The Triangle

Issue date: 1/23/09 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Karl Kuchs

The practice of expanding - or exploiting - popular movies, games, or TV shows with novels is hardly new. Novelizations of franchises like "Star Wars," "Star Trek," and "D&D" have been around for decades. Fans get the chance to explore and enjoy the series far more than just the narrow slice presented in a two-hour long movie. Of course, what could be great in theory has a huge problem in practice. Companies release books along with every big-budget book, movie, or video game. The quality of these books is rarely at a point that could be called masterpieces. Many people feel these books are just an attempt to squeeze more money from the audience and not to actually create something of value.

As some people reading this will be aware, the trading card game "Magic the Gathering" has been releasing books along with its product since the '90s. These books have traditionally followed along with the story arc of the most recent set, with characters and story events being shared between the two. "Magic" is trying something a bit different with the new novel "Agents of Artifice" written by Ari Marmell. Rather than following the story of one plane, the new book will follow planeswalkers, a radical departure for the series.

For those of you who aren't geeks, planeswalkers are powerful "Magic" users who have the ability to travel between different realms of existence in the "Magic" universe. The flavor behind games of magic is that each is a duel between planeswalkers. Recently, these characters have become more emphasized in game play and advertising and "Agents of Artifice" is the most recent step in this process.

The important question, though, is whether the new book actually adds some value or is just an attempt to gain money out of a captive and obedient audience. As a work of "Magic" fiction, something intended to be enjoyable for a specific audience, "Agents of Artifice" succeeds with flying colors. The characters and settings are familiar for people who have been playing the game for years. Nostalgia is a powerful tool and it is used very well here. There is a very real "Oh man, I remember that" feeling when two monsters fight in the book that you have seen fight each other on a kitchen table some Friday night. It is good old-fashioned fun reading about an angel of death fighting a sewer monster summoned by goblins or a tribe of rat-people being attacked by a fire elemental.

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