[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH Hey now, one quest starts when you encounter a village populated by pigs. 🐖 Granted, it too is not the happiest one, but still. Maybe graphic quests are more memorable because they are so graphic, and while there are plenty of others, they do not make quite a gig of an impression?

Lovecraft 😉. And Poe. Or do you mean something even bleaker?

To be honest, with Terry, I find it that he writes better alone. He has several books that he coauthored with others, Good Omens among them, but when he has total creative control, I think stories turn out better.

[ZaidH]

@CandelaSynth You know a book is good when it's compared to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 😄 I know a bit about Spanish football culture, but not the broader Spanish culture, so this book might be a great introduction. It's thrilling to discover new promising authors 😁

@DoctorEldritch Oh yeah, the pig village quest 😂 But yeah now that I think about it, there were definitely some fun and hopeful quests in the game, especially in Blood and Wine.

Lovecraft is on a different level of hopelessness 😂😂😂 Dude was unhinged!

Too many cooks in the kitchen can probably dilute the vision eh 😅

[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH That makes sense, Blood and Wine was the "final" DLC, and one of its quests was meant to "wrap up" the whole story. Stands to reason that they would want to end it on a higher, more positive note.

Depends. Lovecraft is hopeless on a different level, but at the core of his stories is the premise that true horror and hopelessness are by definition incomprehensible to the human mind. From that angle, it may be more hopeful than, for example, Witcher books because their evil and hopelessness could mostly be traced to someone being responsible, and able to be understood, at least on a motivation level. Except maybe for White Frost, but that seems to be a more or less natural phenomenon.

Poland gave us more authors that created such bleak hopeless worlds where it is often people themselves are responsible for their misfortunes. If you like Witcher, there is a series about The Inquisitor by Jacek Piekara, they are in some ways alike, though The Inquisitor, as can be guessed from the name, may have more religious undertones in the story. But it is a rather grimdark book, and a different kind from Lovecraft.

And same as Witcher, the series got a game, but it got mixed reviews on Steam...

I think it is more that Terry had a vision about where and how he wanted to develop his universe and did not want anyone meddling in it. And this legacy is being preserved now by his daughter, she does not let anyone tamper with it. She even disavowed whatever that The Watch series was.

[ZaidH]

@DoctorEldritch I agree 100%. That makes me wonder, did Blood and Wine have a "bad ending"? My memory only seems to recall the good ones 😅

You bring up a great point about the grounded story. The people suffering in the world of Witcher experience a full spectrum of human emotions, while those caught in the grip of cosmic beings are often beyond that framework.

The Inquisitor sounds really intriguing! I’ll check it out at some point if I can find a decent translation 😄 It's sad that the uber talented Polish artists like Zdzisław Beksiński, and authors like Jacek Piekara, don't get that much exposure in the mainstream media.