Hi all,

I've recently finished reading The Elder Scrolls novel 'The Infernal City' and it really has got me into thinking about it's real purpose. What with there being another novel on the way very soon, I'm almost 100% convinced that these two books are a platform for the next instalment in The Elder Scrolls saga. I would bet every penny I own that the new game will be announced at this E3 and that it ties in directly with these books.
I believe the books are for the hardcoe fans to follow the story, but you won't really be missing anything if you don't read them. The same sort of thing applies to Oblivion, in that you may have never played an Elder Scrolls game, but could quite easily play Oblivion and follow it's story without wondering what the heck is going on. I know this ,as I myself had never played an ES game until Oblivion.
Does anyone else agree with this?

Hopefully your right. I was actually thinking of getting the book, would you recommend I get it?

Definitely! It's certainly a good first part to the story that is being told.
When I first heard about the book, I kind of thought that it was just some crazy fan writing a book about the world of the Elder Scrolls. What I didn't know, but do now, is that this book is fully sanctioned by Bethesda. I imagine that they gave the author the general outline of the story they wanted told, and he wrote a novel (or two) based around that story. This is what leads me to believe that these books are stepping stones for the fans to reach other places .

Seems to sum it up pretty well, they stepped in to make sure that nothing he did conflicted with past lore or future intentions if it ever came up.

There's an official thread somewhere around here, but it's been pretty quiet since the book has already been discussed quite a bit and we have no information on the second.

From what I understand, the writing style was pretty campy and was poorly organized. I won't know for sure until it winds up at my local library though.

Not sure I agree with the 'campy' accusation, but I can see where people are coming from with the 'poorly organised' one. The story flicks from one set of characters to another showing different vein lines within a much bigger story. This works with films but becomes a tad confusing within the realms of books (especially to a non book reader like myself ).
I got used to it after a while. I suspect the second book will do the same.

Does it switch at the start of a chapter? There should be a wide margin between paragraphs, if focus shifts during a chapter. The editor's supposed to catch that kind of stuff.

That's a pretty common writing style in books as well. And if you are a non-reader, you're not the best judge of what is or isn't campy writing. Just sayin'.

I'm pretty sure they are catalyst for the next game. It just makes sense.

There is an official topic for this discussion, please use it.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1069774-official-the-infernal-city-an-elder-scrolls-novel/