I started out really keen about Myth III. The prologue posted here a few months ago was, I thought, very well composed and full of promise.
But having read the last post, I've decided that I agree with Sili.
It's poorly written, coming across like a schoolboy's first attempt at mythic fantasy. I know of others (in their teens too) who've shown far greater writing prowess - witness the Wound Which Festers by Lord Raven for instance. Certainly MJ's story conveys nothing of the feeling of ancient myth that Bungie's work did. And the dialog is so sad its laughable. I mean, can you read the stuff with Mazzarin and keep a straight face? Let me paraphrase...
"I am the lord of doom. Eternal torment awaits you, who dare defile my crypt"
"But, we're your disciples, really we are"
"Hmmm. Ok then. You get off scot-free"
Is this Myth - The Spoof Age?
Also, the story seeks only to explain things. It raises no new mysteries. It leaves no loose & hanging threads to speculate on. Its, well, tedious. Bungie went out of their way to give the feeling of a vast, mysterious history surrounding the current events. Not only dangling & vague tangents in the story, but unexplained statues and ruins all over the place. Nothing like that here I'm afraid.
And all that marching to & fro got very confusing. At least with the previous Myths you were actually going somewhere - if a level-by-level map were shown in M3 it'd have red lines going all over the shop like a crazed spiderweb. Perhaps they should have used world-knots a bit more and saved themselves from yet another dire three-month slog through the marshes.
Making Mjarin the Leveller was lame I thought. Having the arch-enemy revealed at the end as being the guy in your own ranks that no-one likes is an old Hollywood & pulp-fiction trick. It put the final nail in this story's cheap and tawdry coffin for me.
What else? No mention of Myrmidons. Ravanna playing a meaningless bit-part. Damas a total good guy. The demise of the Smiths neat and predictable and over in the blink of an eye. Also the feeling that half-way through you've already won, with the krids gone, the Rod destroyed and the Sunhammer prepared for the Trow. So much for getting more and more desperate before a final confrontation.
I don't mean to start any flamewars here, and I commend MJ on their efforts. But really, the members of the Asylum could have done a far better job. It really doesn't deserve to be part of the Myth series imho. Such a pity too...
Thanks for posting all that Zeph.
cheers.
Iron
