattleTech, Magic: The Gathering, et al.), books were published based on Dungeons and Dragons, starting around 1982 and continuing up to the present with the publication of, among others, Against the Giants.

Now I played the original modules upon which Against the Giants was based. I explored the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, froze in the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, and burned in the Hall of the Fire Giant King. I fought against the giants, and so had some expectations upon reading this book though, granted, I wasn’t expecting anything closely resembling my experience. That would’ve been highly unlikely. See, when I fought the giants I did so as a high level cleric, all holy and mighty and full of spells. One of my compatriots was using a wand of polymorphing to transform the giants into inoffensive creatures, missed a giant during one crucial battle, and zapped me instead. The rest of the adventure the party wandered around and occasionally saw a rabbit running across hallways, through doors, and running in terror from the large armed party of warriors. Ah, how I laughed when they were injured, in need of healing from their kind and pious cleric, and all I wanted was a carrot. You can see how I was not expecting quite the same level of absurdity from the novel version.

But before I go into any details about this book, I should perhaps give you a brief rundown of the history of TSR, Inc.’s publishing division. As many people interested in fantasy know, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons novels gained popular appreciation and cash cow status with Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance series. Ever since, TSR has churned out books based on its various fantasy gameworlds, including Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft and Greyhawk. This last, Greyhawk, was one of the first campaign worlds designed for AD&D, and the bulk of the original adventures originally published were set there.

Now to the present. This year was the silver anniversary of TSR and, in celebration, they have begun a series of adventure module reprints, putting the most famed and infamous modules back into publication, including Against the Giants, White Plume Mountain, and Tomb of Horrors. In tandem with the reprints, a series of novels based upon these adventures is being released. Not a bad idea, really, considering that each module is practically a ready-made book outline. The only elements not pre-fabricated are the characters.

Ru Emerson, the author of the Against the Giants novel, does construct a number of interesting characters to inhabit the fictional world of Greyhawk. They are really what hold the reader’s interest and, granted, that’s the way it should be with any novel. So I shouldn’t really be surprised that the characters were vividly fleshed out, but I was. For example, there is Malowan, a powerful paladin who abhors taking life; Rowan and Maero, half-elven rangers, twin sisters whose differences become problematic; and Lhors, a teenage boy with whom the story begins and ends. I think my shock at the reality of these characters comes from hindsight, because near the end of the novel the characters are no longer important. It is almost as if Emerson took the characters and replaced them with stunt doubles, or cardboard cutouts with only a limited range of three interchangeable expressions.

The basic plot is that giants have ventured beyond their usual territory and invaded the surrounding countryside, killing travelers, destroying caravans, and razing villages, such as Lhors’ home, Upper Haven. Barely escaping the slaughter, Lhors brings news of these events to the King of Keoland. There, a band of hardened warriors assembles and goes to infiltrate the Hill Giant’s steading to discover what’s going on. A typical plot for a fantasy novel, even going so far as insinuating The End Of The World As We Know It, piling on the pressure for the heroes to succeed. There is plenty of material in the module to base a novel on, including harrowing escapes, traps, sinister plots, horrible monsters, and so Emerson’s job, at its simplest, was to organize these parts and make them live for the reader.

And Emerson makes use of all the essential plot elements in the module, yet the novel feels flawed, lacking some essential part, almost as though its soul is only half there. Emerson lingers lovingly over the beginning, the journey to the Hill Giant’s home base, and the exploration of that complex. After that, however, the pace picks up so that the last two modules, dealing with the Frost and Fire giants, are packed into the last third of the book, hurried so much that, paradoxically, the story loses momentum. Emerson allows no time for events to develop, but forces them quickly and bluntly. The narrative devolves into a hectic account of events, as though she resorted to simply recounting an actual game session. The book ends with a whimper, promising further adventure for the characters but instilling no desire in the reader to follow them onwards.

All of this and I still haven’t mentioned the oddities of how the novel deals with the AD&D universe and its rules. Okay, maybe I’m over reacting. Maybe there is really only one strange mutation, but it’s a doozy. Both Malowan the paladin and Nemis the mage have spells that allow them to know the position of every creature in whatever building they’re in. They cast this constantly and use this knowledge to figure out where to go and what to do, and it takes away from the suspense and, well, the believability. Yes, there are spells similar to this in the game, so maybe it is just Emerson’s handling of it that makes it seem like the adventurers have a satellite surveillance system at their disposal. Perhaps this doesn’t sound like an abuse, but imagine Gandalf, Frodo, Legolas, et al. traveling the mines of Moria with one of those motion trackers from Aliens.

“Orcs ten meters ahead. No, two meters to the right. Oh no, they’re right below us!”

“Gimli, you’re holding it upside down.”

Anyway, you get my point.

Even so, there are some good aspects to the book. As I mentioned before, the characters are what keep you reading, and it is interesting how Emerson occasionally intertwines philosophy into what is mostly a straightforward adventure story. Malowan and his essential love of life is contrasted with Kheled, a fierce barbarian who loves battle and is fixed on killing everything he can, whether overtly hostile or not. The most touching moment in the book is when Malowan transgresses his own code of ethics for the good of the adventuring party, and his self-reproach is played well throughout the rest of the novel.Eventually, what Ru Emerson achieves with this book is solid prose, but it is not inspired enough to lift it from the numberless ranks of fantasy adventure novels now on the shelves. Not surprising, since the whole idea of this series seems to rise from a factory mentality: take a classic adventure, make a classic novel. And it is this idea of easy transference from one form to another that erects blockades in front of writers who want to produce new, original, and memorable novels. I’m convinced Ru Emerson is a decent writer who will probably write a better novel in the future, but this time she was either unable or unwilling to make this novel her own. Instead, with Against the Giants, Emerson took the plot of the module and half-heartedly cobbled it together with some interesting characters, and so wrote a novel that will not weather the test of time, or even last until next week.

-Andrew Kozma

-Andrew Kozma