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Whether one is laboring to produce the next Nebula winner or writing an installment in an RPG tie-in series, one should always bring the A game. I am happy to report that JonesвЂ™s novel is вЂњmuch better than it needs to be,вЂќ but not without first challenging the statement itself. All too often this is not the case, and oneвЂ™s eyes quickly glaze over as the distant barbarian bruises his way to a foregone conclusion. Yes, one wants all the trappings of those enchanted realms, but one also needs characters that are engaging, whose challenges and conflicts one can become invested in. What I hoped is that it would be вЂњfun.вЂќ I hoped it would maintain my interest, because countless have been the books - by both high-fantasy imitators of Tolkien and S&S imitators of Howard and Leiber - that have disappointed on that front. I want to start with that quote, because frankly I went into Pathfinder Tales: Stalking the Beast - a bi-monthly-subscription novel based on a role-playing game - without terribly high expectations. Price once wrote of another sword-and-sorcery title that it вЂњis much better than it needs to be.вЂќ He meant it as high praise, if also a somewhat condescending swipe at the genre. The Pathfinder Tales Library now includes over twenty titles. Predictably, Pathfinder is now the hot item with all sorts of tie-in merchandise, including a novel line that releases a new installment every two months. And from their beach the wizards looked on, muttering, вЂњWe could be doing that,вЂќ but no, they had abdicated their own power in trying to placate their overlord Hasbro, insatiable deity of toys. And while fourth edition D&D sank under its own attempt to appeal to the World-of-Warcraft videogame crowd, Pathfinder got huge, and soon started outselling D&D. When WOTC chose to discontinue third edition completely with their launch of fourth edition D&D, Pathfinder became the de facto reigning third-edition king, filling the ill-advised gap left by those coastal spell-casters.

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What IвЂ™ve heard second-hand IвЂ™ll tell you, and those better informed on that front can correct me if any of my second-hand knowledge is off: It was basically Paizo PublishingвЂ™s version of third edition D&D, introduced to capitalize on Wizards of the CoastвЂ™s open license to the d20 system. Second, while I continue to play 3.5 edition D&D, IвЂ™ve never played the Pathfinder role-playing game.

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But when it comes to full disclosure on that point, thereвЂ™s just not much to disclose.)

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There were also a couple movie novelizations in the mix - inevitably written by Alan Dean Foster. (Somewhere along the line I read a Star Wars novel, and in junior high I went on a Doctor Who kick. My reading of Howard Andrew JonesвЂ™s new novel Pathfinder Tales: Stalking the BeastВ may be a test case on whether it stands on its own merits because, first, IвЂ™ve just never been much into tie-in novels. (I did read some of the D&D Endless Quest books, which were in the style of Choose Your Own Adventure, lured by their solo-gaming appeal - a craving that was better met by the Lone Wolf and Fighting Fantasy game books.) So perhaps itвЂ™s a bit surprising, given this profile, that I never delved into any of the D&D novelizations - the Dragonlance Chronicles and their ilk. By the sixth grade I was a devout Dungeons & Dragons player, and Tolkien was my favorite author.

Not surprisingly, when I got wind of a game that allowed you to invent your own characters and take them on adventures in such worlds via some cool dice, maps, rulebooks, and a little bit of imagination, I was all over it. And moving on from Howard I stumbled into the dangerous alleyways of Lankhmar in Fritz LeiberвЂ™s world of Nehwon. HowardвЂ™s gritty, fabled world of a certain barbaric Cimmerian delivered the full-on S&S.Д«ranching out from Narnia, I found my way to the towering, epic high fantasy of J.R.R. Burroughs inched me toward a more Americanized вЂњsword and sorceryвЂќ via the вЂњsword-and-planetвЂќ Barsoom novels. Narnia gave me my first taste of a secondary world populated by mythical creatures, witches and wizards, and talking beasts. There were others, of course, but those were the big three. Like many fantasy fans of my generation and the generation before (Gen X and Baby Boom respectively), I was ushered into the genre by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E.