Dyson’s Dodecahedron Quest for Fun! Fantasy Cafe Lynn’s Book Blog Sitrep Hex and Violence Desperation Morale Banzai!! Dungeon Fantastic Let’s GURPS The Collaborative GamerThe second book of Protector of the Small picks up directly, and predictably, from the first. Kel is now a page, and no longer on any sort of probation. It also moves more into the usual tropes growing up, and[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Shannon Appelcline’s Designer’s & Dragons is a truly massive undertaking: A history of the entire roleplaying game industry from its beginnings to about 2010. Just the first volume, covering six years (1974–79), is 400 pages. However, the structure is such[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Crowley’s book on the fall of Constantinople doesn’t disappoint. He leads off by giving a good overview of the rise of Islam, and various failed sieges of the city over the centuries, showing how it became something of a recurring[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
There are other books in between, which do get referenced here, but this is a direct follow-up to the Alanna quartet. You have a lone female entering into the boys’ world of knights and military training. The… decade and a[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
It’s an act of hubris to be able to pronounce the ‘greatest’ anything, much less the ‘greatest’ knight, a class of people that was fairly large and existed over centuries, but it is certainly fair to say that William Marshal[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
In the nearly 35 years since it was published, Tea With the Black Dragon has nearly become a period piece. The book opens in San Francisco, which doesn’t feel too different, but moves down to Silicon Valley, which has changed[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Medieval Spain is one of those subjects I would like to know more about, so a used copy of Menocal’s book on al-Andalus was an attractive purchase for me. It’s a little more limited than I would like, being more[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
I’ve been meaning to read Dune for decades now, but the thick paperback on my dad’s shelf always intimidated me a little. I’ve had some knowledge of the book, being aware of the Avalon Hill game and having started Westwood’s[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
William Manchester’s book is really an ode to his hero, Magellan. He’s not a bad hero to have, but I think Manchester gives him far too much credit. The real value however, is that Manchester is far more interested in[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Alexandria is one of the great success stories of the ancient world, being founded by Alexander the Great, and then spending the next several centuries as one of the great trading ports of the Mediterranean, as well as a center[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…