The great tie-in fiction debate

[Albertosaurus Rex]

Aha, I didn't know there were Buffyverse books like that too.

I'm currently making my way through no less than two tie-in novels and it's interesting to see how different they are.

Reading Keith Baker's The Shattered Land, I finally understand what people mean when they say that some RPG-based novels feel like, well, a write up of a roleplaying session. (Add new chracter to the party. We need that wizard over there to help us, but we have to get him a McGuffin before he will agree to do so, which is hidden in a temple. Distract the priest, sneak into the temple's vault, battle dragon statue which comes to life, then get busted by the priest after defeating the dragon, get away with the McGuffin after defeating the priest, teleport to the wizard's house, random encounter with ugly beast... this is how the story actually goes, folks.) It feels like an endless string of pointless encounters.

Dan Abnett's First and Only, on the other hand, is much better written. it actually starts off with a fifty page battle scene and he manages to keep that interesting the whole time. No mean feat.