Infocom novels

[+remowilliams]

Has anyone read any of the Infocom novels? I just read Planetfall and Stationfall and they are two of the most horrendous pieces of garbage I've ever seen the science fiction label attached to. Luckily they were very quick reads, but someone owes me that time spent back...

[Tempest]

Yeah I recall reading the Zork ones and thinking even back then that they were utter garbage and only 'loosely' related to the games at best.

 

Tempest

[Christophero Sly]

I didn't know these even existed.

[S1500]

I had one of the choose your own adventure-like novels. Remember getting stuck in one part, but then realized I was going to the wrong page. It was quite a thin book, compared to the other CYOA-type novels.

[thrax]

I'm not surprised they were not that good since even some of their later software titles didn't seem as memorable as the original batch of infocom games (when they didn't have the generic square boxing).

Edited April 10, 2010 by thrax

[JohnBuell]

I have to admit I have a complete set of BOTH series. Steve Meretzky did the 4 "choose your own adventure" style books, I only had 3 I picked up at a school bookfair in the mid80s, and didn't know about the 4th until MUCH MUCH later, thanks to Wikipedia (which also lists the 4 titles in Steve's article, see below). The Infocom novels are a mixed bag, but a couple of well-known names wrote for Avon:

 

Robin W. Bailey did The Lost City of Zork and Enchanter (no idea if Sorcerer and/or Spellbreaker were ever planned or written).

Arthur Byron Cover did Planetfall and Stationfall, I have no idea how far along Futurefall was, as a novel, the series was cancelled.

Craig Shaw Gardner did Wishbringer.

George Alec Effinger did another Zork book: The Zork Chronicles.

 

Meretzky's books:

• Zork: The Forces of Krill (A What-Do-I-Do-Now Book, Zork #1), 1983, Tor Books
  
• Zork: The Malifestro Quest (A What-Do-I-Do-Now Book, Zork #2), 1983, Tor Books
  
• Zork: The Cavern of Doom (A What-Do-I-Do-Now Book, Zork #3), 1983, Tor Books
  
• Zork: Conquest at Quendor (A What-Do-I-Do-Now Book, Zork #4), 1984, Tor Books
  

[oesii]

Haha, I'll have to look over the Plantfall and Stationfall books when I get a chance. I read both of those when I was a teenager and I think I liked them. I needed something to read after going through all the Hitchhikers and Dirk Gently books. Plantfall was my favorite Infocom game back in the day, gotta love Floyd

[Lendorien]

I read Planetfall and Stationfall in high school. I remember being disappointed that they had nothing to do with the actual games.

[bradjewell]

I actually liked the Zork Chronicles by George Alec Effinger and if got me into reading his Marid Audran series which are very very good.

It's not the best book, but I did enjoy reading it, and thought it was an interesting story.

 

I have the CHoose your own adventure zork books and Lost city of zork, but never really got into them.

 

-Brad

[Bill Loguidice]

Has anyone read any of the Infocom novels? I just read Planetfall and Stationfall and they are two of the most horrendous pieces of garbage I've ever seen the science fiction label attached to. Luckily they were very quick reads, but someone owes me that time spent back...

 

 

I got about a quarter of the way through Planetfall and read no more. It makes me not want to read a single Arthur Byron Cover book among his vast works, ever, it was so bad. I will give him kudos for making the lead character an African American, though, but that's as far as my kudos extend.

 

When I interviewed Steve Meretzky back in March 2009 for our upcoming film, I asked him about the books, and he quickly brushed off any connection with the works. It perplexed me why the publisher did not want the game's authors doing these books, since it was obvious that in addition to having programming talent, they had writing talent. It only makes it worse that the books (at least the one that I've gotten partially through, though I have a few others in my collection) turned out so awfully.

[Bill Loguidice]

I'm not surprised they were not that good since even some of their later software titles didn't seem as memorable as the original batch of infocom games (when they didn't have the generic square boxing).

 

One had nothing to do with the other, really, because again, as has been stated, the game writers didn't write the books. As was also mentioned, the choose-your-own-adventure style books were actually pretty good, though targeted to children.

 

I also take some exception to the "later software titles" not being as memorable. Some of Infocom's best work was the later stuff (though, of course, individual opinions vary), though naturally once the company focus shifted from pure text to text and graphics and beyond, there inevitably was less of a focus on the prose. But I'd say taking the pure text adventures from the first to the last, the level of quality was amazingly consistent and was definitely skewed in favor of the later generations.

[BassGuitari]

I've got Zork: The Forces Of Krill. Not a bad book, I suppose, if you're 9.

[cimerians]

Planetfall\Stationfall sucked. I fell asleep a lot during reading or re-read a lot of pages two or three times from lack of interest and finally quit reading both of them half-way through each. Ugh........

[+remowilliams]

I got about a quarter of the way through Planetfall and read no more. It makes me not want to read a single Arthur Byron Cover book among his vast works, ever, it was so bad.

 

Planetfall / Stationfall are so mind numbingly appalling, they're almost enough to make you never read *any* book ever again.

 

I was actually going to scan Planetfall so I could easily share the horror with other people, but even my scanner refused the job.

[cimerians]

I was actually going to scan Planetfall so I could easily share the horror with other people, but even my scanner refused the job.