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Are any of the books more directly related to the Diablo 2 lore? I read the sin wars trilogy which were great but I felt little connection to my game experience with diablo. I kept waiting for the classes I know or skills I've used but nothing. Other than he prime evils in it, I didn't really feel like I was reading a diablo story.

I really just wan to read a book that feels like I'm reading about the diablo game. Any suggestions?

Of course, only the Richard A. Knaak books are considered pure canon whilst the other books are not, this is poor lore/creative management on Blizzard's part or Metzen's part I might say.

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Of course, only the Richard A. Knaak books are considered pure canon whilst the other books are not, this is poor lore/creative management on Blizzard's part or Metzen's part I might say.

Actually Knaak wrote them all except the Black Road and Demonsbane. Legacy of Blood, Kingdom of Shadow and Moon of the Spider aren't fully canon either while they're from Knaak.


I personally think Legacy of Blood and Kingdom of Shadows felt like Diablo books to a great length. Still need to read Moon of the Spider myself.

Ahhh well i need to get reading then. But anyways still, there's always an issue when there's a 'retcon' of the lore.

As expected. I allways defended the opnion that Diablo is passing through a "revisionistic" process. There are sudden change in stetics, concepts and flavor in D3.

I too think that this is not an good idea since i'm an ultimate fan of what Diablo used to be and usually revisionism tends to fail imo.

However i'm glad that this time Blizzard decided to be honest. Fiunally they had the guts to say "we are remaking Diablo". It's alot better then what happened to warcraft. Finnaly the fans can use the forums without having to argue "they are changing the universe". It's official, noone can deny it now.

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As expected. I allways defended the opnion that Diablo is passing through a "revisionistic" process. There are sudden change in stetics, concepts and flavor in D3.

I too think that this is not an good idea since i'm an ultimate fan of what Diablo used to be and usually revisionism tends to fail imo.

However i'm glad that this time Blizzard decided to be honest. Fiunally they had the guts to say "we are remaking Diablo". It's alot better then what happened to warcraft. Finnaly the fans can use the forums without having to argue "they are changing the universe". It's official, noone can deny it now.

Yes, atleast it not another Warcraft event, I remember 'The Last Guardian' by Jeff Grubb and I'm still saddened that the the majority of the book has been retconned due to the introduction of Burning Crusade.

I'm glad to see that they're trying to confirm to an extent to The Black Road. That was, hands down, my favorite out of all the old books, although I've yet to read the Sin War. If it's anything like Legacy of Blood and Kingdom of Shadow, I'm going to be disappointed. Yes, the lore bits were interesting, but as far as I understand it, Knaak did not come up with those on his own: he was given points by the storyboard teams and had to work in that box. Besides that, The Black Road had an infinitely more interesting proposition about the human condition and about the power, personality, and diversity of demonkind than any of Knaak's that I've read to this point. Besides the lore, which was mostly not even his own invention, the characters were predictable, shallow, one-dimensional beings and I found his descriptive authority severely lacking. I was very disappointed by his portrayal of the Arcane Sanctuary, though the idea of it representing Horazon was interesting.

(Although, yes, I will accede that Kabraxis, in name and in his true form which appeared for only a moment in the beginning of the story, were very WoW-esque. Brigands and pirates, besides, are and should be commonplace in Sanctuary with its heavy stress on coastal cities, trade routes, and the like, as even evidenced in the games, and so in that mindset I was not put-off by what he chose to stress: an often overlooked but essential component of the Diablo world.

On the otherhand, Kabaraxis' smooth corruption of his servants, which was never outright said by the author though it was implicit--I really respect this and this is what made it so enjoyable to read, Knaak spells everything out--was perfectly in-tune with the series, as were the themes of darkness, despair, and death.)

Or, alternatively, one could simply read through our wiki and miss almost nothing

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Problem with the Black Road was and still is that while it is possibly the best out of the Diablo books it is also the weakest in lore. While some aspects of it are indeed Diabloesque, the book would have been much better if it featured an already existing canon demon.

I found the Sin War trilogy the worst of them all as a book, while it had its moments. I felt that the first book started strong, and then the story deteriorated rapidly. It also suffered from some repetition, and the main character was quite one-dimensional. However, for a Diablo fan, the trilogy is quite essential for understanding some background for what will probably be pivotal concepts in Diablo III. I'll refrain from any spoilers.

The Black Road are no weak in lore. It only shows a differtent part of the world subject to different kinds of evil. It actually kind of an "small" event compered to the main games and the other novels. But this is not bad imo.

But i agree that the Sin War is the worst. Actually i'm not a fan of how the flavor of the game drastically changed from that point. Heaven suddenly lost it's mysteries and became somekind of evil wich basically ruined the background of many other aspects of the universe.

I can see how they would need to adjust the lore--ney, shatter and/or erase it completely--in many circumstances to make it open to new developments. In some ways, the lore has painted storyboard artists in to corners. In some ways, it is unable to reach a global market because of its thoroughly Western appeal (including, but not limited to, semi-"Christian-Judeo" and semi-"Occultic" alliterations and themes). I can respect changing things that make lore more relatable to other audiences. After all, that's what a good story does, in my opinion.

HOWEVER (only applicable to story, itself, and NOT lore - LORE is culture, facts, and so on, whereas STORY is the tragic pitfalls and heart-warming successes of characters, singular and abstract)

If a good story is really being written, all of that Western stuff should not matter. You can take a good story from post-colonial Indian literature and translate it in to some Western form without losing relatability, depth, etc.

It's a similar concept to a good website design. If a site was designed correctly, with W3C conformance, etc., you should be able to simply swap out the CSS (ergo, the "Western stuff") with a new CSS and still have a fine site.

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I can see how they would need to adjust the lore--ney, shatter and/or erase it completely--in many circumstances to make it open to new developments. In some ways, the lore has painted storyboard artists in to corners. In some ways, it is unable to reach a global market because of its thoroughly Western appeal (including, but not limited to, semi-"Christian-Judeo" and semi-"Occultic" alliterations and themes). I can respect changing things that make lore more relatable to other audiences. After all, that's what a good story does, in my opinion.

Imo this is not what it's being done. To add non-western themes does not have to change the past western themes. They could simply add the other side of the world with totally new culture, lore, etc... They can easilly creat other parts of hell with other demons that reflect the eastern culture.

I see the goatmen as a perfect exemple of how they will change bits of lore now and then. The creature's lore from D1 and D3 are drastically different. By not beign a pure blood demon, the goatmen gained some human asoects. You can see then livinng in camps with huts and fireplaces in D3 videos.