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Skyrim Books Finished

All Skyrim books are now available in the Skyrim Books section, complete with fancy fonts, graphics, and annotations. There are over 600 in all, making Skyrim the biggest game yet in terms of books. 

Skyrim Books On-the-Go

An avid Skyrim book fan named Capaneus has created an e-reader version of all of the Skyrim books.  Now you can access those wonderful texts from your Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone, et cetera. Head on over to capane.us and download it now.  And be sure to thank Capaneus.

 

And even more books on-the-go from Spilth at the Arcanaeum by means of a fairly lightweight webpage.

Reading a Video Game: The Books of Skyrim

“One thing that people may not realize is that the books are written by a large number of people—the designers write the majority of them, simply because that’s part of our job description, but there are a lot of good writers on the team outside of the design department who have contributed books to Skyrim. I think the wide range of writers helps make the books themselves feel more real—you get a greater variety of voices, styles, etc.”

-Kurt Kuhlmann

 

Here's an excellent article, written by Dan Crabtree at Paste Magazine, about Skyrim's in-game books: Reading a Video Game: The Books of Skyrim.

 

Even More Skyrim Texts

Thanks to forumer Zarath, we now have a text file of the books of Skyrim. Many more have been posted since yesterday, and will continue to be posted in the coming days.

 

Of particular interest are:

Rising Threat - an Altmer's account of the rise of the Thalmor since the Oblivion Crisis and their growing influence in Cyrodiil. 

Rise and Fall of the Blades - a history of the famous order, with emphasis on their Akaviri origins. 

There Be Dragons - a good overview of Dragons and their history.

Falmer: A Study - explains how they got to be the creatures we find in Skyrim today. 

High Hrothgar Tables - these emblems are found along the 7,000 steps to High Hrothgar. They tell of the war between Dragons and men. 

Alduin is Real, and He Ent Akatosh - one Nord's view of the Alduin/Akatosh dichotomy.

There are plenty of other interesting books as well, including a couple accounts of Saarthal, a study on warewolves, and several texts on the Elder Scrolls. Be sure to check them out!

 Again, thanks to Zarath for making our jobs much easier. I'd also like to thank Vimk, Thrignar Fraxix, Hellmouth, and InklingStar for providing screenshots last time around. 

 

edit: For those too impatient to wait I've attached the a zip with all the books. --- Proweler

Skyrim-related Updates

Some of Skyrim's new books are up in the new Skyrim books section. These include:

Songs of Return - First mentioned all the way back in the first Pocket Guide, this series tells of the conquest of Skyrim by Ysgramor and his 500 Companions. 

Book of the Dragonborn - a text describing some of the functions, origins, and history of the Dragonborn. It clears up many initial questions, and raises some new ones. 

The Great War - a comprehensive history of the war between the Aldmeri Dominion and the Empire. A must-read for anyone curious about what happened between Oblivion and Skyrim. 

More will be added in the coming days - because we do not yet have access to the construction set (and hence the raw book data), we are forced to re-type the text based on screenshots. It's slow, and boring, going. 

I have also updated our timeline with new events from the books, and will continue to do so as more information comes in. 

Lord of Souls Notes Up

That's right, the lore notes for the latest novel, Lord of Souls, are avaliable. A lot of new information on Solstheim and the Hist, as well as plenty of juicy details on Cyrodiil and other parts of the empire, so make sure to give them a read. 

 

Also of interest are the two new community articles posted by Bethesda, one on sound and music and the other on the world design

 

Skyrim Art Direction

Bethesda has posted the first dev diary for Skyrim, focusing on concept art and the development of the visual direction of the game. This massive update includes 40 pieces of concept art, a podcast, and a art-to-game video. Check it out here, it is not to be missed!

Besides a whole lot of beautiful artwork, the team had a couple of interesting things to say about the general feel of the world and the importance of lore in Skyrim:

"The simple answer, it seems, is to look elsewhere. Joseph Campbell. Moby Dick. Ancient Japanese tradition. The disparate list of influences goes on."

"Finding the perfect tone for the rugged-yet-fantastical province of Skyrim was a challenge initially. Though Skyrim’s Nords share some similarities to real-world Vikings, the likeness is superficial – the Nords have their own distinct cultural history that needed to be detailed from the ground up."

“My mantra at the time was, let’s make it a little less Ren-fest and a little bit more like a biker bar.”

“Alduin was more like it was constructed out of meteorites. I wanted this kind of, 'It's from the endless gulfs of time,' almost a sort of Lovecraft spin on the pitting.”

Check out the rest of the art here!

Lord of Souls Sample

Random House and Bethesda have just put up the first 50 pages of the new Elder Scrolls novel, Lord of Souls. Head over to Bethblog to read it.

Lord of Souls

Lord of Souls

The second Elder Scrolls novel, Lord of Souls, written by Greg Keyes, will be available in North America starting on September 27th.  It wil be available in the UK on September 23rd. 

Skyrim Collector's Edition

 

 

Bethesda has announced details for the Collector's Edition of Skyrim.