The Guardians Of The Flame

Probably a book that most of you haven't read but it's basically a bunch of drivel about a conniving cast of college kids who get sucked into a D&D board game and become actual characters in this world, and soon learn that the world is not all play. A few of the girls are raped, several characters die, they invent hydro guns that shoot bullets and your regular style guns and they eventually abolish slavery because it's like, the right thing to do, dude.The premise is so ridiculously stupid that it's funny. I mean come on, getting sucked into a D&D game? Is that all you can come up with Joe? Add to the fact that some attractive female players get sucked into the game world too and the whole thing is just not believable. When was the last time you saw a bunch of female models rolling D&D dice? Like, never.All right, let's talk about the characters. Wait, there is nothing to talk about because there is no characterization. The characters talk and act like the game characters they ostensibly are with little real motivation. I literally felt this was a bad game-to-novel tie-in hastily pumped out the month before the game gets released. Oh wait, that's the premise of the entire story. Woah man, that's like seriously existential dude. NOT.The characters are duller than a spoon, however, and the plot threads don't make a lot of sense. Things came to a head for me when, out of the blue, two of the main female characters get graphically gang raped by the "game characters" for a good 3 pages. Perhaps the author was trying to show the readers that the "game world" was real and full of danger, but it's done in such a dreadflully hamfisted way that the whole attempt flops. I got the feeling that the author actually enjoys torturing his female characters -- they're treated like passive, enfeebled sexual dolls the entire series. Half the time I wasn't sure if the author was writing about his own fantasies or creating real plot threads. Seems to be a common thread with some of the authors on this list (cough, Piers Anthony, Terry Goodkind, Robert Newcomb).This is one series that should have stayed in the mind of the author.I will note there are a number of glowingly positive Amazon reviews about this series -- they come off as suspiciously fake to me in terms of how they are written, the review titles, and the dates the reviews were posted. When the titles of the reviews are (this is really taken from one of the reviews) "This has been a great novel of worth beyond compare" you know there is some shill review chicanery going on. Joe might be helping along the sales somewhat with a few Amazon sockpuppets. Robert Stanek, meet your new friend Joe.