Voices is Ursula LeGuin’s sequel to Gifts. It’s an excellent sequel, set many years later. She does a great job of building a convincing occupied city, filled with resentments and unease. The characters all ring true; Memer and Galamand and the oracle house are detailed additions to the world, as is the whole city of Ansul. Gry and Orrec have matured and changed since the last book, but remain at their core the same people.
If you liked Gifts, read Voices.
Megan has a great post about some beliefs, well and angrily expressed. The title gives it away: I should let it drop…, but it’s well worth reading.
Vigilant, by James Alan Gardner, is a solid book in the Expendables universe. While it’s not the strongest book, it does have enjoyable mysteries and plotting, and a solid viewpoint character (Faye).
Men of Iron, by Howard Pyle is about a fictional struggle in early 15th century England. The book does a good job of hewing to the viewpoints of the era; unlike most of today’s fantasy, the characters have viewpoints appropriate to the era. Despite stilted speech and some interesting authorial choices as to which parts of the story he’d tell, it was a good read. (Discussion about it will start up soon in CVGamer’s bookcase.)
Ursula LeGuin’s Gifts is a good book, and a strong start on a series. It’s in the Young Adult section, but is as interesting and complex as most of her stories. The tale of Orrec and Gry growing up as landholder’s children in a fantastic Scotland analogue is light on action and long on solid, believable thought.
Game canceled tonight 2/29
Dad’s down with a nasty flu and not up for anything. Call if you’re interested in getting together for something non-roleplaying.
Scott
(Sorry for the late notice– I hoped he’d bounced back, but he’s clearly not back yet.)
These mailing list posts about Spirit are pretty inspiring for non-traditional fights. Every Skill Is Useful In Combat (Was: Re: manging significant ability discrepancies within the party). Fred Hicks writes:
Skills really break down into three types: talky, thinky, and fighty.
Fighty, you’re already set in a fight. So let’s move on to “talky”.
In my opinion, in SOTC, the most powerful skill is Rapport. It’s vastly flexible, and unless your character is gagged, you can always use it. Combine it with the Blather stunt and you can pretty much /paralyze/ opponents during a fight — or at least leave them too confused to decide to attack /you/ — by creatively running your mouth.
Scheduling: Kev works Friday night. Is everyone good with getting together Saturday? Let me know what time you’d like to start– we defaulted to the same 6:30 last time, but if you want to meet earlier, let me/us know.
While I don’t have the same bad experiences with cross gender play, I do have concerns about shallowly portraying women.
Newwark, NJ: City creation example for Dresden Files
LeGuin: Staying awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading
Books to investigate: Thomas Ligotti: Noctuary, Songs of a Dead Dreamer
A More Perfect Constitution, by Larry J. Sabato, is an interesting look at the constitution. He suggests that our reverence for the founding fathers has delayed much needed upkeep to the constitution. He has several proposals (23 or so) to address various issues, like the permanent campaign, Iowa and New Hampshire’s outsized role in the primaries, etc. The issues are good ones; almost everything he mentions does seem to be a problem, though I don’t agree with all of his solutions. His website related to the idea of calling a second constitutional convention, is amoreperfectconstitution.com.
Swords of Riverside by Ellen Kushner is an omnibus with two previous books and a few related short stories collected. The first book, Swordspoint, reveals an interesting culture. The relationship between Alec and St Viter is the heart of the first book; they each reveal themselves with interesting edges as the book progresses. Alec’s “secret family” is adequately telegraphed and works fine for the story. The intrigue among the nobles is properly off camera most of the time. The minor view points are less grabby but still work.
We’ll get back to roleplaying on February 15th; after a couple of weeks off. Josh will host and we’ll explore Boston. Hopefully everyone will return, excited and ready for action. We left off the night before the attack on the dwarven encampment. You have a short night ahead if you’re still planning the dawn assault on the dwarven camp…
Let us know if you’ll have any problem making it on Friday.
A talk with a hedge fund trader about the sub-prime mess, black box trading, and currency. It’s fascinating– the interviewer is no expert on the subject, so it’s much easier to follow than most discussions about the subject. (via Ezra Klein.)