Quest for Fun! Bruce Heard and New Stories Sitrep Hex and Violence Desperation Morale Banzai!! Dungeon Fantastic Gaming Ballistic Let’s GURPS The Collaborative GamerOsprey’s book on Castile and Aragon is really more about Trastamara rule, with Enrique II taking the throne of Castile in 1369 and the Hapsburg Charles II taking over Spain in 1516. The beginning of this tale is familiar to[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Once again, Guy Gavriel Kay does not disappoint. That said, the very beginning didn’t really grab me (especially the caper on Rian’s Island). But partway through chapter 3, Blaise, our main character, gets ambushed, and I was hooked for the[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Dominic Lieven’s position as a professor of Russian studies shows clearly in this book. He clearly knows whereof he speaks as he tackles the last stages of the Napoleonic Wars from a Russian perspective. And he is quite right in[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The “giant” novels were Pocket’s stepping stone to hardcover Star Trek novels, which took over the ‘premium’ slots in the production of way too many novels at the start of the ’90s. They were longer, more involved stories, and the[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Bennett’s book on Trafalgar is fairly typical of such books. As a popular history book, it wisely starts with a couple chapters of background, including how naval combat worked in the Age of Sail, and after that he moves on[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
It’s been quite a while since I’ve gotten back to the Honor Harrington series. It’s been more than long enough for me to forget a number of details, and anything more than the bare outlines of the plot of previous[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
From the Fifteenth through Eighteenth Centuries, Europe went through a fairly profound cultural transformation, beginning with the Renaissance, and ending with the Enlightenment. The philosophies developed during all of this were powerful, and came at the same time as the[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Writing is generally seen as a solo affair, though some team ups can be really useful. (Larry Niven was almost always far better with a co-author.) That said, seeing four authors on a book really makes one wonder just what[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Alan Schom’s book is supposedly as much on the campaigns leading up to the famous battle as on the battle itself (thus the subtitle). And it generally succeeds at that. Better, it presents a lot of the French side of[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
When you look at a book in a contemporary fantasy series, and it name drops “Mars”, and has a tripod on the cover, you have to wonder if someone’s gone insane. And the title, “of Mars” implies, well, people, on[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…