college role-playing group pulled into real fantasy world as their characters

The Guardians of the Flame: The Warriors contain the first 3 books of the series, of which I believe there are 10 total.

I first read these books many years ago and throughly enjoyed them as they gave a somewhat plausible explanation of the two different worlds, and had a raw gritty feel to them that I enjoyed.

Rereading them however, I had a hard time with symphathizing with the characters - the main characters seemed self indulgent and spent most of the time bullying other characters into doing what he wanted. The "takeover" of the fantasy world seemed far to easy, and despite the killing of several characters I really didn't care whether they lived or died.

The world the the author built however was interesting, I particularily liked how magician were portrayed, how spells were learned and how they couldn't be reused until learned again. So while magicians were powerful they were also limited in a significant way.

The ideas of the book, tackling of the slavery issue for example, were of a very serious nature and although I thought its admirable to write a book that addresses some of these issues, it also didn't handle them in a very compelling way.

Regardless, I enjoyed the books. ( )

Review at http://silverpenpub.net/books/review-of-guardians-of-the-flame ( )

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