Inside GMT Dyson’s Dodecahedron Quest for Fun! Bruce Heard and New Stories CRRPG Addict Fantasy Cafe Sitrep Hex and Violence Grumble Jones Desperation Morale Banzai!! Dungeon Fantastic Gaming Ballistic Let’s GURPS The Collaborative GamerDoing a story that hops back and forth between two distinct storylines is difficult. It’s done quite well here. There’s a lot of very deliberate parallels (in fact, this is brought up inside the novel), which help strengthen the structure.[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The fifth Queen’s Thief book shifts main character again, this time to Kamet, who was last seen rescuing his master and fleeing back the Mede Empire near the end of Queen of Attolia. And he gets teamed up with Costis,[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
For the recent Tolkien Reader Day, I picked up the first of Christopher Tolkien’s ‘History of Middle Earth’ series. It takes a bit of unpacking. This is largely the earliest versions of some of the earliest stories. However, while the[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The initial book of the Hidden Sea Tales comes to a very satisfying conclusion, but there’s a number of dangling threads. Sofie gets to go back to Stormwrack, and pick up the investigation of this world which isn’t—and is—Earth. She’s[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The third “Swords and Fire” book wraps up the trilogy well. My objections from the first book persist, but are better here, as the story and politics have grown. And all the strong points remain. There is a good mix[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
First off, the electronic version of this book is in better shape than the previous. That had obviously been properly proofread, but there were still some major formatting problems with scene breaks and the like. Well, not even that’s a[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
This latest book of the Chicks in Chainmail anthology series (with an 11-year gap between the last two, the next one is due in 2026) holds to the same general theme and sense of humor. It leads off with Jody[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Sadly, the first impression of this book has to be that it lost Larry Elmore as a cover artist, and this one just doesn’t measure up to the previous covers in the series. But, the important part, the stories, are[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
I recently picked up the package deal of three of the Chicks in Chainmail anthologies on Kindle. I’m disappointed that the first two haven’t gone electronic. The general idea is fantasy stories featuring women warriors saving males in distress. The[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The start of epic fantasy stories often have a pacing problem. The desire to provide lots of background, and root you in an unfamiliar world mean that the plot moves like a freight train. It has a lot of momentum,[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…