In the midst of all this big Fallout news, you might still be feeling a bit of Elder Scrolls withdrawal. Sure The Elder Scrolls Online just got a relatively recent expansion, but is that really enough for all you big fanatics out there? Well Titan Books and Bethesda are here to bring you a quick fix solution with a new book series called The Skyrim Library. Volume 1 of this series dropped this week, aptly named “The Histories.”
So it’s not creating your own dragonborn and slamming them up with so many mods they’re near unrecognizable as a fantasy character, but like suboxone for a strong opiod addiction, it might ease the symptoms. The Histories is just that, a collection of real short stories and written histories collected from the books you can find across Elder Scrolls games, it gathers near everything relevant to Skyrim in particular.
This means tales of the rise of Tamriel’s empire, to the traveler’s guides of Skyrim’s various holds, a few brief texts on Morrowind to cover the Dragonborn’s adventures in Solstheim and of course, stories of the Dragonborn him/herself and the history of the dragons. Also if you’re really looking for a good time, the Lusty Argonian Maid and the Sultry Argonian Bard can be found in this collection.
This really is for the ultimate Skyrim fan. I have about 300 hours logged in Skyrim and I feel as though it’s for people even more into the game than I am. While it’s nice to have a physical collection of Skyrim’s books, especially since collecting them in game can be a strain on both the player and their inventory, having all this data in front of you can be a little overwhelming. Thankfully the book is smart enough to break it up with a few lovely pieces of otherwise hard to find artwork, which ranges from concepts to art pieces only found in other Elder Scrolls titles.
Make no mistake however, this isn’t an art book, it’s an omnibus of Skyrim tales. So it means a lot of reading. The quality of the stories naturally reflects the quality of the in-game books as they were originally written. This means a few are mere info dumps, others read like historical essays and a few take the form of a narrative short story. I was personally grateful to have all of the Wolf Queen stories from Skyrim in one sequential place because, jeez, is that a hard to disseminate story in-game.
As for the physical quality of the book. The mock leather cover looks and feels a little cheap, but the actual paper is a nice medium weight matte. It’s got a nice finish that recalls a parchment look, and also makes the masses of text much easier to digest and read with its larger print. The artwork itself ranges anywhere from a quarter page to full page splashes, and a few of the portraits of the various races, your khajiits and dunmer and dovah and argonians, make for some of the nicest pieces.
If you’re interested in grabbing it, you can find it on Bethesda’s store website and Amazon. Volume 2 of this series is slated for a September release. If you’re more of a casual fan, a fantasy fan or like collecting artbooks, a few things might keep this from being your cup of tea, but if you’re a really dedicated fan of the Elder Scrolls and, Skyrim especially, this is probably right up your way.
All images are © Bethesda Softworks LLC, ZeniMax Media Inc.
