Guild Wars 2

i was reading wiki articles the other day about the races, events and such and wondered – are the books worth buying? in terms of both info regarding the game (lore) and writing quality (do they make a good read)?

I’ll comment in release order of the books:
Ghosts of Ascalon: Have the best story/writing quality imo, not much about lore in this book, but in game you can find some NPCs and references from this book.

Edge of Destiny: Have the most lore among the 3 books, the book tell all about the Destiny’s Edge, how they meet up, the fight against Kralkatorrik and all the interaction among them, the writing is ok, the lore compensate that point.

Sea of sorrows: Interesting story about LA from fall to rise and all about its founder. The book feels very slow paced until near the end, after that the book gets really good.

Resuming, if you like the story of the GW universe, then it is worth the 3 books for sure, and besides, they are pretty cheap, and I say that living in Brazil, the shipment of the books was more expensive than the books itself, haha.

I have all three but only finished the first two (Ghosts of Ascalon and Edge of Destiny). On thing to note is that the first two books were released before GW2 came out, so a lot of players read them without knowing much about the game. The third book was the only one primarily (solely?) written by an actual ArenaNet writer (she was published elsewhere so it’s not her first book) so it probably is the closest to the vision that is represented in the game.

Ghosts of Ascalon was for a lot of people an introduction to GW2 races and racial dynamics (many of us had met norn, asura and charr in GW1 but the sylvari were completely new). It’s a decent story with some fun characters. A group of adventurer’s from each of the races are assembled to take on a mission. Many of the characters from the story can be found in the game which was a nice follow up. As far as overall relevance to GW2 it doesn’t seem that important. The plots it relates to in GW2 are somewhat static and collecting dust on the shelf. Chronologically it takes place one year before the Personal Story begins.

Edge of Destiny is by far the most relevant imo. In some ways I think it was a mistake to tell the story of Destiny’s Edge in a book then have the Personal Story pick up where the book ends. The Personal Story really suffers because of it. I’d say it’s worth a read to understand the context of Tyria’s situation at the beginning of GW2 (it sets up the members of Destiny’s Edge and shows Tyria when the races were less inclined to work together). Don’t expect amazing literary fiction, a lot of the book comes off like an action movie. Personally I enjoyed it. This book is probably the one that will enhance your understanding of the game’s story the most. Chronologically it takes place six years before the Personal Story.

Sea of Sorrows (this is the one written by an ArenaNet writer) is the only one I haven’t finished. It came out after the game launched (which is probably why I haven’t finished it yet), still I found it very slow. I can’t say too much about it but the story takes place over 100 years before the current story. I’ve heard this is the best written story.

If you’re looking for a fun adventure in GW2, I’d go with Ghosts of Ascalon, if you want to make better sense of Destiny’s Edge and want the book version of an action movie, go with Edge of Destiny. I can’t speak too much on Sea of Sorrows.

I think my partner’s quote towards the books reflects my own:
“Everyone is a complete kitten-pit 24/7 except Snaff, and the lone person that dies and you actually care about the fact. All asura and norn are complete dislikeable. The rest is filler and hoping Dougal and/or Logan die in some horrible fashion as soon as possible so you don’t have to go through another one of their “insightful self-discovery monologues in their head”."

They’re short, so yeah I would recommend reading them. Ghosts of Ascalon is ok, pretty decent plot wise, though I’m not a huge fan of the writing. Edge of Destiny is shockingly written though it’s pretty relevant to the plot and certainly makes the story dungeons in GW2 make a little more sense. I still haven’t finished Sea of Sorrows, I just don’t have time >.>, but it is by far the the best written of the three. I hear what others are saying about the pacing being a little slow, but honestly if you’re used to reading fantasy novels then it’s about on par with what you’d except (and the pacing actually makes more sense than in the other novels where things happen at a ridiculous pace).

they were all great reads, my favorite one is sea of sorrows

Ghosts of Ascalon: The writing in this book is average, but the story is interesting. I enjoyed reading it.

Edge of Destiny: Sub-par. While this book holds the most lore value, the writing is poor. The characters speak, think and act like middle school boys, the storytelling is poor, and some of the battle scenes are laughable (Characters spend more time insulting each other, and bragging, instead of actually fighting—again, think 12 year old boys). Basically, this book is the reason why Logan is a big joke

Sea of Sorrows: This book is the best of the three in terms of writing, characters, and story.