Magic the Gathering books?

[Musichead]

It's a fun game and the artwork on the cards is great. With such a big fan base out there, are the books any good?

[Shellhead]

It seems unlikely. Magic is a very good game, but the setting is a generic hodgepodge of borrowed influences. Any good writing associated with that setting would be in spite of, not because of the quality of that world.

[Dizzy D]

None of the books are great, but the older books about the Dominia/Phyrexia war were interesting enough. Quality of the books varies enormously though even back then.

I've read only a few of the earlies books and none of the more recent, so my knowledge is pretty limited on MtG as a series.

[Gabriel]

I've read most of them from Urza's Saga on (skipped Mirrodin, Fifth Dawn and Champions of Kamigawa). None of them are great, some of them are very poorly written, but most of them are fun. All of the mid-older ones are good. The "Artifact Cycle," four books that covered the Urza's Saga block, including Tolaria's origin and the creation of Karn, the Weatherlight, Gerrard.
"The Thran" was a great book detailing the origin of Yawgmoth, Phyrexia and the Meek/Mightstone that later become Urza's eyes.

:o (I'm such a geek) :p

[Sanagi]

I haven't read any in ages, but the only one I remember liking was The Brothers' War.

By the way, read Larry Niven's short stories about magic if you want to see where some of MTG's basic ideas came from. You'll find them here and there in the various Niven short story collections. In particular, "What Good is a Glass Dagger?" inspired Nevinyrral's Disk (http://gatherer.wizards.com/gathererlookup.asp?set=FifthEdition&name=nevinyrral[s_disk)(read the name backwards).