: Hey Welly, any idea if Cook has heard of Myth? You had
: mentioned that you frequented some TBC forums or
: something, so I wondered if you ever came across Myth
: there. Would be interesting to know what he thinks of
: the games (and story). Myth is different enough to be
: seem unique, yet did borrow from TBC (as noted often
: enough). I'd like to know his stance on their
: inspiration (copying?).
I wish I knew if Cook himself has heard of Myth... I think it is very likely, but that's just an assumption.
However, I can tell you that at least a few of the folks at the Cook fanmail have heard of Myth, and that one of them called Myth either "crap" or "garbage", I can't remember offhand which one it was specifically, or perhaps if it was another word of similar meaning.
Anyway, this poster called it that because he saw one of the web pages with a list of Black Company / Myth similarities (like the chart hosted here) and realized it was like the Lincoln-Kennedy "history lesson". He hadn't played the game at the time of his post, and so assumed that Myth was a total ripoff. A reply was sent from a fellow Myther (one of the elders here at m@borg.. I can't remember his name either, but that, like me, he was introduced to Cook via Myth, whereas the guy who insulted Myth had known Cook's work beforehand) who had recently joined the mailing list and naturally defended our favorite game, in a way.
I read this all in one of the archives on the fanmail info page... you can try looking but unless you have luck on your side, it might take awhile to pinpoint which monthly archive has those posts in it.
I also am curious about Cook's views about Myth. They probably aren't great ones (another assumption).
I am not aware of other Cook-TBC forum or fanmail mentions of Myth. That doesn't include TBC web pages (like http://members.tripod.com/~blackco/myth-n-bc.html).
Figured I'd paste this excerpt from "Postmortem - Myth: The Fallen Lords" by Jason Regier, published in Game Developer Magazine, April 1998:
"We were inspired by movies such as Braveheart, with its close-up portrayal of bloody melees between large forces, and books such as Glen Cook's The Black Company, in which gruesome tales of battle contrast with engaging and intriguing characters."
-Welly
PS: Good News! Cook has very recently announced 2 more Black Company novels in the works. One of the fanmail folks interviewed him and posted the goodies on the fanmail.
