So, I spent much of the last two evenings catching up on Dumbing of Age. I’m caught up now…
Also, tonight’s rush dinner proved awesome. It was: Thin sliced pork shoulder, cut into strips. Lightly floured with salt and pepper. Cook quickly on medium high in bacon fat, add sliced apples (and turnip), serve. Yum!
This is a “bridge” trilogy, between Katherine Kurtz’s Camber and Heirs of St. Camber prequel trilogy and the “modern” Kelson books.
The trilogy begins with In the King’s Service. I read it some time ago and have more pointed feelings about it as a book, largely due to encountering the same misfire in The Princess and the Queen, or, the Blacks and the Greens by George RR Martin. (Its review is here.) The book starts with genealogy, and is a very slow start. As the book accelerates, it rotates among many POV–but not an intimate and limited POV as we see in the other books, but a less emotionally invested, less tied series of POVs.
The plot is interesting (but at least on reread) the lack of POV development for the primary characters feels like a missed opportunity. It felt a little like the author fell in love with the broad sweep instead of getting us to empathize with the main characters and meld with their viewpoints.
The second book, Childe Morgan, is told from much closer and does a better job of getting us to empathize with the main characters. It’s told more from Alyce’s point of view, with de Nore and the Camberian Council getting frequent response or partial chapter POVs. We even get some Alric focused discussions and POV, which is tricky, given that he’s four. But they largely work. Alyce’s end is sad and brought tears; her passing shifts the adult viewpoint near Alric over to Kenneth.
There’s another change; this book is far more “dashing” and “male”. A lot of In the King’s Service focused on women’s struggles–being marriage pawns, womanly competition, child birth and youth mortality issues. Even with so much of the book being Alyce’s POV, there’s more magic and action, a great deal more deliberation and rulership as issues.
The third book, The King’s Deryni, is mostly told from the now 8 year old Alric’s POV, with quite a bit of his Dad, Kenneth, for the second POV. He’s very interested in boy things (war, training to be a page) and his father is making sure that he’s also picking up estate management and similar skills. In many ways this is an even lighter book (so far), despite some grizzly anti Deyrni sentiment. It’s more like the Kelson books, in that there’s a women’s world, but we don’t inhabit it much.
The story continues; we see the hardening of anti-Deyrni sentiment, see Alric develop into a young adult, undergoing formative experiences (like a Deyrni priest being burned alive) and stumbling into magic. The last comes suddenly; he really is poorly trained for much of the book, which corresponds nicely to the council’s opinions in the Kelson books.
There’s some minor inconsistency in the late Alric/Brion experiences versus the Deryni series, but nothing that’s not easily dismissed as minor/nitpicking. The big difference comes from learning Jehena is Bregamani… which raises the question of her self-loathing. It doesn’t seem like she would develop the same deep questioning of herself–unless Bremagne has a similar history of Deyrni oppression. (Or, more precisely, I wonder how an order that teaches Deyrni self-loathing became popular enough that the royal family of Bremagne follows their dictates and keeps them as counselors.)
In the end, it’s a good novel with good POV characters. It’s rewarding to see Morgan come into his own. It’s essentially the first half of his life; the story ends before he turns 15, and he’s in his late 20s as Deyrni Rising begins. That transition–that 10+ year gap–is also interesting, but would be quite constraining to write in.
Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History edited by Rose Eox and Daniel Jose Older is an interesting collection of historical and fantasy short stories.
The stories vary in time and place, though most of them are set within the last 500 years. Some of the settings are quite familiar, such as Marigolds, set just prior to the French Revolution. A few of the stories are well outside of my traditional reading, such as Ogres of East Africa, There Will Be One Vacant Chair and The Dance of the White Demons. Many of the others are set since the renaissance, many in Europe or America.
I distracted myself, at times, with trying to identify or predict the element that would make something “marginal” enough to qualify for this collection. That’s a distraction; most of the stories are good, and most offer intriguing new viewpoints.
I’m looking forward to keeping this one in my collection and rereading it. I wonder which ones will stick?
Bookwyrm is coming soon; we’re beginning to wrangle GMs. Patrick and I are in charge of the indie track… and there’s a lot of people who’ve previously run that we’d love to see again. My GM recruitment post is here.
Beyond Bookwyrm, two recent developments in D&D:
web browsable basic D&D rules and a hyperlinked D&D FAQ (for AL)
Also, WotC is recruiting players to write adventures and website articles for D&D.
And Fate…
Fate new player’s guide
Bridge of Birds, A Novel of an Ancient China that Never Was by Barry Hughart.
I really liked this book. It is a world that could almost be our own, with some exaggeration. The two heroes, Number Ten Ox and Master Kao Li are vividly drawn do have some stereotypical attributes but vivid personalities.
The quest is grandly heroic, and the characters are vastly overmatched in every way. Watching them persevere and overcome, their cunning and unique problem solving, and the unique challenges they face are all engrossing.
Around the middle of the book, it becomes clear that the first grand quest is actually only one of two quests that they’re committed to–no matter how little they understand or care about the second. But the scope continues to grow and they’re tackling truly legendary challenges by the end.
It’s big and bold and very well done. Very enjoyable.
Simple World, a purpose built Apocalypse World hack for one-shots.
FAE con “pregens” — an excellent technique. I can’t get no…
Making characters was fun. I didn’t want to do full char gen at the Con, even with a simple game like FAE. Too long, or more likely, choice paralysis. Nor did I want to do full pregens as a big part of Fate’s fun is the group making the decisions. So I mooted a card based idea, and ran with it in the end. I wrote 6 high concepts onto cards and let the players pick.
This got great buy in straight away. None of this is set in stone and I deliberately wrote Aspects with flex in them. Then, Troubles, on another six cards, and again with plenty of flex and some obvious conflicts written in.
At this point the players were brainstorming away and looking at each other’s picks. This was a big plus for me. Usually with pregens, players are so intent studying their own paper that they don’t pick up on the other PCs. With this, everyone was super aware of the party, all of it.
Then I put out some rules in the form of some pre picked Approach numbers, written on cards, taken straight from the FAE book. (see page 10). Easy. Then I killed the entire party.
Dangerous Women is a mixed anthology, with several very good stories, many interesting and good, and a few “meh”. Interestingly, Martin’s story that’s boldly advertised is in the last category. The Princess and the Queen, or, the Blacks and the Greens describes an interesting time, but the POV selected is a historian who confines himself to the broad sweep… which means that there’s no personality; other than that the world is fiction, it’s almost as dry as a real world history book.
A Queen in Exile by Sharon Kay Penman, was a fascinating look into real history, with a solid look at Queen Constance. It’s interesting, and features a strong protagonist–despite her not matching current fantasy fiction, picking up a sword an leading her men. There is a lot of enduring and being moved by outside forces… I really liked it.
Joe Abercrombie’s Some Desperado kicks off the book. It has a very western flavor (despite a lack of sixguns); it’s tense and gritty, well handled.
Rather than going story by story, I’ll just note that there’s a wide range of stories. For a very broad range of action, adventure, noir, fantasy, or sci-fi, there’s at least an interesting story or two for you.
I wish I was more familiar with the source comics… but so far I’ve been good about resisting reading them during work.
It’s Fate, but they have an interesting character creation system using “Modes” that somewhat streamlines character generation by having you pick three of four modes and ranking them +3, +2, +1. The modes have associated skills, and where they overlap (a skill is on both lists), they auto-bump up, so the overlap isn’t wasted. Plus they have weird modes beyond the standard 4, to model specific concepts from the comic (like being an Automaton or dinosaur).
Something I really want to see in play is brainstorming–a structured way to bring science and similar “background” skills into prominence, by letting you influence the problem you’re trying to solve. Plus brainstorming is a competitive/cooperative thing… you’re all working together, but if you win by the most, your idea is true and the other players have to work their ideas around it.
I haven’t played it yet, but I’d like to.
Ten Copper has wargaming and roleplaying news.
Quick monster conversion 1st and 3rd edition monsters to 5e: http://brentnewhall.com/games/1e5e.html
Sagan Diary by John Scalzi. I liked the idea of this, but didn’t enjoy the novella much separated from the remainder of the series. It’s an interesting experiment, and it’s so positive in outlook that it stands apart. Writing positively about love seems much tougher than hate, vengeance, and action-y revenge. So for a story on the skew, it’s well done. I want to read it alongside a reread of the series–I bet it works better when the characters are fresh in our minds.
The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley. This is as large and bold as everyone’s been saying. It’s fantasy world building that explicitly turns away from medieval European influences, and it’s vibrant for it.
There are a lot of protagonists; sometimes the queue for transitioning to a new character left me a little confused, getting up to speed over the first page of the chapter. That’s probably due to the sprawling cast and many POV characters.
I’m very much looking forward to rereading this. I suspect that having paid the price to adjust to the world (and fight off my default assumptions), the next read will allow me to focus more on the characters, their story arcs and adventures.
Randall Munroe’s What If is culled from his excellent What If? website. I really like the way that he approaches the questions, and there’s enough science transmitted to me that it checks some of my gut-feeling level assumption. (The rocket fuel/exhaust velocity relationship from the golfing to propel a ship question really illustrated something I’d never thought much about.)
Tobias Buckell’s Arctic Rising is a great near future adventure. It’s a bit fish-out-of-water, in that Anika is a pilot, but her challenges are up close and personal. It builds into a mystery that coheres (until it reaches peak Bond Villain, where it’s suddenly quite fantastic). The world building in the background feels all too realistic–particularly the competing powers in the arctic waters, the need of the navies to justify themselves, and so on.
All in all, it was well written and interesting. I’ll be checking out the sequel, Hurricane Fever, soon.
Best Served Cold by Joe Abercombie. This is a great low-fantasy world, very divided–much like Renaissance Italy, with neighboring powers influencing the local situation, shifting alliances, and mercenary bands.
Monza’s a driven anti-hero, well drawn, engaging, and I could identify with her despite her villainy and willingness to embrace horrific practices in her revenge. The book balances a number of things; Monza’s gather allies are each unique and have a healthy regard for themselves.
One of the great, very subtle things that emerges as the story advances is that Benna gains real heft. We see Monza encounter person after person who challenges her “avenging my innocent brother” story, and we see her flashback to the past with a new read, changing how we see both Monza and her brother.
I just finished Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey. I wasn’t a huge fan, mostly for subject and attitude, but did appreciate the pacing and world building. Ironically, as I sat down to write this below Best Served Cold, I realized how similar the plots are. (In each, the protagonist swears to kill their betrayers one-by-one.)
Stark didn’t click for me as well; I suspect looking deeper would be valuable. Quickly thinking about it: Monza begins hale, is broken, and we endure her painful recovery. Stark is better than ever, cocky and confident.
Stark is also consciously posing, almost from the first moment he steps on stage. As the book progresses, we figure out that his pose conceals pain, but it’s a heavy load of snark before it starts coming through. While there’s more to it, that’s what quickly comes to mind. (Though: his magic making things “too easy” might play into the same difference in feel between the Sandman versus Monza.)
Long story short: it was well written and kept me engaged. I read it quickly and mostly enjoyed it. But I’m not going to hunt for its sequels.