N8: The Well of the Unicorn by Fletcher Pratt

Book Review!

N8: The Well of the Unicorn by Fletcher Pratt

For my quest to review all the authors Gary Gygax recommended in “Appendix N” to AD&D’s Dungeon Master’s Guide I already covered the team-up novel The Carnelian Cube by L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt, but I wanted to cover Pratt as an individual author as well. Thus today I present my thoughts about The Well of the Unicorn by Fletcher Pratt. My copy of this novel comes in at 388 pages with copyright dates of 1948 and 1976. The graphic on the cover looks like something out of a D&D adventure.

The Good

*The setting, which Pratt says he borrowed from Lord Dunsany and aged a couple of generations, perfectly fits a political D&D-style world.

*With political intrigue driving the main character, he manages to go out into the larger world and explore; the mix of politics, exploration, and intrigue provides good plot movement.

*Moral ambiguity and the philosophy of leadership comes into play.

The Bad

*Some of the language comes across as difficult to follow. Sometimes I found myself at the end of a page asking myself, “What just happened?” or “Who said that?”

*The initial confusion about allegiances, while surely intentional by the author, might turn off some readers for the first 35 pages or so.

D&D Connections & Inspirations

*After the protagonist finds himself homeless, due to political taxation, a wizard meets him in the woods and sends him on a quest.

*The inns, dwarves, guards, and adventures perfectly sound like a D&D world.

*Sea-demons are mentioned as threatening monsters.

*I actually named one of my D&D characters Alvar, which comes from this story.

Overall

With some difficult-to-follow language causing some confusion, I find myself conflicted in rating this title because I enjoyed the main character and plot so much; since I force myself into a 10-point scale, for my tastes, I give this book a 5/10 rating.