Month: January 2009

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Books

The Dark Door by Kate Wilheim

A solid book, SF according to the subtitle, but as easily classified as a suspenseful thriller. Very enjoyable and a quick read.

There are three POV characters (not including the -logues), but it’s the two men whose eyes we look out most of the time. They’re smart and driven, each with interesting limitations and blinders. Constance is a very engaging woman– scientist and outdoors woman, with a perfected retreat towards domesticity that comes out a couple of times. The author sells the relationship between the characters; the marriage and unspoken communication are conveyed well.

I’ll probably pick up more of her books at the library soon. (On reading her Wikipedia page, it appears that there are several novels featuring Constance and Charlie– this is the second written.) I also remember her book Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, an interesting twist on a calm end of the world.

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Books

Game Night

Game Night is a fun book by Johnny Nexus. The core concept is very familiar– a dysfunctional RPG night and pokes fun at the problems common to RPG groups (much like the movie, The Gamers). Time starts and stops, rewinds, and one character just stands around because its player is asleep all the time.

A conceit of the book is that the players are gods guiding their mortals, not strictly roleplayers. The book’s humor runs well throughout, even as he needles our foibles.

If you’re interested in giving it a try, the author just released a free novella length prequel as a teaser. It’s called Saving Stone.

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Books

Things We Think About Games

Things We Think About Games is an exceptionally quick read, fun and thought provoking. Much of the book is a collection of short, sharp sayings. Much of the work is in the interpretation– sometimes that author takes up the challenge, writing up to a page of discussion– and sometimes the analysis is up to you, only a quickly sentence is provided.

It’s a fast read that might shake loose some dangling thoughts. It’s probably more useful to designers, to make sure they’re not falling into traps, but there’s a little something here for everyone. I’ll happily lend it to locals if they want to look it over.

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Books

The Black Company by Glenn Cook

Clearly the first book in a trilogy, The Black Company is about a bunch of mercenaries who leave a depressing garrison job to go fight in the north. It feels relatively gritty, with a lot less common magic than most fantasy novels these days. Magic is still mysterious and often grim.

The book was marred by a bad back cover that emphasizes The White Rose, who doesn’t play much of a role in this book at all. The back cover applies to the trilogy– but doesn’t get at the core of this book.

The forces of the Lady and her dark servants (the ten) are appropriately dark, though there is more complexity than I feared. The opposition, fighting under the circle, is well written as grubby and desperate, even if their cause is nominally better.

In the end, as a book it’s interesting but unsatisfying. As book one of a trilogy it does its job– the characters are strong enough that I’d like to read more about them. Even if this book feels adrift, mostly valuable as a signpost to the rest of the series.