Booknotes – Science Fiction & Fantasy

I’ve recently finished reading one of the best fantasy series I’ve come across lately: Jon Skovron’s Empire of the Storms trilogy.

Starting with Hope and Red, it tells the story of two people, a girl who grows up to be a fearsome warrior and a boy who becomes a thief. However, what could easily have become a cliché-ridden ‘team becoming couple’-story develops into a much more exciting thing. The books are set in an interesting world, namely an Empire made up of islands in a vast ocean. This alone is great, as I love nautical fantasy (and I have to admit that this was the reason I got the book in the first place). But if I came for the ships, I stayed for the characters: Skovron introduces a plethora of compelling and complex characters. Each of them has his or her own motivation and, most importantly of all, they all change and develop as things happen to them. Best of all, the changes within the characters actually drive the story and define the stakes – which, in a way, become higher than in most other fantasy novels. Highly recommended!

I also finished another series, the reading of which was a sort of guilty pleasure. I’m talking about Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet. Clocking in at eleven volumes, this military sci-fi soap opera had a strange pull – as soon as I finished a volume, I wanted to read the next one. It’s not that the books are especially gripping per se, and several times when I was halfway through one I decided that this would be the last. However, Campbell has what could be called an economical way of storytelling: there is lots of repetition, but in the end there are just enough new developments that I became curious how the overall plot would work out. And, for being military sci-fi, it is refreshingly free from the trashy right-wing ideology often found in this genre. Recommended if you like space battles mixed with a dose of exploration and romance.

For Christmas, I got myself the new history of Dungeons & Dragons, Art and Arcana: A Visual History. This is a huge coffee-table book full of spectacular artwork from all editions of D&D. The accompanying text was co-authored by Jon Peterson, who is the authority on the history of role-playing games. What I like about Art and Arcanais that it not only covers Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson and the coming-into-being of D&D – something that has already been the subject of several books – but that it delves deeply into the evolution of the game through different editions and settings. If you are a fan of D&D, give yourself a treat and get this book!

As I write this, I’m halfway through Nicholas Eames’ Bloody Rose, the sequel to his fabulous Kings of the Wyld. I started with some trepidation, as I really loved the first book, but was unsure how sustainable the analogy between fantasy adventurers and rock bands would be. However, Eames manages to weave an engaging story around Fable, the band led by Rose, the daughter of one of the lead characters of the first book. Again, there are great characters and as the story develops, we get a much more nuanced perspective on the world, especially on the monsters that hitherto served only as the backdrop and cannon fodder for the exploits of the bands. And now some really wild things happened and how will they get out of this and sorry I have to get back to the book…

Dungeons & Dragons

Role-playing has now become a regular thing for us. Apart from running the occasional game for the nephew, the group that started out almost exactly a year ago still meets. However, we recently changed from Dungeonslayers to the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

This move was motivated mainly by watching Critical Role. For those of you who never heard of it, Critical Role is a series broadcast by Geek&Sundry where you basically watch a bunch of voice actors play D&D. This is surprisingly fun and after listening to a couple of episodes, K. and I got completely sucked into the story. Highly recommended if you want some background to your painting!

Critical Role is also a great advertisement for D&D, as it shows the system at its best: engaging characters with clear profiles, dramatic stories and exciting battles. Fortunately, my mate Alex also liked what he saw and had already started to buy the books. After a quick deliberation, the group decided to take the plunge and we converted our Dungeonslayers characters into D&D characters.

Now the first thing I realised is that RPG books don’t come cheap! The next time someone complains about the price of wargames rules, I’ll point out how much one of the D&D books costs. Mind you, I don’t think RPG books or wargames rules are overpriced. Considering the amount of work that goes into them and, more importantly, the amount of gaming you get out of them, I actually think the price is fair.

And the production value of the D&D books is very high. They’re nice hardcover volumes with a clear layout and lots of inspiring illustrations. The rules are presented in a well structured and concise fashion and they even have an index.

There are several things I especially like: For one, I like how they incorporate diversity without making a fuss about it. The illustrations show male and female characters, the latter clad in sensible clothing, and they also show characters with different skin colour. Second, the rules stress the importance of the narrative and of story-telling. Take the Dungeon Master’s Guide’s advice on running a campaign, for example: Instead of presenting a semi-educated treatise on how to model the economy of the country your campaign is set in (something that was abundant in my roleplaying youth), it gives clear and concise hints about how to structure and develop the narrative of the campaign. In a word: it gives you the information that matters for playing the game, not for inventing a world for its own sake. I also like character creation. The addition of a background is a great thing to give your character profile and it really encourages role-playing.

We’ve now had a couple of games and while we are still a bit shaky with some of the rules, it’s been great fun for all. We’ve even been joined by two new gamers. I’m looking forward to having many more games of D&D!