Friday, April 08, 2016

The Cloakmaster Question

One of the benefits of the internet is that it has occasionally allowed me to track down a book that I've been keen to read that has been unusually obscure, long out of print, or both. Which is rather nice, really.

Many moons ago, TSR published a six volume series called "The Cloakmaster Cycle" set in their Spelljammer universe. I read the first two of these when they came out, and they were okay. I then read the next two when they came out, and they were much better. Then, finally, some years later I chanced to find volume five in a Virgin Megastore in Oxford (that places the event 23 years ago, since I've been to Oxford exactly once). The fifth volume was okay, but not great, but it did end on a cliffhanger.

And that was that; I never found volume six, which was apparently only published in very small numbers, and never reprinted.

As noted, the internet makes tracking down this last volume relatively easy. However, unlike those other books I've mentioned, "The Ultimate Helm" is regarded as being fairly poor, even by the standards of game fiction, and there's a fairly significant mark-up in the price due to the rarity of this particular book. Plus, I would have to reread the other five volumes before tackling this one, as it has been half a lifetime since I read them.

On the other hand, it would finally get me to the end of that series, and resolve a cliffhanger that has been stuck there for a very long time.

And so the question is obvious: do I buy this last book to complete the set and resolve the cliffhanger (and, of course, satisfy my sense of neatness), or do I simply let it go and leave the story unfinished?

1 comment:

Kezzie said...

Oooh, that's a difficult one!!! If you can get it reasonably, then go for it, otherwise you'd always wonder!! Maybe sell it on when you've read it (IF you get it!)