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Post by andydecker on May 15, 2024 15:14:03 GMT
Christie Golden – Vampire of the Mists (TSR, 1991, 341 pages)
 Cover: Clyde Caldwell was originally created as a campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons in 1983, by Dragonlance creator Tracy Hickman and his wife Laura. Basically the concept is that Ravenloft is Gothic horror with fantasy tropes. There are Domains of Dread in another plain that are surrounded by strange mists that can ensnare both people and places. Those domains basically serve as prisons for different evil Darklords. One of the main domains is Barovia, ruled by vampire lord Strahd von Zarovich. The only people to travel between the Domains are the Vistani, a nomadic ethnic group, as it is called nowadays, which are patterned after stereotypical movie Roma people right out of 30s Universal horror movies. In the 90s TSR (remember them?) expanded their publishing program. Besides doing hundreds of novels in series like Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance in the next decades, they did a couple of Ravenloft novelizations based on the RPGs and their characters, written mostly by then upcoming writers. Christie Golden, who later wrote a lot of Star Trek, Star Wars and World of Warcraft delivered here her first novel. It is kind of difficult to rate. Whiny vampire elf Jandar Sunstar of the "why me, why me, o merciless fate" disposition gets transported to Barovia where he fights evil vampire lord Count Strahd because of a complicated relationship tangle with the ghost of a girl. There is a direct plot connection to the Forgotten Realms series. At least Golden manages to make the walking vampire cliche Strahd the more interesting character, even if the saccharine, melodramatic end is hard to stomach. But as Star Trek books were not written for Science Fiction readers, Ravenloft was not written for Fantasy readers, and the horror elements are rather subdued.
Later novels would be a bit more original in their monsters and settings. |
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