Book Review: The Adventure Zone

The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins

Written by Griffin, Clint, Justin, and Travis McElroy and Carey Pietsch

The Raccoon: Adapted to a graphic novel from the podcast of the same name, The Adventure Zone follows a portion of the writers’ Dungeons and Dragons campaign, in which a human fighter, a dwarf cleric, and an elf wizard embark on what appears to be a simple rescue mission. The heroes quickly themselves in over their heads in a conflict larger than they had ever imagined.

UNMASKED: As far as I know, The Adventure Zone is the only book of its kind to exist, making it difficult to evaluate. The story is an improvisation: while the characters’ quest and setting may have been planned and written in advance by Griffin, any authorial control stops there. The three main characters were each played by Clint, Justin, and Travis respectively, and the outcomes of their every action were created by the combined effort of what they intended to do and Griffin’s interpretation of one or more unpredictable dice rolls. As the four authors initially recorded their sessions for a podcast, The Adventure Zone is further complicated by virtue of it being a transcribed oral history; Pietsch was faced with the challenging tasks of determining which dialogue was crucial and ascribing concrete appearances to images that were different in every author and listener’s head. The fact that this book could be compiled together is in and of itself a miracle.

Despite and perhaps because of these constraints, The Adventure Zone still tells a strong story with distinct, well-rounded characters and entertaining action scenes. More importantly, the book is filled with humor, with each McElroy brother bringing his unique wit to every character choice and line of dialogue. While the book concludes at the start of a new chapter, a sequel is thankfully in the works, as readers will be left wanting more of these crazy heroes.

Strengths:

• Griffin as the Dungeon Master (DM) is integrated well, being featured in humorous moments such as trying to articulate the noise a certain creature makes or encouraging the party to not split up, and otherwise not appearing in the book.
• As a whole, the writers balance their existence as characters in a story and players of a game very effectively, maintaining an immersive but light-hearted experience.

Weaknesses:

• While newcomers to Dungeons and Dragons will still understand the story and appreciate its humor, the book is definitely tailored to readers who are familiar with the game’s mechanics and quirks.

Rating:

Ideal Setting: Read this when you want to journey far away, but not so far away that you would have to study Tolkien languages to get by.