Before I go too deep here if you want to wish me a happy birthday and win a prize, go to this thread. If you want to see me rage against the machine some more stay here.
Still with me? Ok.
For the record I want you to know that I was not setting out to do this. I just wanted a nice little novel about Mystara and witches to read. Been on a great Mystara kick all week.
So I treated myself to a bunch of books on my Amazon wishlist for my birthday. Three of them were the "Witchcraft Wars" series. I am not sure how I found them but all I knew about them that they dealt with the rise of Witchcraft in the Mystara game world. So perfect for me right?
The cover art looked a little off from other Mystara books, but they were new and I thought that maybe WotC was trying something new.
That's not the case.
I was so excited that the first book was free for the Kindle that I grabbed it and the next two books.
You can get it too so you can see what I mean.
http://www.amazon.com/Erichs-Plea-Book-Witchcraft-Wars/dp/1453600973/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371123885&sr=1-1
There was a map inside. I was quite excited to see it to be honest. I saw Glantri..right next to Karameikos and way north of Alfheim (on the coast)
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Wait. What??
I then noticed that the publisher was NOT Wizards of the Coast or Mirror Stone but "Amazon Publishing Services".
A closer dig into the other books from this author, Tracey Alley, revealed more books and two with some pretty blatant art theft.
Here are the books in question:
The Witchcraft Wars, Book 1, Book 2 and Book 3
A Very Hairy Adventure - A Kaynos History Tale with Clyde Caldwell art from a WW Werewolf game.
An Unholy Encounter (The History Tales of Kaynos) with art from an October 1988 issue of Dragon magazine.
There is a long discussion about it that I started last night over at the Facebook Mystara group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/mystara.reborn/584320224945880/?notif_t=group_comment
But here are my point. I bought all three books because 1. they were set in Mystara and 2. they were well reviewed. So I do feel a little like I was ripped off. I thought these were something like those "Dragon Codex" books from Mirrorstone; novels that take place in Krynn but are not part of Dragonlance (but still published by Wizards).
I mean really. A novel set in Mystara about the rise of Witchcraft? Why not just call it "Tim Read This Damn book Now!"
If you ignore the map it reads like a Mystara book. She has a Vestlander that used to be a Monk and is now a Druid. There are half-orcs that speak Hill giant. There are elves and dwarves, The writing isn;t bad, it's not great either, but I didn't mind paying whatever I paid for them BECAUSE I thought I was sending a message to WotC that Mystara books are a good idea.
Thankfully Amazon let me return the last two books of the series for a full refund.
I have started to reach out to people at Wizards, but no response yet (no surprise it's like 6:00am there now). This is not how I wanted to spend my birthday.
Here are some links.
Her website/blog, http://traceyalley.weebly.com/novels.html
Amazon page, http://www.amazon.com/Tracey-Alley/e/B003OVMKFU/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
I should just stick with reading witch books where the witch gets pregnant by her lesbian lover. After all, I have a reputation to maintain.
Still with me? Ok.
For the record I want you to know that I was not setting out to do this. I just wanted a nice little novel about Mystara and witches to read. Been on a great Mystara kick all week.
So I treated myself to a bunch of books on my Amazon wishlist for my birthday. Three of them were the "Witchcraft Wars" series. I am not sure how I found them but all I knew about them that they dealt with the rise of Witchcraft in the Mystara game world. So perfect for me right?
The cover art looked a little off from other Mystara books, but they were new and I thought that maybe WotC was trying something new.
That's not the case.
I was so excited that the first book was free for the Kindle that I grabbed it and the next two books.
You can get it too so you can see what I mean.
http://www.amazon.com/Erichs-Plea-Book-Witchcraft-Wars/dp/1453600973/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371123885&sr=1-1
There was a map inside. I was quite excited to see it to be honest. I saw Glantri..right next to Karameikos and way north of Alfheim (on the coast)
Wait. What??
I then noticed that the publisher was NOT Wizards of the Coast or Mirror Stone but "Amazon Publishing Services".
A closer dig into the other books from this author, Tracey Alley, revealed more books and two with some pretty blatant art theft.
Here are the books in question:
The Witchcraft Wars, Book 1, Book 2 and Book 3
A Very Hairy Adventure - A Kaynos History Tale with Clyde Caldwell art from a WW Werewolf game.
An Unholy Encounter (The History Tales of Kaynos) with art from an October 1988 issue of Dragon magazine.
There is a long discussion about it that I started last night over at the Facebook Mystara group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/mystara.reborn/584320224945880/?notif_t=group_comment
But here are my point. I bought all three books because 1. they were set in Mystara and 2. they were well reviewed. So I do feel a little like I was ripped off. I thought these were something like those "Dragon Codex" books from Mirrorstone; novels that take place in Krynn but are not part of Dragonlance (but still published by Wizards).
I mean really. A novel set in Mystara about the rise of Witchcraft? Why not just call it "Tim Read This Damn book Now!"
If you ignore the map it reads like a Mystara book. She has a Vestlander that used to be a Monk and is now a Druid. There are half-orcs that speak Hill giant. There are elves and dwarves, The writing isn;t bad, it's not great either, but I didn't mind paying whatever I paid for them BECAUSE I thought I was sending a message to WotC that Mystara books are a good idea.
Thankfully Amazon let me return the last two books of the series for a full refund.
I have started to reach out to people at Wizards, but no response yet (no surprise it's like 6:00am there now). This is not how I wanted to spend my birthday.
Here are some links.
Her website/blog, http://traceyalley.weebly.com/novels.html
Amazon page, http://www.amazon.com/Tracey-Alley/e/B003OVMKFU/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
I should just stick with reading witch books where the witch gets pregnant by her lesbian lover. After all, I have a reputation to maintain.