Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne

A good read for fans of Dragon Age origins. It explores the history of Ferelden before the beginning of the videogame. This is the story of Prince Maric, the son of the Rebel queen, fighting to get back the throne that was taken from his grandfather by the Orlaisian Emperor. It is rather a sad story, of people sacrificing their love and repressing their feelings in order to perform what they believe to be their duty. Entertaining.

This book makes me hope that the decisions I make in Dragon Age Origins effectively puts an end to the Theirin bloodline for the rest of the series. Maric is a fool of a King, I don't blame Loghain for leaving Cailan to die after all that he had to do for that Maric the fool.

Many would look at this expecting a pretty standard video game novel (meaning: terrible). Pleasingly, they would be wrong. They would be very wrong. This is a well written, excellent story, that provides a wonderful backstory into one of my favorite recent fantasy worlds. Is this one of the great fantasy novels ever? Hardly, but is it the greatest video game novel ever? It's possible, it's as good as any I've read, and I've read many. Further, and this is the most significant part, it exists as a good fantasy novel entirely outside the video game space. Read by someone who hasn't played the game and didn't know it had anything to do with a video game at all would still find this to be a quality read. 5 star for what it is, a game tie-in novel. Because it has far overachieved that aim. (Overall if separate to gaming, I'd rate it 4 stars.)