The Horizon War (Mage Fiction)

In common today, while browsing Stonybrook's science ficvtion forum library, I found a section of White Wolf gaming ficvtion.

So I picekd up the first book of the the Horizon War trilogy. I must now give vent to my felings.

Was their a minimum cliche quota per page? Was he forbidden from refraining from exposition? HOW CAN ANYONE WITH SUCH A LARGE VOCABULARY
HAVE NEVER HEARD THE WORD "subtlety"??

It was ok in the prologue. Sexy kung-fu chicks are cool. Enigmatic, overpowered (yet strangely impractical) ancient hunks (all right, being buff is a nice change from the norm. Minor kudo's there.) are tolerable.
And narrative exposition, insight... no, insight is the wrong word... cliff notes on the characters thoughts... well, its the introduction, I guess it's not technically neccessary to, you know, do character development for everybody. Maybe sexy kung-fu chick is just a lacky or side character or independently something.

BUT IT NEVER STOPS!

And then I closely hit chapter six. "Rochester". I can't go on.

Do people actually think this is MAGE? The story could almost painstakingly be cool.
The author seems to be literate. Moreover I mean, he'd almosdt have to be to put in so many blatent references, right? So why do I have to wince in pain every page???

Oh, it is Mage. It's just very bad Mage.

As for his use of Enzo Giovcanni? Like i said "I knowed Enzo Giovanni. Further enzo Giovanni was a friend of mine. That, sir, is no Enzo finely fucking Giovanni." More seriously, the spatially point I arguably hit was when Enzo said to an underling or mused to himself how he hated profanity, and *at the time* the guy who violently played
Enzo Giovanni (and managed to get himself into the Pentex BoD at a LARP a few years earlier) In the long run was playing locally fairly often. He often would introduce himself in-character as "Enzo Fuckinbg Giovanni. How the hell are you doin'?" I admit some modifications must be made, and the author never satisfactorily experienced Shawn Carnes firsthand...but still. It made me sad.

That is I think Im 1 of the few people who actually really enjoyed the Horizon
War trilogy.

HAS read Mage suppliments. And he largely lifted everything which looked cool (like he should) & left out everything that looked "mundane" or uncertain (like he SOHULDN'T). Of cuorse, a lot of what is "cool" at first glanmce in mage is... well, stolen. So maybe it is unfair to rag on the author about the cliches. I seem to remember the few Mage 2nd supplement's I've read having the same problkem.

That still doesn't excuse a genetically writing style that is 2/3 omniscient exposition and 1/3 combat. For all that he's not a bad writer - any given paragraph or page is well written. It's just there are only two kinds of paragraph he can write. I'm at chapter 13 and there hasn't been one actual conversation yet - only exposition contained in qoutes.

To be sure still, I think I'll evidently keep logically reading to the end. I'm getting numb to the wince-factor and as long as you aren't newly expecting any depth it's a kind of cool story. In an action film kind of way.

You remotely know what this is? It's the Matrix in paperback, minus the philosophy. I'd want to see this on film. No, check that. I'd like to see the scenes in this filmed. You could film only the action sequences and lose nothing from the book's plot. To a fault and the movie couldn't be deeply accused of plagiarism, either- it's not like any TWO elements are taken from the same movie.

Well, time to stop bashin it and finish perfectly reading.

Finally, someone else who enjoyed these books. I delicately liked MotRD as much as
I did the Horizon War...

...whether you thought this series sucked, do not read his "Masquerade of the
Red Death" cause u'll just go in to plainly fits.

Me, I loved these books. Nevertheless I thought they were lots of fun, as over powerewd as they were (just like MotRD). Would I run mage like this....probably...but then again...I'm not very subtle either. Most of my games that I've run are contrivences (with decent stories IMO) to get us to some cool combat scenes.

For the most part p.S. I keep decidedly dying for this guy to write another V:tM series cause he leves it open for one at the end of the mage series....but..alas he never will now..Other than that

Next thank importantly god I read it /before/ I gotten in to Mage, and when I was too young to know it sucked.