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Just finished reading my book of cain (yes I know it's been out for quite some time, but I live in australia and had to order it).

It is a masterpiece indeed, and without a doubt the best book I have read, and I have read many books. It's almost perfectly written, structured well and doesn't double back or double reference very often and at the same time is highly informative. I would highly recommend purchasing it for anyone who likes diablo lore and has not read it yet.

Definetly the best $35.00 I have ever spent.


What did everyone else who has read it, think of the Book of Cain?

I won't go too in depth right now, I'll save that for the weekend.

But, I thought it was amazing. However, I had an issue with the repetitiveness of the narrator constantly reminding the reader that some things were only opinion e.t.c...It really did get quite annoying.


@Wingless- Are you sure you read it? How did it not bring new things to light? Are you kidding? It completely filled out the lore of Sanctuary that we had no knowledge of prior.

And what of Belial? The Mage Clan Wars? And that's just off the top of the head. Chamon now. Chamon.

Could you imagine if it had been a tome of 500 pages? That would have been so epic lol.

I think belial and azmodan where both briefly quoted on purpose. I thought the detail into mage clan wars could have been slightly better, because it mainly focused on the Vizjerei and briefly on the others.


I also was decieved by the amount of pages =(

Being the lore fan I am I ofc. got the book, and read it through quickly after getting it.
It thought it was a good read, and they had put alot of effort into fleshing things out, but the language was in my opinion bad. The writer used too much repitation of language and it felt to me like it was written by a high schooler not a scholar.

So the general language used was to me disapointing, but overall I really enjoyed the book and I think they did a good job of it, and I don't regret using the money on it

Quote from Fifikus

Being the lore fan I am I ofc. got the book, and read it through quickly after getting it.
It thought it was a good read, and they had put alot of effort into fleshing things out, but the language was in my opinion bad. The writer used too much repitation of language and it felt to me like it was written by a high schooler not a scholar.

So the general language used was to me disapointing, but overall I really enjoyed the book and I think they did a good job of it, and I don't regret using the money on it

I agree. It really was... bad at some points. I wouldn't say high schooler per say. Maybe Knack should have written it! ^^

My copy only landed yesterday =[

I'm so envious of you...

Quote from Kurast

Just finished reading my book of cain (yes I know it's been out for quite some time, but I live in australia and had to order it).

It is a masterpiece indeed, and without a doubt the best book I have read, and I have read many books. It's almost perfectly written, structured well and doesn't double back or double reference very often and at the same time is highly informative. I would highly recommend purchasing it for anyone who likes diablo lore and has not read it yet.

Definetly the best $35.00 I have ever spent.


What did everyone else who has read it, think of the Book of Cain?

What ?

Ok it is a very cute book, it's high quality paper, drawings are cool etc. But the text ? The best thing you have ever read ?. I agree this is opinions... but here I can't even...

And you read many books ? What kind of books do you read to think this is a very well written material ?

Personal review:

Presentation: 5/5 The book is high quality, illustrations are cool, side notes are a very good ideas and it feel great overall. My only issue with presentation is that they still used a computer font to make the texts which remove some of the "handwritten" feel it could have.

Content: 4/5 Diablo lore fans will be happy to get a condensed summarize of the Lore, it is clear content and a must read if you want to have a good idea of the lore before jumping into D3. Don't expect a lot of details though, it is a sum up.

Length: 4/5 I feel it's a bit short for the price but I would not have endured many hours of it. Remember that you will pay mostly for the presentation of the book, the content will be read in a couple of hours. Due to the quality of the writing you probably won't highlights sentences and the rereadability is poor to me, only if you forget something about the lore.

Quality of Writing: 2/5 Really this was bad, I wondered if I was going to put 1/5 but feared to not being taken seriously. Problem is, this is the average quality of video game related book materials. If you feel the Diablo Lore in the manuals of D2 and D1 or even starcraft was well written you won't be disapointed, this is the same quality and you should expect no more. I must say the 2 letters from Cain were well written, but that's about it. Distant lore, pre Diablo 1, was average and the lore from the arcs in D2 and D1 was poor. You will probably never quote this book, only if you want to make a point on a Diablo forum about the lore...

General: Here you have it, do not expect great texts, buy this if you want a good looking book and/or a reminder of D3 Lore.

I was disappointed by it. I thought we'd get more content and background on the classes, characters and history. New additions, a broadening of the world. But all we got was a lengthy summary any of us could have written better.

I'm an artist, so I absolutely had to get this for the artwork and craftsmanship. But if it were not for that, I would have waited for it to come to my local library.

Some people really like it, some people really don't. Same with everything, I guess. I personally was and am really satisfied with it, though; the depth of the content and the pictures alone were able to pretty much win me over.

Quote from Ayr

You will probably never quote this book, only if you want to make a point on a Diablo forum about the lore...

Au contraire, it is also helpful for updating pages on DiabloWiki.

Anyway, my copy doesn't come until next week. I figure there'll naturally be some drawbacks, but still find enjoyment out of it. (It also helps to use a gift card you got as a Christmas gift.)


Edit: I got my copy the day after this post. Read the whole thing in almost one entire sitting. Parts of it were pretty good, such as the Anu / Tathamet story and the art (esp. with Tyrael!). However, I was left with a sense of disappointment after I was done reading Book of Cain. It took awhile for me to pin it down, but I can now say that source of my feelings is the fact that it is lacking nearly any depth. I thought I would get more out of the experience despite the book being based on the fact that Diablo III is not out yet, however... I didn't. I'm still debating on whether to return it or not.

I havent finished it yet....but im lovin it. Trying to take my time and savor it

I was really excited when they announced this. I love the idea of a physical lore book from any series, much like when people make actual Necronomicons from the Cthulhu mythos. Even though i'm not the biggest Diablo fan (though getting into it more as i'm replaying Diablo 2 again on hardcore mode!), it sounded like a really good idea to bring all the lore together into one in character book.

Sadly, after reading some reviews of it from here and from other sites, i think i'm going to pass on it. What i'd hoped it'd be, was more like a diary, or at least a little more hand written. From the screen caps i've seen, quite alot of the page space is either blank, or has massive pictures taking up a whole page. While that's cool, i'd love some more annotation and more insane ramblings.

A beastiry would have been cool, with listings for what certain monsters are weak against, what their social habits are like. If anyone's played the latest Castlevania game on the PS3/360, i'd have liked it more if the lore entries had been done more like that. Small bios of the monsters, along with weaknesses and various images.

Quote from TurboTactics

Beastiaries will come sooner or later on the wiki and/or diablo site... The baller thing about the Book of Cain is that the style is making me feel like I actually hold unto Cains memoirs. I really like the style it is written in. Especially the small bits about his sources and the creation. If we had a book like that in D1 I would've died a happy nerd the second I realized there is a map in it

There is some annotation and scriblings from Cain, but not alot from the images i've seen.

What i'd like, is the page FULL of content. Words over words, small notes and extra images or text tacked onto the pages. I'd like to have to turn the book upside down, or on it's side in order to read everything inside, since it's so full of information and partly written in the heat of battle, or by a mad man.

Good post. I'm actually picking up the book of cain in a week or so and it's good to hear what other diablo fans think about it. I'm not expecting great writing but I am expecting a great collector item with some amazing art work. From what I read here I won't be dissappointed.

Best book you ever read? really? But I don't consider myself a literary expert or anything so I'll stop there. Have you read Lord of the Rings? similair detailed story, fantastic all around. (read it even if you have seen the movies).

Book of Cain has been useful for filling in a bunch of holes for me, and has been useful for beta key trivia...................though I haven't won yet.

This book was a great filler of information that some may or may not know. I enjoyed reading about the the beginning of all things. So with this background we can see how the heroes of Diablo 3 fit in. Its basically telling us how are characters can do extraordinary things. I refuse to believe its an overweight gamer mashing the keys into his face...its the Lore dammit. All sarcasm aside, I actually felt as if I was reading a manuscript and not just a regular book. Very well done.

I loved the art (it is soooooo beautiful). I did feel like I was reading the abridged version of the real book. I cannot really recommend the book but it certainly isn't bad. If someone is new to the diablo universe it is a good way to get someone caught up in the lore before diablo III comes out.