A review of Andre Norton’s Quag Keep.

Common bonds tie gaming geeks together.  Certain memes run through our subculture; you can tell the story of Eric Versus the Gazebo at a GenCon, and rest assured that someone you’ve never met or spoken to can leap in and finish the tale before you can.  Additionally, how many of us can recite “The Knights who say ‘Ni’!” sketch from Monty Python and the Holy Grail?  Of course, none of us would be a real grognard without knowing the origin of the phrase “I’m casting [magic missile] at the darkness!” followed by the sounds of hoarse, “nerdy” laughter.

One of the other memes that runs through the gaming community is a common daydream (which probably fades the older we get – or perhaps it gets stronger) of actually becoming our characters, and flying off to Greyhawk, Faerun, the world of Dark Sun or a thousand other realms that only ever existed on paper and in our imaginations.  It is this concept that Andre Norton’s 1978 release entitled Quag Keep is somewhat based upon.

The novel is, on the surface, a Dungeons and Dragons fiction novel.  Hundreds of like books have been written, from Gygax’s Greyhawk collaborations, to the wildly popular Dragonlance novels by Hickman and Weiss.  However, Quag Keep approaches the idea of setting fiction within a gaming milieu from a different angle; instead of writing a chronicle of the deeds of the “regular” citizens of Greyhawk, Norton tells the tale of a group of characters – in the gaming sense – who find themselves thrust into the World of Greyhawk, bound by a common destiny, and compelled by a wizard’s geas to seek out the source of a supernatural disturbance as sensed by the wizard Hystapates.

This is where the novel takes it’s unusual turn:  the characters aren’t simply people – gamers – from our world thrust into the World of Greyhawk.  Indeed, it is the actual characters created by the players who are sent on this quest.  To further confound them, each of the destined heroes is plagued by overlapping memories of the players!  Each of the characters (in the literary sense), bound by whatever compulsion has thrust them into the World of Greyhawk, wears an identical armband.  On each band, a set of familiar-yet-alien gaming dice hangs on a gimbal.  A D4, D6, D8, D10, D12 and D20 rests, immobile and irremovable.  When portentous events occur, such as an attack by a powerful creature, or meeting with important persons, the gimbaled dice actually spin and come to rest on a value…

Of course we, the readers, know what’s happening.  But for the spell-bound adventurers, the movements of the dice (while significant in their occurrence before great events) are meaningless.  All that can be understood of them is revealed by the wizard who seemingly controls their fate : “If you concentrate on the dice when they begin to spin, it is my belief that you will be able to change the score which will follow…”  This control is exhibited when the wizard summons a bag of treasure for each character to purchase supplies for the event – one by one, they focus their attention on the dice and “roll” the highest possible score to indicate the amount of coinage they receive. 

So equipped, the characters set off.  And what of the characters, who are they?  Norton merely tells us their names and something of their backgrounds:  Milo Jagon, swordsman.  Yevele, battle-maiden.  Naile Fangtooth, berserker/were-boar, with his pseudo-dragon companion.  Deav Dyne, cleric.  Wymarc, the bard, Ingrge the elven ranger and finally, Gulth, a lizard-man who is treated with indifference by the majority of the party and outright hatred by Naile Fangtooth.

Unfortunately, it is in the area of character development that Norton lets the reader down.  With such a diverse cast, a huge novel could have been developed.  Alas, all we really learn is that Milo is a swordsman who serves “Law”, Naile hates lizard men and can turn into a boar, and inexplicably the party Cleric can only use a dagger in combat.

This leads to further weaknesses in the book.  While not binding herself to the rules of the game (which can lead to very dry fiction indeed, if a battle for example is written die-roll by die-roll), the motivations of the characters seems to be little else than the Geas placed upon them by the wizard Hystapates.  The reader is dragged from encounter to encounter, with little connection between them.  We’re told that the party is being “watched by Chaos”, but why?  Simply because Chaos wishes to watch the forces of Law?  Even given what a seasoned Dungeons and Dragons veteran knows about the World of Greyhawk, the struggle between Good and Evil and the dangers that lie in the wilder lands, it seems like a very, very thin reason.

Perhaps, as the characters strive to meet their destiny and discover who has broken the "fourth wall" to bring our world and that of Dungeons and Dragons together, we are given exactly what “Original” Dungeons and Dragons had to offer:  Disjointed encounters, little character development, and little compulsion to adventure beyond “because you have to”.  This is unfortunate, as the entire book is one of missed opportunities.  Norton’s unique descriptive style is in full force in the novel: The reader feels the grit of the Sea of Dust as it blows across the line of characters traveling through it; the clash of sword upon shield and the oft-repeated description of the “stink of evil magic” are as palpable as they can be.  Alas, despite the literary flair, ultimately, there is little that Quag Keep can offer the fantasy reader.  Perhaps Ms. Norton felt bound by the conventions of the Dungeons and Dragons of yesteryear – when it was little more than a radically hybridized war game – and so constricted, so she wrote.  Whatever, the world of Quag Keep is a minor curiosity worth being transported to perhaps once, if only to take a look inside the minds of those characters we sometimes find ourselves wishing we were.

2 ½ out of 5 stars.