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Zherog
 Post subject: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 10:35 am 
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I'm not much of a Magic player, but my son (and daughter, to a lesser extent) has been really enjoying it since learning to play last year. He also needs to do a lot of reading for school - he gets to pick the book, and has to do summaries for every 75-100 pages.

So... are there books in the Magic world that would be appropriate - theme/content wise - for a 12 year old? His reading level is going to be high enough, assuming they're on par with the writing in the D&D books; I'm more concerned about heavy graphic violence, sex, etc.

Any recommendations for novels my wife and I can look at?

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AzureShade
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:15 am 
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I happen to have just made a list recently of all of the MTG Novels:

Spoiler

Mostly all of them are appropriate for young adults if you're okay with some instances of graphic violence in books where Phyrexians are concerned. There's very little in the way of explicit sex in MTG books as they were written for the young adult crowd. I'd highly recommend any of the Pre-Revisionist books, though you'll have an easier time getting your hands on the Post-Mending titles.

Is there any particular era of the MTG books you'd like to know more about?

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KeeperofManyNames
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:19 am 
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Scourge!

Ahahahahahahahahahaha no. Don't have him read Scourge. Don't have anyone read Scourge. Ever.

Hm, Agents of Artifice has some implied off-screen sex and some violence, but on the whole it's not bad, I don't think. Certainly no worse than, say, Song of the Lioness, and I had read those novels by the time I was twelve or so. Younger than that, probably.

AoA is a good choice because it's largely unconnected to larger continuity from before the Mending. Weatherlight/Artifacts has most of the really great novels, but they're all pretty interconnected and can get pretty horrifying what with the Phyrexians (although again, I was reading them by age 12/13 and I've turned out completely well adjusted in every possible way! Every possible way. :blink: )


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AzureShade
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:22 am 
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KeeperofManyNames wrote:
Scourge!

Ahahahahahahahahahaha no. Don't have him read Scourge. Don't have anyone read Scourge. Ever.
I think one out of sixty two titles is a fair description of "very little."

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Zherog
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:36 am 
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Thanks, all!

AzureShade wrote:
I happen to have just made a list recently of all of the MTG Novels:

<<snip list>>


Oooh, that'll come in handy - especially the little notes like read before X. :hattip:

Quote:
Mostly all of them are appropriate for young adults if you're okay with some instances of graphic violence in books where Phyrexians are concerned. There's very little in the way of explicit sex in MTG books as they were written for the young adult crowd. I'd highly recommend any of the Pre-Revisionist books, though you'll have an easier time getting your hands on the Post-Mending titles.


Some violence is OK. Fade-to-black, off screen sex is OK. He's read the whole Harry Potter series and a few others, so he's certainly had some violence. My daughter has read more stuff - Hunger Games, Eregon trilogy, Twilight ( :rolleyes: ). So it's even less of a worry there.

Quote:
Is there any particular era of the MTG books you'd like to know more about?


I... don't know how to answer that. I don't know what the era are. :blush:

I played Magic once years ago, and didn't touch it again until they wanted to learn at GenCon last summer. And then my exposure is just the starter decks we were given.

KeeperofManyNames wrote:
Hm, Agents of Artifice has some implied off-screen sex and some violence, but on the whole it's not bad, I don't think. Certainly no worse than, say, Song of the Lioness, and I had read those novels by the time I was twelve or so. Younger than that, probably.

AoA is a good choice because it's largely unconnected to larger continuity from before the Mending. Weatherlight/Artifacts has most of the really great novels, but they're all pretty interconnected and can get pretty horrifying what with the Phyrexians (although again, I was reading them by age 12/13 and I've turned out completely well adjusted in every possible way! Every possible way. :blink: )

So AoA is a good stand alone book that doesn't require a lot of knowledge about the world etc? Basically, I'd like to find a good book to introduce him to the greater series - because that gives my wife and me more choices when trying to find a new book for him to do these assignments...

Thanks!

edit: fixed busted quote tags

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Last edited by Zherog on Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

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RavenoftheBlack
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:38 am 
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Well, that verifies that I have all of them except the three Secretist ebooks. This might be a stupid question, but what is the best way to get those if I don't have any sort of kindle/nook thing?


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Tevish Szat
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:43 am 
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AoA is probably the best call for this purpose, though I have got to step in and recommend Brothers' War if he's OK with some more complicated/adult concepts -- I read Dune at about that age and while I didn't "get" it as well as I did a couple years later, I did follow and enjoy it. Brothers' War is sort of similar in that id deals with some very complex, adult concepts and relationships, and doesn't spell everything out in black and white.

But it is so very worth it.

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AzureShade
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:44 am 
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Zherog wrote:
Quote:
Is there any particular era of the MTG books you'd like to know more about?


I... don't know how to answer that. I don't know what the era are. :blush:
Mostly, after the Rath Cycle, the books were divided into trilogies that corresponded with their blocks. If there was a certain set you happened to like, I could tell you if the books associated with it were worth the read (the general answer is "yes" with a few notable exceptions).

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magicpablo666 wrote:
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in an thread with GM_Champion" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against AzureShade when card design is on the line!"


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RavenoftheBlack
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:45 am 
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Yeah, Agents of Artifice is, in my opinion, by far the best of the newest books (last several years). It's actually the first MTG novel I ever read, and it's what convinced me to collect the rest of the novels. But seriously, for the love of everything, DO NOT have him read Test of Metal. Avoid that one like Phthisis.


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AzureShade
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:46 am 
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Tevish Szat wrote:
Brothers' War is sort of similar in that id deals with some very complex, adult concepts and relationships, and doesn't spell everything out in black and white.

But it is so very worth it.
Finding out that one of the largest continent-spanning conflicts in Dominara's history was pretty much just a fight between two brothers over a woman was hilarious. I mean, there was more to it than that, but yeah.

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magicpablo666 wrote:
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in an thread with GM_Champion" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against AzureShade when card design is on the line!"


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Zherog
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:55 am 
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Thanks! I'll look for AoA and see if he or she has interest in it. And then if the read it and like it, I can start banging through the awesome list Azure posted.

:hattip:

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Last edited by Zherog on Thu Sep 26, 2013 12:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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KeeperofManyNames
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:59 am 
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There's a few major sort of groups of Magic novels...

[list=][*]Prerevisionist Era--mostly stand-alone stories that sometimes were very good, but which have dubious canonicity at this point due to changes in how Planeswalkers worked
[*]Artifacts and Weatherlight Era--the conflict between Phyrexia and Dominaria, spanning millenia and involving a massive cast of characters. These are some of the best books, but they're also some of the most interconnected.
[*]Planehopping Era--After the Dominarian Apocalypse that ended the Phyrexian Invasion, Magic sort of hopped around from plane to plane and story to story for a while. This really began with Odyssey and Onslaught, which were a strong break from the previous conflicts despite being on Dominaria, and followed through Ravnica, Mirrodin, Kamigawa, and arguably Lorwyn (even though it comes after Time Spiral)
[*]Other Pre-Mending: Stuff like Ice Age and Legends I and II fit here, as they don't fit easily anywhere else. Largely stand-alone works, these novels happened before the Mending.
[*]The Mending Itself: Time Spiral. This, like the move from Pre-Revisionist to Revisionist, was the end of an era. Most of the old Planeswalkers were killed off, and the Spark that grants Planeswalkers their powers was dramatically nerfed.
[*]The Neowalker Era: These books started out disconnected, but as Planeswalkers have crossed between plotlines they've steadily become more intertwined. Agents of Artifice is the first; the most recent is The Secretist. This might be the best place to start.[/list]

One alternative place to start might be Ice Age, which does a good job of introducing the world. That said, The Shattered Alliance, the final book in the trilogy, is notoriously expensive, or it was last time I checked.

EDIT: Anyone know why my list doesn't work?


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AzureShade
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 12:03 pm 
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KeeperofManyNames wrote:
[*]Other Pre-Mending: Stuff like Ice Age and Legends I and II fit here, as they don't fit easily anywhere else. Largely stand-alone works, these novels happened before the Mending.
I put the Ice Age books between Book 1 and Book 2 of the Artifacts Cycle because that was when the Ice Age happened.

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magicpablo666 wrote:
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in an thread with GM_Champion" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against AzureShade when card design is on the line!"


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GobO_Fire
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 12:08 pm 
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KeeperofManyNames wrote:
[list=]

EDIT: Anyone know why my list doesn't work?


This is why. Either remove the = or add a "type" of list you want. For example, put a 1 to get a number list, A to get alpha, etc. Leaving it blank (removing the =) gives you a bullet list.

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RavenoftheBlack
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 12:09 pm 
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I personally really enjoyed both Legends cycles, too. I don't remember any of them being too age-inappropiate, but I didn't read them with that issue in mind, so I honestly do not remember.


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Zherog
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 12:18 pm 
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Yeah, as you can probably guess by my daughter's list of books she's read that I mentioned (Hunger Games (lots of violence) and Twilight (sparkly vampire lovin')) my wife and I aren't quite as hung up on these sorts of things as the "typical" American parent. There are limits, of course. ;)

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Yxoque
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 12:27 pm 
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I cannot recommend Agents of Artifice enough. It's a good novel, not just a good Magic: The Gathering novel. And the author is really nice.

RavenoftheBlack wrote:
Well, that verifies that I have all of them except the three Secretist ebooks. This might be a stupid question, but what is the best way to get those if I don't have any sort of kindle/nook thing?

I'm superqualified to answer this since I struggled with this a lot.

You need to get either the kindle program for Windows or the App for your smartphone. This functions pretty much the same as an actual kindle. Then you add the books to your Amazon account and you should get them in your program/app.

Yes, buying ebooks through amazon is a pain.

Contrast with buying ebooks from the Dutch site my mum uses:

Pay for books --> Download pdfs.

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Zherog
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 12:40 pm 
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Yxoque wrote:
And the author is really nice.


Heh. I just looked up the book on Amazon to send the link to my wife. And that was the first time I saw the author's name. Turns out, I know him (but only casually).

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Barinellos
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 3:46 pm 
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RavenoftheBlack wrote:
Well, that verifies that I have all of them except the three Secretist ebooks. This might be a stupid question, but what is the best way to get those if I don't have any sort of kindle/nook thing?

You can buy it off Google and use their online googlereader.
That's how I did things.
https://play.google.com/store/books/det ... g8MXK51DIC

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Aaarrrgh
 Post subject: Re: Novels for Beginners
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 4:03 pm 
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I haven't had a chance to read any of the Magic novels, because they are kinda hard to find in Sweden... I'm hoping to get my hands on some of them eventually, and then I'll be glad for this list. Thanks, guys!

Off topic: Hi Zherog! I haven't seen you since I stopped hanging in the Castle of Fun back in 2009!

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