Dragonlance: Dragons of Fate by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman review

Note: I received an Advanced Readers Copy in exchange for an honest review.

    DRAGONLANCE: DRAGONS OF ETERNITY is possibly the final Dragonlance novel. This isn't because there's nowhere left to take the story but because Hasbro is no longer interested in publishing books. It's a shame because it manages to tell a very entertaining story and also sets up a new status quo for the fantasy world of Krynn that I found far more intriguing than the original Fifth Age of the setting established by DRAGONS OF SUMMER FLAME. There's a legend that with them being taken off of their own creation, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman wrapped up all of the plots in that world as a form of creator revolt. While I don't believe that to be the case, I also think the setting was not meant to be what Wizards of the Coast eventually turned it into.

    The premise for the DRAGONLANCE DESTINIES trilogy, of which this is the third, is that a young Solamnic woman named Destina has unwittingly become pawn to the god Chaos in its Graygem of Gargeth form. Basically, it manipulated events and her own petty desire to undo her unfortunate circumstances to rewrite all of history. At the start of the third book, Takhasis has won the Third Dragon War and all of Ansalom is under her control. Tanis Half-Elven heads back in time with the help of Antinus and attempts to join with Sturm, Destina, Brother Kairn, Tasslehoff Burrfoot as well as others to set things back on track. The book has some minor issues that come with time travel, whether fantasy or science fiction.

    For instance, in a world where Takhasis won the Third Dragon War, there would never be a Kingpriest of Istar or Cataclysm. As such, it would be highly unlikely that there would be a Solace or Tanis Half-Elven or Brothers Majere. Indeed, history seems mostly unchanged from the Fourth Dragon War except things are even more dire than they were before (and they were already pretty dire in the original Dragonlance Chronicles).

    This is a fairly minor complaint, however. Really, this book exists for the purposes of allowing us to get the band back together and hang out with old friends who have been with us for forty years. I was four when Dragons of Autumn Twilight came out and I read it when I was twelve. As such, it is an eternal part of mental landscape. A lot of it is revisiting old locations like the Inn of the Last Home, Solace, and dealing with delightfully boo hiss villains like Toede or Henderick.

    My favorite part of the book is definitely the return of Kitiara uth Matar, the Blue Dragon Highlord. I have always considered her my favorite of the Dragonlance characters. Indeed, if I'm going to be honest, she was my first fictional crush. There was just something refreshing for a boy of my fundamentalist background to meet the sexually aggressive take-no-prisoners antiheroine who was out for herself. Sadly, the book doesn't really do much with her character and I was hoping some of the Heroes of the Lance would try to reach out to her across time for a redemption arc. Sadly, it was not to be.

    The book dials back the role of Destina, Kairn, and Tasslehoff a bit. Instead, it focuses a lot more on the greater Dragonlance cast. I think this could have been dialed back a bit. I was much more invested in the changes done to the timeline as well as how they might fix it or not. A lot of people were speculating the ending of this book would undo Dragons of Summer Flame. The answer to that? Well, you'll have to read it but I think it leaves a lot to the imagination.

    In conclusion, I very much enjoyed this book but I will state that it has some flaws. A little too much time is spent reliving Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the time travel elements are a bit more nonsensical than usual, and we could have done more with Kitiara's return. Still, I very much liked visiting with my old friends again. The ending also feels like it does offer the possibility of a better world for our heroes than the one that executive meddling gave us.

Available here

House of the Dragon 2x06 "Smallfolk" review

 
    HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 2×06 “Smallfolk” is the sixth episode of the second season. After the previous episode received a lot of backlash for the sudden downturn in drama, there’s a lot of controversy about this one as well. However, it’s actually a fairly even split between those people who find this to be a fantastic episode with lots of character development and those people who find it to be a terrible one that continues the trend of “nothing happening.” I am actually of the former category and give this episode high marks.

    Basically, there has been a lot of wheel spinning for season two of House of the Dragon. I mentioned how much of a mistake it was to skip to the Dance of the Dragons over most of the political maneuvering that got wrapped up in Season One. HBO executives assumed that the big epic battles were what people wanted to see but the thing is that so much of what makes those battles meaningful is the character development of the parties involved. Basically, the reason the Red Wedding and Ned Starks execution are important is because we know everyone involved.

    This episode benefits from the fact that it wraps up a lot tof the wheel spinning and character development that seemed to be going nowhere. I think it’s setting up an epic battle for King’s Landing in the finale and has moved all of the pieces on the board. While this is an episode where seemingly “nothing” happens, it’s actually something where I believe a great deal happens in terms of both characters as well as political developments.

    Rhaenyra is trying to get herself more dragon riders by looking to the Targaryen lineages of legitimate heirs. Steffon Darklyn of her Kingsguard tries to claim Seasmoke but it ends in his horrific burning. This is probably more realistic than a bunch of nobles lining up to claim dragons, only to be burned one after the other but still feels like a downgrade from the book. Rhaenyra has been made far meeker and more circumspect than the one of the books. I feel like they’ve hurt the character if they wanted her to be the next Daenerys because part of what made the Stormborn Queen so awesome was her willingness to get her hands dirty as a woman ruler.

    Daemon finally seems to start taking lessons from his hallucinations in Harrenhal and has visions of King Viserys. Sadly, none of these scenes have new lines from Paddy Considine. Still, Daemon starts to realize that being empathic isn’t weakness. We also get Alys Rivers promising to provide Daemon “help” in getting the Riverlands back under control. There’s a cute scene with his dragon Caraxes, who clearly wants to go play with his master but just watches him slowly losing his mind like a dog in the background.

    Aegon Targaryen remains incapacitated in his bed with Aemond silently wishing him to die. Unfortunately, while Aemond possesses great skill as a leader, he also has only “on” mode and immediately alienates Larys Strong. This results in Larys deciding to privately approach the now-maimed and crippled Aegon in hopes of once more finding a way to power. Alicent also finds herself dismissed from the Small Council as Aemond takes a petty revenge on the woman that he believes treated him as irrelevant for his entire life. Now Alicent’s disempowering is complete but that just makes her more dangerous (I think).

    One element I liked in the episode is Rhaenyra pulls a page out of the Tyrell’s handbook and after starving the people of King’s Landing with her blockade (something I wonder at the specifics of since they still have routes through the Crownlands), she proceeds to send a bunch of food in to turn the mob against the Hightowers. This is a strange choice given that it’s the exact opposite really in Fire and Blood but we’ll see how things go in upcoming seasons. It is a powerful scene to almost see Lady Alicent and Helaena almost ripped to shreds, though.

    Which brings me to two controversial points about the episode that I am okay with and not at all happy with. The first of these is the sign that they’re replacing F&B’s Nettles with Rhaena (Daemon’s daughter). Given Nettles represents a young woman of possibly common born stock who tames a dragon through animal husbandry versus magic, a controversial position to begin with, this is a huge blow to the narrative subversiveness of her arc. Bluntly, I think it’s the worst change to the story they’ve made so far. Rhaena’s actress deserves more to do in the story, yes, or she can be cut but this isn’t a tale for a noblewoman.

    The next controversial element is that Rhaenyra and Mysaria kiss after a moment of shared intimacty. I have no problem with this scene really as Martin loves highlighting that history may not have recorded LGBTA relationships very often (or they were excised later on) but they certainly existed. It also puts an interesting spin on their later interactions from F&B. There’s also a question about whether it is a sincere relationship moment between two lonely people or the latter attempting to get her hooks into Rhaenyra. My only objection is that the scene comes after a horrific revelation by Mysaria that should in no way lead to romance anymore than Tyrion’s story about his wife.

    Overall, impressive episode.

Vampire: The Masquerade: Walk Among Us review

 
    VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE: WALK AMONG US is the first and possibly last World of Darkness novel we’re likely to see since the end of the Old World of Darkness in 2004. The premise for Vampire: The Masquerade is that the world is secretly ruled from the shadows by a variety of supernatural beings (chiefly vampires) and they are constantly feuding for power like mafia bosses. It was an immensely fun premise if you were a counterculture Goth kid or just a guy who enjoyed playing edgy antiheroes, both of which described me. In 2018, the Old World of Darkness was revived with Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition and the results have been controversial ever since.

    Walk Among Us, in it’s own way, is the perfect encapsulation of why the design philosophy of 5th Edition has been hit or miss. The book is three novellas by Genevieve Gornichec, Caitlin Starling, and Cassandra Khaw (the latter of mine is a personal favorite). The authors are each incredibly talented, create a believable World of Darkness, and write stories that are excellent pieces of horror each. This out of the way, no shade upon their writing abilities, I kind of hate this book. Walk Among Us is something that represents pretty much everything I don’t want out of the New-New World of Darkness.

    The Old World of Darkness was, in simple, a comic book. Specifically, it was a very Nineties comic book. You were a dark and brooding antihero who sat on rooftops next to gargoyles and surveyed the corrupt city full of rival supernaturals as you pondered your lost humanity. There’s a reason that Underworld is a guilty pleasure and Blade is probably closer to Vampire: The Masquerade than it ever was the character from Tomb of Dracula. Yes, you feasted upon blood, but the power fantasy was also present as was the romance.

    Walk Among Us reflects the 5th Edition mindset that being a vampire is not just awful. You aren’t just tormented with generic angst and tragic backstory. No, worse, being a vampire is not cool. The protagonists of these three stories are some of the whiniest most unlikable vampires in fiction. So much so that Louis of Interview with a Vampire would say they’re a bunch of losers. This is perhaps the ultimate in unforgivable sins and why I cannot endorse these three disgraces to Caine.

    It’d be alright if these vampires whined because they didn’t want to be murderers, they lost their families, or even mourned the loss of the Sun in some tragic Gothic way. No, they’re all scumbags with no morality to offend against. It’s the fact that being a vampire doesn’t make them any less annoying than the kind of jerks they were in life.

    “A Sheep Among Wolves” protagonist, Clea, starts sympathetically enough but her primary concern once she’s joined a radical student activist group is to make sure the leader continues to like her even when she’s committing arson/murder for no apparent reward. She doesn’t even have any politics, she just feels really lonely on campus. Being a vampire just is another label to her and not one that invokes any curiosity. My wife shares some of Clea’s issues but found her equally frustrating.

    “Fine Print” follows the world’s dumbest Ventrue. Duke negotiates a contract with his sire before his Embrace, apparently assuming this is legally enforceable, and is obnoxious the entire way through. He also doesn’t bother to learn that he can’t eat food beforehand, that sunlight forces him to sleep, or that vampires like him need special kinds of blood to drink. This probably my favorite of the stories and Duke really should have been staked for the Sun on his first night.

    “The Land of Milk and Honey” follows a Toreador Anarch who runs a commune of blood harvesters that raise their own food as well as animals. Leigh is among the absolute worst kind of lifestyle advocates who basically keeps her subordinates as animals to harvest but insists on it being the more humane alternative. Its blackly funny that other Kindred seem to think of her as an extreme pro-vegan type in-universe but listening to her ramble on about her ideology the entire time just makes me want to see the Sabbat arrive.

    This is the heart of perhaps 5th Edition’s biggest flaw as there’s nothing particularly fun about being a vampire. Walk Among Us‘ vampires are not sexy, cool, or particularly powerful. They have no torment from the fact they’re good people forced to be evil by hunger or circumstance. Christof may have been a somewhat cliche example of a reluctant vampire, but he was interesting as a Crusader turned monster. Lucita may be evil, but she had tragedy, pathos, and sex appeal. These guys are like the obnoxious lady at the supermarket being turned into Kindred. 

 4/10

Available here

The Eldritch New Adventures of Becky Sharp by Micah S. Harris

    THE ELDRITCH NEW ADVENTURES OF BECKY SHARP by Micah S. Harris is a peculiar example of a novel, starring the villainous co-lead of VANITY FAIR as she's granted immortality by the forces of the Cthulhu Mythos then put through a variety of oddball adventures that roughly resemble A LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN. This despite, or perhaps because, she is one of the most selfish and self-absorbed antiheroines in English literature. It's a bit like PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES or Phillip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton books. If that seems like a bit of a mouthful, it's a rather hard book to describe even if it's straightforward in its plotting.

    The premise is that Becky Sharp gets forcibly dragooned into the service of the British Empire and goes from misadventure to misadventure. These involved confronting African jungle queens, secret cults, Sherlock Holmes, a serial numbers filed off version of Tarzan, Captain Nemo, the villainess of Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan, and a few other references I'm not literature literate enough to get. There's even a confrontation with Great Cthulhu himself as Becky finds herself on a Norwegian vessel during the events of "The Call of Cthulhu"'s climax.

    This is a wacky book. That's about the only way I can describe it. The Cthulhu Mythos is involved in a lot of the science fiction and period fiction of the time. There's the Great Race of Yith, Cult of the Black Pharaoh, Cult of Tulu (Cthulhu), and other groups. The treatment of the Mythos is far pulpier and one-dimensionally evil than terrifying or inscrutable, though. This pulpy handling of the characters is contrasted with the fact that Becky remains as doggedly determined to do the least amount of heroism as necessary in order to save her own life or the world (where she leaves).

    The prose style is deliberately simple and straight forward, often daring the reader to figure out who various characters and stand-ins are. Some of them are very simple like "The Great Detective" who still pines for Irene Addler but others take a bit more to figure out. This is quite a bit of fun but some of the stand-ins are a bit too obvious and unnecessary given the nature of public domain. After all, why would you rename a still-white whale "Mocha Dick"?

    This is a fun and entertaining read that took me a little to get into. I’m mostly familiar with Vanity Fair through the various movie adaptations so the use of Becky as a protagonist wasn’t as effective as it might have been. I suspect those who don’t know her at all will also wonder why we should care if she’s being made into the world’s most poorly chosen secret agent. There’s also some period accurate racism on display, though Becky sees other races as no worse than her own (and treats them both like garbage). I give it a solid 4/5 stars since I set it down a few times but always picked it back up.

Available here

House of the Dragon 2x05 "Regent" review

    HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 2x5 "Regent" is an interesting contrast to "The Red Dragon and the Gold" because one of the objectively best episodes of the season is followed by one of the worst. Unfortunately, this episode suffers not only from dramatically slowing down the pace of the previous episode but also meanders in character development as well as world-building.

    One of the things I was worried about with the racing through of the plotlines of the Dance of the Dragon's backstory for Season One was the fact that just about 90% of the interesting things that happened during this time period were the build-up. Once the actual fighting between the dragons begins, there's not really that much in terms of character development or intrigue to follow up on. This, unfortunately, is abundantly clear here and shows the showrunners don't have any idea where to go without George R.R. Martin as a guide.

    Basically, the characters sit around not doing much this episode. Things happen, don't get me wrong but they're handled with no fanfare. Aemond assumes the regency for his comatose brother, Aegon II, but no one cares about the latter as a person so it has no weight. Alicent is pouty that both her lovers, Larys Strong and Criston Cole, side with Aegon over her. Whether she wanted Aegon II on the throne to protect her children versus that he was a pliable idiot she could rule through seems to have been switched out as her motivations between seasons.

    If this episode is going to be remembered in ten years, it'll be for two scenes. The first is the parading of Meleys head through the streets of Kings Landing. The Greens are doing their best to portray this as a great victory for King Aegon II and a heroic stand against a monster. However, said monster is the source of the Targaryens power base and instead causes the people to start to doubt whether the Targayrens are invincible after all.

    A lot of fans have been waiting for some sort of follow up to the events of 1x09 where Rhaenys burst through the dragon pit and killed a bunch of peasants. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, this follow-up more or less cements that it is effectively discontinuity in the show universe. The people of King's Landing have no grudge against Meleys and Princess Rhaenys is portrayed as the saintly lover of the Smallfolk that she was in every appearance other than that one episode.

    The second thing people will remember about this episode will be Prince Daemon Targaryen ****ing his mother. Yeah, there's an out of nowhere scene where he has sex with a beautiful white haired woman who is praising him being the superior son before it is revealed it is his mum, Alyssa Targaryen. I know you don't hire Matt Smith just sit around in a castle but that was definitely a choice. We also find out Daemon is pressing his own claim to the Iron Throne a a Claudius-style "evil uncle." 

    One element that shows HotD's struggle with is also the "modernization" of morality in the show where the girls act like teenagers in the 21st century. No one acts like Medieval mores apply to them and this applies to how the show vilifies Daemon's decisions in the Riverlands. For example, the Brackens have begun an insurrection against their king and do not recognize his authority. So Daemon unleashes the Blackwoods upon them to pillage, burn, and worse. As Henry V shows, this is not remotely abnornal behavior and Tywin Lannister didn't get any real crap for it either when he was retaliating for far worse. Being an outlaw means you're beyond the king's protection ("outside the law") and if they wanted protection from the king's bannermen, they should appeal to King Aegon II/King Aemond or bend the knee. 

    Unfortunately, the show's utter lack of skill depicting politics applies to the characters it wants to portray as good leaders. Rhaenyra struggles to make any sort of decision whatsoever regarding alliances or military deployment. She wanted to avoid war but never made any sort of strategic concessions or diplomatic offers. Rhaenyra cheats the Arryns by sending two baby dragons to the Eyrie, praises her son Jace for making an alliance with the Freys by offering them Harrenal (?!), and doesn't go meet with Daemon himself despite the fact she did so as a teenager. Rhaenyra was many things in the books but the show version is flat out a weak monarch and far more like her father than Maegor the Cruel. At this point, I'm supporting Aemond the Usurper.

Tales of an Eldritch Wasteland coming out on July 23rd!

Hey folks,

A lot of interesting news this month with the release of TALES OF AN ELDRITCH WASTELAND happening on July 23rd. This is the fourth volume of the CTHULHU ARMAGEDDON series that will be finishing later this year with the fifth volume, CTHULHU'S CANYON.

Tales of an Eldritch Wasteland is a collection of the various short stories and novellas I've written for the Cthulhu Mythos over the years, including several important ones for understanding the main series. Mostly, they've been divided over the Books of Cthulhu and other anthology books I've participated in but now they've been assembled into a single volume.

There's going to be plenty of John Henry Booth stories but also contemporary Cthulhu Mythos tales as well as a few set back in ye olden times of the Middle Ages or Al-Hazred's days. All of them are canon to the setting. Well, except the Cinderella meets Nyarlathotep one. Probably.

"There are a million tales of the Mythos. Here are some of mine.” - C.T. Phipps

Author C.T. Phipps wrote the post-apocalypse meets H.P. Lovecraft novel Cthulhu Armageddon in 2015 but he had been a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos for far longer. Having written stories ranging from Assassins in Acre to detectives in the Dreamlands, he’s tackled every part of the sinister tentacle-filled world that has been influenced by authors ranging from authors Robert E. Howard and Brian Lumley to film directors George Miller and Stuart Gordon.

TALES OF AN ELDRITCH WASTELAND collects over a dozen of his short stories, novelettes, and novellas set both before as well as after the Great Old Ones’ rising. Stories of action, horror, and everything in between.

“I’m a sucker for anything C.T. Phipps. I can’t get enough of his style of writing.” - Brian’s Book Blog
“Dark and sinister with a side order of action.” - The Bookwyrm Speaks

“Phipps [...] should appeal to those who like full kitchen sink Cthulhu Mythos stories and the attendant sports of restructuring the Mythos.” - Marzaat.com 

 Available for preorder here

He Who Fights With Monsters by Shirtaloon review

    HE WHO FIGHTS WITH MONSTERS by Shirtaloon is the archetypal LitRPG story. It is the story of a geeky young man being transported who dies in a sort of accident and gets deposited inside a fantasy world that operates on the rules of a tabletop RPG. From there, he begins an extended campaign to level up his abilities, accumulate treasure, and stick it to every authority figure while making pop culture references that his fantasy companions are deeply confused by. That description will more or less tell you if you are the target audience of HWFWM or not. 

    For me, I think of this book series as a nice example of "popcorn" fast fiction and the kind thing you can enjoy as a Kindle Unlimited subscriber without much difficuly. The books are long, entertaining, and have a lot of stat blocks with a variety of rules regarding everything from essences to how much damage you can do in a single round. This is a straightforward bit of brain candy and not much deeper than that (except for one element that I'll get to later).

    LitRPG is a bit like John Oliver describes cocaine or Insane Clown Posse, which is, paraphrased, "It's not for everyone but those who are into it, are into to a life destroying degree." It took me awhile to get into LitRPG but once I did, I found myself really enjoying it and digging the contrast of rules with storytelling. If you ever wanted to know what it would be like to be wandering around the World of Warcraft with vendors, magic salesmen, leveling up and other statistics in-universe then this is a good example of how it might work.

    I like the attempts by the author to justify things like why there's so many monsters in the world (they're randomly produced by monster surges), why adventurers are an actual profession (because monsters are so common but drop harvestable magical loot), and what sort of power blocks are created when some human beings are able to get vast amounts of wealth as well as personal magical power that makes them effectively demigods (they form into a new nobility that tries to make sure their children also become adventurers).

    If there's one flaw with the book, it might be the fact that Jason is a polarizing character. I mean this in-universe but a quick look at other reviews indicate this is an out-of-universe view. Jason is a biracial Australian atheist with strongly socialist views on how society should be run. He's also very open about enjoying trolling people by adopting the persona of a Nineties anti-hero ala Spawn or the Darkness (while being a dorky geek in RL). 

    Ironically, I'm less annoyed by his occasional lecturing than I am by the fact that Jason gets away with before getting tossed in a dungeon by all the super powerful people he's insulting. Terry Pratchett was an atheist but whenever people mocked the gods on the Discworld, they got hit by lightning. It'd be more funny if that happened a bit more often and Jason had to keep it to himself or a small circle of friends. The supporting cast is okay, though seem a bit flat compared to Jason himself.

    In conclusion, this is an excellent pick up on Kindle Unlimited. It's very much a self-published work with a few flaws but nothing that stopped me from being able to enjoy it (and some of that might just be differences between Australian and American English). I do recommend this to be gotten on audiobook, though. At 28 hours of content, it's certainly worth an Audible credit.

Available here