Fri, 05 Feb 2010
- Magic Study, by Maria V. Snyder, copyright 2006; ISBN-13 978-0-373-80249-4.
- Fire Study, by Maria V. Snyder, copyright 2008; ISBN-13 978-0-7783-2534-5.
I enjoyed both of these, as well as the earlier book in the series, Poison Study.
Thu, 04 Feb 2010
Midnight Never Come, by Marie Brennan, copyright 2008 by Bryn Neuenscwander; ISBN-13 978-0-316-02029-9.
I really enjoyed this mix of faerie an Elizabethan England. Interestingly, this novel was inspired by part of a campaign of the Changeling RPG, which was one of the things talked about in the informative “Extras” section of the book, where she recommends three books by the folklorist Katherine Briggs: two on general British faerie lore (British Folk-Tales and Legends and The Faeries in Tradition and Literature) and one specifically about Shakespeare's time (The Anatomy of Puck). I'll have to look for those, and for Maire Brennan's other books. She has a website <http://www.mariebrennan.net>.
Fri, 13 Nov 2009
Thu, 13 Aug 2009
The Wizard Hunters, by Martha Wells, copyright 2003; Eos/HarperCollinsPublishers [1], First Eos paperback printing June 2004; 2nd printing; ISBN 0-380-80798-X.
This series has become one of my favorites, for what are probably very idiosyncratic reasons.
| [1] | I hate companies that use StUdLyCaPs for company names. |
Fri, 17 Jul 2009
Mouse Guard: Fall 1152, story and art by David Petersen, copyright 2007; ASP Comics LLC, 1st edition; ISBN 978-1-932386-57-8.
Very good.
Wed, 10 Jun 2009
- The Court of the Air, by Stephen Hunt, copyright 2007; Tor/Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.; 1st U.S. Mass Market Edition, April 2009; ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-6022-0, ISBN-10: 0-7653-6022-5.
Sun, 07 Jun 2009
The Folk of the Air, by Peter S. Beagle, copyright 1977, 1986; Del Rey/Ballantine Books; January 1988; ISBN 0-345-34699-8.
An enjoyable read.
Thu, 28 May 2009
The Merchants' War, subtitle:Book Four of the Merchant Princes, copyright 2007 by Charles Stross; Tor/Tom Doherty Associates, LLC; 1st mass market edition October 2008; ISBN-10: 0-7653-5589-2, ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-5589-2.
Another enjoyable entry in Stross's alternate universes series.
The Steel Remains, copyright 2009 by Richard Morgan; Ballantine Books/Del Rey/Random House Publishing Group/Random House Inc; ISBN 978-0-345-49303-3.
An interesting non-{extruded fantasy product} fantasy.
The Draco Tavern, copyright 2006 by Larry Niven; Tor/Tom Doherty Associates, LLc; 1st edition January 2006; ISBN 0-765-30863.
Somehow I completely missed all of the series:Draco Tavern stories until reading this compilation. Niven is still one of my favorite science fiction authors, and I enjoyed these tremendously.
Deader Still, copyright 2009 by Anton Strout; Ace Books/The Berkley Publishing Group/Penguin Group (USA) Inc/Penguin Books Ltd; Ace mass-market edition March 2009; ISBN 978-0-441-01691-4.
I found the main character of this supernatural adventure interesting, but also annoying at times.
Mon, 09 Mar 2009
The Black Tower, by Louis Bayard; William Morrow, 2008.
The Cardinal's Heir, by Jaki Demarest; Medallion Press, 2004.
Hellboy: Oddest Jobs, edited by Christopher Golden, illustrated by Mike Mignola.
I suppose it's odd that I've still not read more than one or two Hellboy comics. I really ought to get some of the compilations.
The Fox, by Sherwood Smith; DAW Books/Penguin Group; 2007. Sequel to Inda.
Sat, 28 Feb 2009
Three Hearts and Three Lions, by Poul Anderson; copyright 1953 by Fantasy House, Inc.; copyright 1961 by Poul Anderson.; Berkely Medallion Books/Perkley Publishing Corporation; April 1978; second printing; SBN 425-03680-4; published by arrangement with Doubleday & Company, Inc.
This is one of the books Gary Gygax lists in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide, APPENDIX N: INSPIRATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL READING.
Sat, 14 Feb 2009
- The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, by Galen Beckett, copyright 2008 by Mark Anthony; Bantam Spectra/Bantam Dell/Random House, Inc; August 2008; ISBN 978-0-533-58982.
- Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold, copyright 2003; HarperCollins Publishers Inc; ISBN 0-380-97902-0.
- Legacy, The Sharing Knife, Volume Two, by Lois McMaster Bujold, copyright 2007; HarperCollins Publishers; ISBN 978-0-06-113905-5.
- Small Favor, by Jim Butcher, copyright 2008; ROC/New American Library/Penguin Group (USA) Inc/Penguin Group Ltd.; April 2008; ISBN 987-0-451-46189-6. Part of his enjoyable Dresden Files.
- Coyote's Wife, “An Ella Clah Novel”, by Aimée & David Thurlo, copyright 2008; Forge/Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.; October 2008; ISBN 978-0-7653-1716-2.
Sun, 04 Jan 2009
The Mirror of Worlds, the second volume of The Crown of the Isles, by David Drake, copyright © 2007; Tor/Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, mass market edition: November 2008; ISBN-10, 1st printing: 0-7633-5117-X, ISBN-13: 978-0-7633-5117-X.
This is 2nd book in the trilogy that concludes Drake's The Lord of the Isles series. I've really enjoyed this series because of the interesting characters, interesting setting, and interesting magic.
Fri, 19 Dec 2008
Bone, by Jeff Smith, copyright © 2004; Cartoon Books, 11th printing; ISBN-10 1-888963-14-X, ISBN-13 978-1-888963-14-X.
A well told fantasy story, both serious and humorous, with excellent art and interesting characters, Bone starts small and builds up to mythic. Well worth reading.
Sun, 30 Nov 2008
Kull: Exile of Alantis, by Robert E. Howard, copyright 2006 Kull Productions, LLC; illustrations copyright 2006 Justin Sweet; Del Rey Books/The Random House Publishing Group/Random House, Inc.; first printing; ISBN 0-345-49017-7.
Well worth reading, and not just as a precursor to Conan. The essay “Atlantean Genesis” by Patrice Louinet, included in the book, argues on p. 288 that with the three Kull tales that were published during Howard's life, Howard had invented a new literary subgenre: “Heroic Fantasy”, “Epic Fantasy”, or “Swords and Sorcery” by modernizing fantasy through eliminating “…the chivalrous aspects, the flowery language, and stilted personalities, writing violent tales in a realistic style…” and that seems reasonable.
Fri, 28 Nov 2008
Spoilers!
Introduction
Unfortunately my notes for this session aren't very good. I'm not entirely sure if everybody who played the previous session was here to finishing the adventure off in this session, but I think so, because L.B. was here and all the pre-generated characters for this one-sheet were in use.
Attending
- M.A. played Gar IronHelm;
- E.A. played Merula Lanus;
- B.B. played Marcus Two Hands (when he wasn't helping out with baby C.A.);
- D.B. played Ramel Ramelson; and
- T.A. played Fox.
- L.B. played Serena, Aevakar Priestess (from the Shaintar: Immortal Legends free download Heroic Archetypes)
L.B. joins the group with a shiny new character
L.B. was here, and wanted to play, of course. Since all the pregens were in use, I pulled out the characters from the Shaintar: Immortal Legends free download Heroic Archetypes and had her look through and see if she liked anything. She found Serena, the Aevakar Priestess, and fell in love. (L.B: “Look! An Angel!*” T.K.B.: “Well, not an angel, but she is magical and can fly…” L.B. “Cool!”) I swapped out a few *Shaintar-specific items and adjusted her XP up to match the “Tomb of Terror” pregens, and we got down to play.
Actual Play
Like I said, my notes for this game were…not good, so I don't have much to report. I do remember that they tried to burn the obviously magical journal of the insane necromancer, which put out a poison cloud that forced them to evacuate the village, and L.B.'s character Serena got to fly above the evacuees and make sure they were headed away from the poison cloud.
The kids seemed to have fun, and L.B. really wanted to play with her character again, so we might come back to these characters at some point. Certainly I have my doubts as to whether the journal could be destroyed by a simple fire…
Sat, 01 Nov 2008
I ran the first part of the Savage Wolds fantasy one-sheet “Tomb of Terror” for the kids after we got done with farm work.
Spoilers!
Attending
Around the table, starting with me as the GM at 6 o'lock, going clock-wise:
- M.A. played Gar IronHelm;
- E.A. played Merula Lanus;
- B.B. played Marcus Two Hands (when he wasn't helping out with baby C.A.);
- D.B. played Ramel Ramelson; and
- T.A. played Fox.
Actual Play
We got through the first encounter with very little difficulty, largely because I forgot the very important surprise packages the zombies had that should have gone off when they died, and then nearly had a TPK when I set them all off at once. They got to where they could hear the next encounter when we had to quit.
Maybe we can finish this at Thanksgiving.
Sat, 23 Aug 2008
This was the second, and concluding, session in T.A.'s Savage Worlds game. L.B. was in from Kentucky and B.B. and D.B. were down from Morgantown, so along with T.A., E.A., and M.A. we had a full table. Moreover, M.B., who is B.B. and D.B.'s much younger brother, also wanted to play. He's a bit too young to understand how the game works, though, so it was a bit frustrating for him and the others. We worked through it and it turned out ok.
T.A. GMed. E.A. played Eureka, the healer. L.B. played Alisia, an archer. D.B. played Surt, the combat mage. I played Loki, the sneaky guy, sharing him with M.B.. M.A. played Ragnar, the wizard. and B.B. played Fritz, an archer.
We decided we had gone back to town after the previous session and picked up a couple of friends. We easily finished off the rest of the goblin clan, picking up a couple more invented-on-the-spot magic items. We continued to have it in for the dire wolves, and Ragnar exploded a couple of them with his magic. The villagers were glad to be freed from the goblin raiding and gladly paid us as they had promised.
Sun, 17 Aug 2008
Background
T.A. has been coming up with maps and ideas for roleplaying games for a while now, and earlier this week while we were talking about RPGs he said he had a Savage Worlds game he wanted to run. I suggested we do it today, Saturday, in the afteroon, and that's what we did.
His sister E.A. and brother M.A were the only ones of the kids around, and they both wanted to play. We decided to play outside, at a small picnic table in the shade, on top of a large blanket so dropped dice would be easy to find. (T.A.'s idea, and a very good one.) It took a while to get everything set up, and the kids were a little impatient; I can't blame them. But we finally got going. I brought up my Savage Worlds GM Screen and my Flip-Mats and dry-erase pens. E.A. and I got an extra benny each for shuffling cards, and M.A. got a benny for helping set up the table.
T.A. had made several pregenerated characters, so we had a good selection to choose from. E.A. went for a healer again, M.A. picked a wizard, and I picked out a theif and combat mage. E.A. came up with a name for her character, Eureka, but M.A. was stuck, so I asked if he wanted help, and he did. We ended up naming his wizard Ragnar, so I stuck with that for a theme and named my thief Loki and my fire-themed combat mage Surt.
T.A. had made a map of a cavern/dungeon and decided on the monster stats and locations, but beyond that hadn't written anything down. He had thought about what he wanted a lot, though, and had it all in his head.
Actual Play
T.A. told us that our characters had seen notices posted that a small, nearby village was seeking adventurers to help with deal with goblin raiders. A short time later were were talking with the headman of the village, who after some talking promised us 50 gp each in advance and another 50 gp each after the job was done. A short time later we were headed out to the trail the goblins took after their raids.
The trail eventually lead up to the base of a hill and an cavern entrance.
E.A. aced Eureka's Notice roll as we snuck into the entrance and noticed something weird about the wall. It turned out to be a secret door, leading down a short passage and through another secret door into a room with a giant spider just settling down for a nap. Luckily, Loki had eased the 2nd secret door open quietly, so Ragnar tried to cast a Bolt at the spider. Unfortunately, M.A. rolled snake eyes (ones on both his Spellcasting and his Wild Die), and woke the spell up. Next round he spent a benny to get rid of the shaken and aced his Spellcasting roll, aced the damage roll, and so much for the spider.
After that we worked our way through a guardroom and a kitchen, each with goblins and dire wolves. As it turned out, the guards had screamed loud enough for the cook to hear something, but we sent in Ragnar in rat form and he saw the layout of the room and reported back to us. We burst in the door, catching the dire wolf with it and stunning it. The cook died fast, but the dire wolf took forever to kill due to some really lucky rolls. We had it stunned at least 3 times, but could never land another until Surt got the Joker, took a multi-action penalty to cast the spell smite and attack in the same round and aced his Spellcasting roll, killing the dire wolf with one massive blow. He immediately set about skinning the wolf, to take the hide back and have it tanned. And that's were we stopped.
Reflections
T.A. did several neat things. Whenever a PC made a really good search roll and found something magical, T.A. rolled to see which PC the magic item would best suit, then made up a nifty magic item on the spot for that character. The healer got a Staff of Healing that couldn't be used for attacking, but would give the healer a bonus on any healing related roll. The combat mage ended up with a longsword that added a bonus to the damage for his Smite power. Later, when Surt wanted the hide of the dire wolf that he finally killed after it had given the party a long fight, T.A. said that when it was tanned it would give him +1 Armor to attacks from the back. Neither the rolling for who the magic item would suit nor the making up the magic items on the spot was anything he'd seen me do, but it worked well, he came up with nifty magic items that weren't overpowering, and it was neat: no boring “you find a +1 sword” here. In some ways I think it was very “Old School”, in a good way. (I'll talk about “Old School” some other time.)
Sat, 19 Jul 2008
Well, I certainly got in a lot of gaming this weekend!
Today was D&D: my nephew D.B. D.M.ed the concluding session of our run through the Wizards of the Coast adventure “Scourge of the Howling Horde”. Great fun was had by all. I especially enjoyed being a player rather than D.M. Kids attending were L.B., D.B., T.A., E.A., and M.A.
Note
I'll edit more actual play details into this post when I've got a moment and my notes are handy.
Sat, 14 Jun 2008
Jerico Moon, copyright 1998 by Matthew Woodring Stover; ROC/The Penguin Group, April 1998; ISBN 0-451-45678-5.
An excellent historical fantasy.
Note
This is a timewarp post.
Tue, 03 Jun 2008
- Iron Dawn, copyright 1997 by Matthew Woodring Stover; ROC/The
Penguin Group/, May 1997; ISBN 0-451-45590-8.
There isn't nearly enough fantasy set in the history of the real world being written in the current era. I actually like this better than his more recent SF.
Note
This is a timewarp post.
Thu, 29 May 2008
The Hob's Bargain, by Patricia Briggs, copyright 2001 by Hurog, Inc.; Ace Books/The Berkley Publishing Group/The Pengiun Group, March 2001; 7th printing; ISBN 978-0-441-00813-1.
I enjoy fantasy tales that revolve around regular people, rather than the high and mighty, and tend to sympathize (for perhaps entirely obvious reasons) more with farmers and blacksmiths than nobles and rich merchants. In any case, I thoroughly enjoyed this tale of magical post-apocalypse.
Note
This is a timewarp post.
Mon, 26 May 2008
When Demons Walk, by Patricia Briggs, copyright 1998 by Hurog, Inc; Ace Books/The Berkley Publishing Group/The Penguin Group, June 1998; 18th printing; ISBN 978-0-441-00534-5.
A light but enjoyable fantasy/mystery/romance.
- Steal the Dragon, by Patricia Briggs, copyright 1995 by Hurog,
Inc; Ace Books/The Berkley Publishing Group/The Pengiun Group; November 1995; ISBN 978-0-441-00273-3.
Note
This is a timewarp post.
Sat, 24 May 2008
The Quarters Novels, Volume One, copyright 2007 by Tanya Huff; DAW Books, September 2007; DAW Book Collectors No. 1415, ISBN 978-0-7564-0450-5. Consisting of Sing the Four Quarters, copyright 1994 by Tanya Huff, and Fifth Quarter, copyright 1995 by Tanya Huff.
I particularly liked Fifth Quarter.
Note
This is a timewarp post.