Dyson’s Dodecahedron Quest for Fun! Bruce Heard and New Stories CRRPG Addict Sitrep Hex and Violence Desperation Morale Banzai!! Dungeon Fantastic Gaming Ballistic Let’s GURPS The Collaborative GamerThe very beginning of The Disfavored Hero directly states that this is an alternate Japan (Naipon) where myth is real. This is something that should never be said in a novel. Let your creation stand on its own feet, and[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Book four of Crown of Stars follows the usual practice of giving time to four major plot threads. The new major character this time is Adica, the Hollowed One of a tribe that is part of an effort to cast[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Barry Strauss has written a very accessible account of the second time the Greeks fought off the Persian Empire. He spends a good amount of time on the background: the Ionian revolt, the general configuration of the Persian court, etc.[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Book three of Crown of Stars introduces Zacharias as the new viewpoint character to help hold the book together as a separate unit. His story is largely passive, as he follows Sanglant’s mother, who re-enters after her exit in the[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Charles Spenser is certainly correct in his assertion that the Battle of Blenheim is one of the more important battles of history that is not well remembered today. This is more surprising in the English-speaking world since it was an[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The second book of Crown of Stars definitely suffers from a fracturing of the plot, with eight different viewpoint characters, most of which get turns from the get-go. Only one of these is a completely new character, and Anna’s story[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Ages ago, I started reading Kate Elliot’s Crown of Stars series, but lost track of just which book I had gotten up to, and so kept putting the rest of the series off. I’ve just started rereading the books to[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Douglas Porch’s book on imperialism and warfare is meant as an introductory book on the subject, but I don’t think it serves that job very well. Organized around general subjects of how European vs non-European wars worked in the 18th[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Over the years, and the course of well over a dozen novels, there’s been a number of different… ‘periods’ or groups in the Vorkosigan Saga. There’s the Cordelia books, the Admiral Naismith books, the Lord Auditor Vorkosigan books… as well[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
In 2009 a highly unusual map was found in the Bodlean Library archives. Unusual enough that it might have been considered a fake, if not for the fact that the records of the Library receiving the map in 1659 still[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…