Category: Books

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Books

The Dark Wing by Walter H. Hunt

The Dark Wing is a tale of war between the (human) Imperium and an alien race– the Zor, birdlike and different.

The story is well written and centers on Sergei Torrijos, though other characters (including, later on, Zor protagonists) get POV chapters. There are elements that suggest roleplaying potential– like the ability of gunners to “crack” a shield early, and a pilot’s ability to evade/present new faces to the enemy in a way that prolongs the ship’s life. That information, and several other bits of history and technological explanation are given in straightforward info-dumps.

The book is mostly about the war; the Zor attack in the first chapter, and the humans scramble to counter attack. Interestingly, a cultural gulf between civilians and military is laid out and developed; the military is generally tired of the premature peaces that are negotiated, always leaving the Zor ready to attack again soon.

Admiral Marais steps on scene and begins driving the Imperial Navy onto a new path. It’s interesting watching through Sergei’s eyes as he learns about the Admiral’s drives and goals. There’s a very interesting subplot about Intellegence and spies, and hints at a future enemy.

The book lasts a longer than you’d expect– the war comes to a close, but the after effects must be navigated. This takes about 25% more of the book and casts a different light on the accomplishments of the war.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. This was a reread.

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Books

Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber

Off Armageddon Reef is an interesting book with two distinct parts. The first part is a brief tale of humanity’s end, as the Gbaba destroy Earth’s last war fleet. The Gbaba are implacable and not really detailed– it’s enough to know that they’re the creatures in the night.

The book transitions to the other half of part one for a while, telling briefly about the terraforming and colonization efforts to establish humanity’s last colony. There’s an interesting tale of hubris and terrible decisions, as the survivors are almost all mindwiped and led around by a false religion, where the unimpaired humans use technology to establish themselves as angels and make their decrees inviolable. While it’s done for (mostly) good reasons, it makes the reader queasy– and sparks a rebellion among the unimpaired. In the end, the religious decrees are established and the angels fade into the background.

All of the above is background for the bulk of the book. This chunk is a mostly first person tale by Nimue Allen, an android with memories from the end of Earth’s empire. Nimue decides to right wrongs and nudge the world’s development towards the best technology they can reestablish without the Gbaba sensing it.

Her struggle is interesting and mirrors a lot of Renaissance and Reformation history, altered for the new world and experiences. It’s compellingly written, with slightly progressive allies and a lot of worries about deception and the effect of their actions. The characters come across as clear and strong, making me look forward to its sequel By Schism Rent Asunder. It’s on request at the library now.

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Books

The Armageddon Rag by George RR Martin

The Armagedon Rag was an interesting book, written in 1982. I picked it up because it was sympathetic to the boomers and I thought I’d look at the world from their point of view. It didn’t do much for my opinion of the boomers… though I enjoyed it somewhat as a book with solid characters.

The book has two halves; the first is a journalist’s investigation of a murder and a lot of cross country travel. Spots were good, but I was impatient through most of it. Near the middle the book twists and goes down an occult and music path. While the tension was more impressive in the second half, the plot was much less centered around the viewpoint character.

In the end, I had a collection of interesting characters [mostly boomers having problems adjusting to the end of their movement, selling out, etc.], an initial plot that was OK but slow, a trailing plot that was more removed, a brief moment of crazy, and a nice party with friends to end it. I don’t recommend it unless you’re presold on the power of music and nostaligia.

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Books

The Consciousness Plague by Paul Levinson

An interesting blend of elements, and evidently the fourth book starring Phil D’Amato. [Another review calls it book 2; it sounds like this is the first full novel following a collection of short stories.] It feels like a detective story much of the time; Phil is trying to find a serial killer and his bosses are on him to produce the killer. The other half of the book, however, is an interesting complication (memory loss, possibly drug or disease induced), which twines into the serial killer plot in interesting ways.

Phil travels a lot for his job– to Scotland, Los Angeles, and Chicago, which surprised me given that he’s an NYC detective. Along the way he interacts with a number of interesting people– thrown at him from both sides of the case. The memory subplot is clearly the heart of the story, with interesting characters and conundrums, and a lot of information passed to the reader about the structure of the brain, bacteria communication, and more.

The end is satisfying and properly links up the plots; while victory is secured, it’s not a white hatted hero who makes it all come together. The shifting alliances and trust are interesting throughout. I liked his girlfriend, but her depth seems to depend on earlier stories– while I liked her, she didn’t pop the way other characters did.

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Books Roleplaying

Reign

Reign is an interesting system by Greg Stolze. It’s a fantasy variant of the system underlying Godlike and typically involved rolling pools of d10 and looking for matches. In general, there are two things you’re looking for with those matches– more matches is good [and reflects skill], high numbers on the matching dice indicates luck, and tends to act as a tie breaker. (Though combat has some interesting quirks, where the number on the die indicates his location.)

Die pools are enhanced with specialty dice with specific functions, some pools act differently than others [blocks, dodges, parries, and other defensive maneuvers are “gobble dice” with different rules], and so on. The basic rules look a little complex on paper, but will probably be second nature by the end of the first session. Many additional rules are included from advanced combat to special abilities (that reduce the cost of maneuvers, provide new options, or otherwise tweak the rules for a narrow application– including magic).

The world is interesting– rather than high or low magic, it’s a more firmly mythical world. The continents are literally the bodies of sleeping gods [see the reign page animation], magic is narrow and tightly coupled to the history of specific cultures, etc. A cool thing is that he’s put out several supplements, not quite for free, but using the Ransom model.

There is some errata, but it’s actually pretty light (a few typos, some page number references are incorrect), and the slight errata does a good job of clarifying the errors. (Evidently the corrections were made before the softcover was printed, so it should have even fewer errors.)

An important element is that the game is setup for the PCs to be tied to their communities (somewhat like Aria), and typically the PCs are leaders or participants in various organizations [called companies throughout]. The intended scope of companies is huge– from gangs fighting for over control of a district to Empires competing. The scale looks too compressed, but I haven’t playtested it– the proof’s in the pudding. I’m interested to see how well they integrate– Birthright, mass combat rules and the like have taken a stab at this before– but they typically separate the individual and political scale events so you’re playing two linked games. It’ll be interesting to see if Reign overcomes that, or if it also plays out as two lightly linked games. I’d be happy to play and find out!

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Books

N Space by Larry Niven

A mix of novel excerpts, short stories, new short stories in the worlds of his novels, and blog like things– Niven’s Laws, Superman’s reproductive challenges, and other random musings. Most stories begin with a page or so discussion about how the story came about, what his life was like when he wrote it, or similar. This is a reread– I have no idea when I last read this book.

I half remembered several of the stories; I remembered Cloak of Anarchy and was happy to get a chance to revisit it. In general I liked the short stories, disliked the novel excerpts, and found the blog like elements interesting but easily forgotten. As I was reading it, I found it easy to pick up several other books in the middle– a particular hazard faced by a book of short stories.

Overall I recommend this as a library book– check it out, skip over any story that doesn’t grab you by page 2, and enjoy the great nuggets scattered among the remainder.

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Books DnD Roleplaying

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Books

Hawk of May, Kingdom of Summer, and In Winter’s Shadow

One of my favorite trilogies– and my favorite retelling of Arthurian myth. This trilogy by Gillian Bradshaw is sympathetic and with characters understandable to modern readers.

Hawk of May centers on Gwalchmai, a version of Gawain, this time a son of Lot. He’s a compelling character, a weak warrior who finds a cause and his destiny. He’s the only really high magic character– everyone else scorns and disbelieves magic… in the daylight. The situation feels authentic, with numerous kingdoms in turmoil, striving and ignoring the looming threat nearby.

His mother, Morgawse, is half a goddess and completely consumed by darkness. Gwalchmai struggles with doubt (his own and others’), but finds a solid path. The relations between the brothers is very well written, and changes surprisingly as the story goes on.

Kingdom of Summer is trickier; while the viewpoint character changes (to Rhys ap Sion), the story focus really remains on Gwalchmai. Shifting the viewpoint allows us to see how extraordinary Gwalchmai is, particularly for his era and profession. Rhys is well motivated and clearly drawn, but he’s not the high magic hero of the first book.

In Winter’s Shadow was hard to enjoy the first time; I was unsympathetic to Gwynhwyfar and heaped the blame on her. Since she was the viewpoint character, I had a lot of problems enjoying the book. On rereading, I cut her a lot more slack and came to sympathize with her. Each time I fall a little more for her; her struggle is understated and her story starts late– the great efforts of her early years are short flashbacks, not lived.

Medraut is compelling, though his persuasion has to be chalked up as supernaturally effective and his motivation seems thin. Despite that, he’s an excellent foil, one on whom all of the characters can project their own darkness. Bedwyr becomes more contemptible to me, but I understand his pain and need for love.

The end is excellent; while you know everything is failing, you hope that some brightness can be saved and passed on. You’re rooting, even when all seems lost.

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Books

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

A solid book in an analog of Italy. The nine provinces are divided among tyrants, and the name Tigana has been wiped from everyone’s thoughts by powerful magic. This was a reread.

It’s a tale of intrigue, compromise, and unlikely alliances. I enjoyed it quite a bit, particularly the characterization. Our viewpoint character has a lot hidden from him, but it’s a natural way to introduce us to the layers of plotting and history that are essential to the flavor of the book.

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Books

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Another book that feels like a good White Wolf crossover game rolled into novel form. Mercy is a coyote shapeshifter who interacts a lot with the local werewolf pack. Elsewhere in the book are Mages and Vampires (from a much more distant vantage), and a Fae gremlin. They all integrate well; while each mostly sticks to their own kind, there is enough familiarity between the supernaturals that they interact. In many ways it’s like Dresden Files, but with a coyote shapeshifter as the hero, skewing the perceptions of the other supernaturals to match the new vantage.

The writing is solid and clips along at a good pace; Mercy is a sympathetic main character, while the other significant characters hold up and have depth. This book has a lot of intra-werewolf politics and implies that the other supernaturals have similarly complex internal relations. It features a solid plot and likeable characters; I’ll look for the sequel. [The remaining books are: Blood Bound, Iron Kissed, and Bone Crossed (in Feb. 2009).]