From HarperPrism to NYT Bestseller(s)
By Jay Annelli
The HarperPrism Era
The year is 1994, Magic: The Gathering hasn’t even been around for a full year yet when Wizards of the Coast and HarperPrism (an imprint of megapublisher Harper Collins) sign a deal for official Magic: The Gathering fiction. The game is a blockbuster hit, but outside of a short story in the rules booklet, there’s little in the way of lore outside of the cards.
Time out real quick: what is an imprint? If you’re not familiar with publishing, an imprint is a division of a publisher that works on specific genres or types of media. It is (ideally) staffed with editors and marketers who are familiar with that side of the industry. It also tells the consumer what kind of books they can expect from that imprint. In HarperPrism’s case, it was HarperCollins’ science fiction, fantasy, and licensed media tie-in wing.
In October 1994, HarperPrism published Arena by William R. Forstchen, and it was a resounding success. Fall 1994’s issue of The Duelist features a single page excerpt from the novel as advertisement. It came with a special promo card. And there is currently a class of Magic player for whom this is still the definitive Magic story. The name ‘Arena’ becomes iconic in Magic parlance, with both a board game and the current digital client using the title. I didn’t like it very much, but I can see why it would be exciting to early fans.
Harper Prism released twelve Magic novels in just two years, a shocking volume of work for such a limited amount of time. Besides Arena, Clayton Emery’s Greensleeves trilogy (Whispering Woods, Shattered Chains, and Final Sacrifice) are really the only other books of note, remaining popular enough over the decades that both Garth One-Eye (the protagonist of Arena) and Greensleeves herself received cards almost 20 years later. The anthologies contained an iconic story or two (such as Distant Planes’ Chef's Surprise by Sonia Orin Lyris), but little else from this era has remained relevant.
