ESO Novels

kmfdm

I would love to see more novels in the Elder Scrolls universe. So far only two novels were published--as far as I know--The Infernal City and Lord of Souls, which were mediocre at best, and from this perspective, the lore is lagging a lot behind other major fantasy settings. I know the game contains hundreds of in-game lore books, but that is different from a coherent story that only a 200+ page long novel can present. Are there any plans to produce more Elder Scrolls novels, or is this segment totally abandoned by Zenimax now?

beadabow

Interesting you brought that up. I was just looking at those two books Saturday (day before yesterday) and wondering if there were any more. As an amateur writer (two small mag articles published is all), I thought about writing some ESO stories, but thought getting the lore wrong might be an unforgivable offense to readers. I would have to do a lot of research. That might be what makes many writers shy away from a project as well. That and the legal aspects- copyrights and permissions might prevent many writers from taking on an ESO project. Would be fun to read though.

Malthorne

I’d prefer if they keep the lore and storytelling in game. WoW has novels that are supposed to supplement the world building but it turns out that they are required reading if you want to truly appreciate each expansion. The best stories and character development will be given priority to sell novels.

kmfdm

Malthorne wrote: »

I’d prefer if they keep the lore and storytelling in game. WoW has novels that are supposed to supplement the world building but it turns out that they are required reading if you want to truly appreciate each expansion. The best stories and character development will be given priority to sell novels.

Many other fantasy worlds do not require you to read all the novels to understand what is going on, and the novels are just supplementary to the lore. They only include characters that are not really that important to the lore, or they even may have completely new characters going on an adventure in the sword and sorcery style in the Elder Scrolls regions and dungeons. World of Warcraft is one example, but there are many other games, like the entire Forgotten Realms line, or Dragon Age, Mass Effect, or even FFG Arkham Horror (for board game reference), all these have supplementary novels presenting the less-known areas and characters, and ESO could benefit from having them as well.

aipex8_ESO

Malthorne wrote: »

I’d prefer if they keep the lore and storytelling in game. WoW has novels that are supposed to supplement the world building but it turns out that they are required reading if you want to truly appreciate each expansion. The best stories and character development will be given priority to sell novels.

I agree. I prefer all the lore associated with TES to be from an unreliable narrarator. If the novel was written as a lore book (as if someone in-universe wrote it), then I could make an exception.

VaranisArano

They aren't exactly novels, but have you looked to the journals ZOS produced for Naryu and Raz for Morrowind and Summerset? They tell a little longer form story than most of the in-game lore books.

DukeCybran

This is where you can absorb yourselves in the Elder Scrolls lore and stories.
https://imperial-library.info/books/all/by-category

Kadraeus

I was thinking about this a few months ago. It's a shame the books that exist don't seem to have been well-received. Part of me wishes The Elder Scrolls could branch into other mediums similar to how Star Wars has movies, novels, games, and comics that are all part of the same canon. I think it's definitely a popularity reason as to why TES doesn't have all that stuff. Everyone's at least heard of Star Wars, whereas most people I know irl have never heard of The Elder Scrolls besides maybe Skyrim. There's no guarantee they'll be successful, which I imagine is why there aren't many novels.

I think there's a lot of potential in novels or a series of some sort, and I personally don't understand why the lack of unreliable narrators or "player choice" would be an issue. The stories don't have to be relevant to the games. They could just be small scale stories set on Nirn, and the characters don't even have to be referenced at all in other material. Besides, when you play ESO, everything the main character does is canon and there's no question of whether these things happened or not since WE did them. Most of the time there are no significant choices being made either. Most stuff is already set in stone from start to finish, so even if future in-game books with unreliable narrators reference events in this game, we know what really happened because we saw it for ourselves. It would be the same deal in a book or series.

We need more merch too, man. I love graphic t-shirts, but the official options for The Elder Scrolls are so limited. It's always either the ESO symbol, the Skyrim symbol, or maybe something with the Dragonborn on it. I don't know if it would sell well, but I'd love t-shirts with drawings of basically any other characters on them. Maybe t-shirts of the Tribunal, Abnur Tharn, Paarthurnax, Stormcloaks, Maiq the Liar, a dwarven spider, Daddy Dagon, etc.

Deter1UK

Kadraeus wrote: »

Everyone's at least heard of Star Wars, whereas most people I know irl have never heard of The Elder Scrolls besides maybe Skyrim. There's no guarantee they'll be successful, which I imagine is why there aren't many novels.

On the other hand every really good fantasy novel or series started off, Chapter 1, on or in a world no-one had ever heard of before.

Maybe established writers prefer not to have the limitations of someone else's Lore no matter how extensive that might be.

On the other hand maybe we are simply waiting for someone to come up with a real cracker!

kmfdm

Kadraeus wrote: »

I was thinking about this a few months ago. It's a shame the books that exist don't seem to have been well-received...

...The stories don't have to be relevant to the games. They could just be small scale stories set on Nirn, and the characters don't even have to be referenced at all in other material...

I agree, the books do not need to be about world politics or large-scale epic events, it may be sword & sorcery style or dungeon adventure novels without any major canon characters. And it does not need to be overly ambitious either, it may be relevant even if it barely breaks even, but the value comes from building the IP not only for ESO itself but for any Elder Scrolls-based video game released in the future.

SammyKhajit

Would be nice to read a book/memoir written by one of the NPC characters.

Danikat

Deter1UK wrote: »

Kadraeus wrote: »

Everyone's at least heard of Star Wars, whereas most people I know irl have never heard of The Elder Scrolls besides maybe Skyrim. There's no guarantee they'll be successful, which I imagine is why there aren't many novels.

On the other hand every really good fantasy novel or series started off, Chapter 1, on or in a world no-one had ever heard of before.

Maybe established writers prefer not to have the limitations of someone else's Lore no matter how extensive that might be.

On the other hand maybe we are simply waiting for someone to come up with a real cracker!

As I understand it most of those books come about because the company that owns the IP contacts authors and asks them to write a story. I know that's how it works for Star Wars - at most they might approach an established author (likely one they've worked with before) and ask them to pitch their ideas for a new novel or series but more often they've got the basic outline of the story already decided and they hire a writer to develop it. There are some authors who have pretty much built their career on writing books set in existing universes.

So I suspect what we're waiting for is Zenimax to decide books would be a good idea and to approach someone to write them.

(Alternatively, 2 of the 3 Guild Wars books were written by people working for the studio. I don't know whose decision that was, whether the writers wanted to explore the lore more extensively than the game would allow or if the studio wanted tie-in novels or the additional story but either way I imagine it might have been a bit more of a collaborative process, which might work better for an Elder Scrolls novel.)