Necessity and Nemesis

Here at the end of WebMage, we have SpellCrash, and what, the first time around, I was surprised to see as an ending to the story.

We start with Ravirn returning from his sojourn into the Norse MythOS (aka MimnirNet) minus Tisiphone but bearing Fenris. Necessity, on the other hand, is still having serious issues, having basically had the Goddess Computer's version of a stroke with aphasia issues. As such, Shara, the little WebGoblin who took over Persephone's role in the Olympian OS has become the voice of Necessity, doing her best to run things until a reboot can be arranged. To help in this, Tisiphone is replaced by the Fury of Ice, Cerice. Whom neither Megara nor Alecto is very happy with.

In fact, Megara is busy being lead around by what she feels is the TRUE Voice of Necessity and a spinerette named Delé. Which puts her at odds with Alecto, who, while not liking Cerice, still listens to Shara.

Whatever voice is leading Megara is also quite interested in killing Ravirn, which leads to quite a few notable chases throughout.

However, most of the plot revolves around the idea of Necessity's power as Fate of the Gods being up for grabs when the reboot happens, thus leaving the 4 major pole powers in the pantheoverse doing what they can to get in line to take over. (Thus Zeus, Hades, Fate, and Eris become major players in the stakes, not to mention the "Voice of Necessity".)

It's a very dense book for being only about 300 pages. One almost wishes he had spread this over 2 books to further develop some of the plots that get the short shrift by the end. I mean, there's a lot going on in this Greek Ragnarok, and not everything gets fully explored by the end. But, he didn't. Which doesn't make it any less a fabulous read, just a rougher one that what could have been.

Unrelated, the main library re-opens tomorrow, which means I can start reserving books again. Shoudl the last book of the Blending not take as long as it takes for reserves to show up, there are a few one offs I can add in to keep occupied.

More consonants than Wheel of Fortune

So, as we begin Kelly McCullough's MythOS, our favorite trickster Ravirn is busy trying to break into the central mainframe of Necessity again, trying to fix the universe's mainframe. When he ends up stuck in a room full of abacuses, along  with his sort of girlfriend Tisiphone (who's still quite irked with him), something happens, landing Ravirn, Melchior, and Tisiphone in Prince Edward Island. Well, PEI, but not in a universe ruled by the Greek Pantheon. On the other hand, we also find out where Allhan wound up when Shara's clone in Necessity moved her someplace safe.

Mainly because she manages to save Melchior and Ravirn from a rather tense encounter with a guy named Loki. (Tisiphone gets really mad after arrival, flies off, and gets attacked by a large wolf chasing the moon.) Loki is walking a large poodle who spits up a hand. Said hand becomes Laginn, sort of a Norse Thing. Said hand is also remarkably annoyed with its previous owner, Tyr.

Through the course of the book, we meet Odin, but before we get that far, we meet Odin's birds, Huginn and Muginn (Thought and Memory). These two summon Ravirn to Odin in Valhalla, whereupon Ravirn gets named "Intuition/Impulse". Through heavy use of the Skuld (who also does a bit of foreshadowing for the last book), we learn about the Norse MythOS, forever trapped in one march toward Ragnarok. Seems the entire OS's main processor is the Head of Mimir, and Odin's eye in Mimir's Well lets him know everything. Except for what is up with Ravirn. Ravirn can't be seen by Odin's other eye, the one sacrificed for knowledge.

There's a rather large amount of things going on throughout this, including some wonderful asides on every character's part. We have Fenrir, who seems to be the only honest character; Hati, who appears as a rather absentminded fox at one point; Loki, trying to save his family from Odin's tyranny; and Odin, who's trying to find a way to stop Ragnarok. Oh yes, and at one point, we even meet Jormungand, who spends most of his time reading at the bottom of the sea.

Add to this Allhan dying due to the difference in the quality of Primal chaos in the Norse realms and Tisiphone getting might annoyed to find bits of a Fury that didn't exist coming through from teh Greek MythOS, and you have quite a tale.

While I love the Iron Druid Chronicles, Kevin Hearne's depictions of some of the Norse pantheon don't quite jibe with how they're normally presented. To his credit, McCullough does stick closer to the Eddas, and even gives a better idea of WHY the gods act the way they do. (On the other hand, Thor comes across as semi-nice in this book, which generally isn't normal.) Still not quite as much fun as Neil Gaimen's veersion of the Norse, but hey...

Even if I'm not a huge fan of Norse mythology, that didn't particularly affect my love of this particular volume. That, and now, on re-reading, can see how much this sets up the fifth and final volume, I remain in love.

Wrong universe, Ghost Rider

I managed to finish off Kelly McCullough's CodeSpell a bit quicker than I had ioriginally anticipated, but on the other hand, it's the only one in the series I couldn't remember any details about. It was almost like reading it for the first time.

Again, we're following around Ravirn/Raven as he's navigating some rather fractious politics among the Greek Pantheon. In this case, we start on Olympus at a party hosted by Zeus celebrating the return of eternal summer thanks to the hard won freedom of Persephone at the end of the last book. Mind you, no one knows what happened to Shara or the Web Troll Ahllan. That Necessity is also working rather spasmodically recovering from Persephone's virus isn't helping much either.

However, the real shock happens at Zeus's garden party, where Ravirn runs into his dear friend Dairn, whom we last saw dying while being shoved into a fairie ring. It seems that Dairn has merged with everyone's favorite spirit of vengeance, Nemesis. Nemesis has been missing in action for a few millennia after Necessity got annoyed that she had her own ideas on how to perform her job. which lead to the creation of Tisiphone, Alecto, and Meagara, the Furies.

Clotho reclaims Cerise at the party to work on Fate's attempts to repair the mWeb, which leads to more than a few relationship kinks with Ravirn. That Tisiphone, who hasn't known a man in about 1,600 years or so has taken an interest in Ravirn, doesn't really help this situation. (To be frank, Alecto isn't all that pleased either.)

Most of the plot revolves around Nemesis trying to kill Ravirn, or later on, kill her mother, Necessity.

We also get to finally meet Zeus and Athena, as well as the muse Thalia, who's actually Ravirn's paternal grandmother. We also find out fairly quickly that Cerberus cheats at Poker.

Really, this is quite possibly the breeziest read in the entire series, since it's honestly one really big race to figure out how to reconnect everything with Necessity, something not even the Furies can do. There's also the question of where the heck Nemesis has been for several millennia and why she's suddenly back in the picture. Ravirn also begins an affair with Tisiphone, she of the flames, which also gives a rather strange vibe to the proceedings.

It's a wonderful entry, and the overall presentations of both Zeus and Athena are fairly true to the myths.

Lyric Coding

By the end of Kelly McCullough's Cybermancy, we have a better, if uglier view of his take on the modern Greek pantheon than we did at the end of book 1. However, there are moments of supreme lightness that help keep it from becoming a DC Cinematic Universe tale.

We start with Ravirn on the near bank of the Styx playing Bridge with Mort, Bob, and Dave. Who are Mort, Bob, and Dave? Why, the three heads of the Cerberus. Ravirn is hanging out with them trying to figure out how to pull an Orpheus, freeing Cerice's Web Goblin Shara out of Hades, particularly since Shara still has most of Cerice's dissertation on her hard drive. (I'm sure most grad students would risk more to get theirs back should it wind up on the wrong side of the river.)

Ravirn, who's avoiding using the name Clotho gave him at the end of Book 1, Raven, makes an oath and ends up breaking into Hades to free Shara. Which introduces us to McCullough's tragic heroine, Persephone.

A quick recap for those of you who never studied Greek mythos, or prefer to use Roman Prosperina. Persephone would be Demeter (Goddess of the Earth)'s daughter, the embodiment of Spring. In most tellings,  she picks the wrong flower and gets kidnapped by Hades and taken to the underworld. Demeter is not happy about this and causes eternal winter until Persephone comes back. Zeus (King of the Gods, lord of the sky, and all around lecher) eventually caves in, but since it's found out Persephone ate a debated number of pomegranate seeds while in Hades, she will remain in Hades that many months of the year, returning to her mother during her off time. Demeter isn't fond of this arrangement and states that while Persephone is down under, nothing will grow. Thus the seasons.

For this particular incarnation, it's 3 seeds. And unlike some retellings, Persephone isn't happy about spending 3 months out of a year in Hades for eternity. Then again, the way it's presented in this narrative, Hades is raping her pretty much non stop the entire time she's in Hades. And beating her. Anyway, she offers to help Ravirn to escape Hades and get Shara out in exchange for favors later to be determined. Problem is that Shara gets lost for a while while being e-mailed out, showing up a few hours later having been redirected through a mysterious server on the way.

And then the entire MWeb starts crashing. Worlds go offline, Cerice defies her great grandma Clotho, the Fury Tisiphone confesses that she has the hots for Ravirn, we sort of meet Zeus.... (We hear him "entertaining" his secretary through a closed door.)

It's a fun book, really taking the world building of book 1 much farther, and not letting Eris steal the entire book. The presentation of the Cerberus is quite humorous, and it's nice to see the Furys grow into more complex characters. By far the only real thing that took some adjustment on my part was the telling of Persephone's myth in here (even if he does point out such a traumatic event would tilt anyone's personality, thus the axial tilt that science claims causes seasons), since most translations don't particularly present it quite the way it's represented in here.

Be warned, while the book is well written, some of the presentations of will likely trigger a few things.

Golden Apples of the Sun

A couple "bookkeeping" notes before we dive into this one. As mentioned previously, Columbus Metropolitan Library's decision to rebuild ALL the branches has lead to a distinct lack of a place to go wonder the stacks. Which has allowed me to get through some of my backlog of books I own that I want to read/re-read. However, my current plan got sideswiped by two reserves showing up, so rather than my original intent, there will likely be 2 reviews coming up that won't fit the pattern.

Last September, someone put all 5 volumes of Kelly McCullough's WebMage series (autographed, no less) into a silent auction where I was camping. Having read the series 6 years ago, I spent a bit more than I had planned on, but I won the auction. Now it's April, and I finally had time to read book 1.

WebMage introduces us to Ravirn, a student at the University of Michigan, although not the one on the prime locus reality. Ravirn also happens to be a grandson of Lachesis, the measurer of the threads of life. (There's a few greats in there, but grandma works for our purposes.) Ravirn is assisted by his webgoblin laptop, Melchior. When we first look in on Ravirn, he's breaking into his Aunt Atropos' (she who cuts the threads) domain looking for her "Puppeter" program, one which would essentially erase free will from the cosmos. (In this setting, the 3 fates represent one end of the order/chaos continuum. Eris, Goddess of Discord; and Tyche, Lady Luck, lie at the other end.)

Atropos wishes for her nephew to find the problem in the code causing Puppeter to fail. While he hems and haws about it, she places him under a similar restriction to the aegis Cassandra of Troy labored under. If he talks about what his Aunt is up to, no one will believe him.

In his quest to destroy Atropos' program, Ravirn manages to annoy quite a few people, which isn't particularly helped by Fate's ability to make up evidence. Thankfully, Ravirn has allies in Cerise (Clotho's [she who spins the threads] granddaughter) and her webgoblin, Shara. Also, as we come to discover in a realm well off the main loci, Ahllan, one of Atropos' discarded webgoblins. Ahllan is one of the first webtrolls to discover free will, and runs something of an underground to protect the webbeings, who are mostly looked at as non-sentient equipment.

And about two thirds of the way through, out in the primal chaos, as part of a plot to clear his name, we enter Castle Discord, meeting the Virgin Goddess Eris who has her own unique agenda.

Mind you, this happens not long after meeting Alecto, Megara, and Tisiphone, the three furies.

The first time I read through this, it took me a while to get my head wrapped around the multiplicity of realities operating off of Fate's mainframe, particularly since I'm rather sure there's a really big comparison to how the internet actually works. (Some of it comes off as a bit dated, since there's a large discussion of packet loss in there...) However, the mixture of magic and technology is quite facinating , as arcane magic exists side by side with using code to make changes to reality.

By far the one thing I absolutely loved in here, that made me forget all the rough patches, has to do with Eris's servers. Eris, who in the original myths comes off almost like Maleficent, in here is a bit less spiteful, although she is chaos incarnate. However, she runs her own set of servers, that just happen to be Macintosh servers of a metallic yellow hue.

Having read through the series before, it's a bit odd to go through how it all begins again, knowing where everyone ends up. But, his take on Greek mythology here is quite well conceived and a joy to read.

Hopefully not the end.

While Kelly McCullough's Darkened Blade doesn't have a preview of the next book at the end, I can onl;y hope this isn't where the series ends. I've grown quite attached to his characters, and this one is quite a finale any way it goes.

We start not long after the end of Drawn Blades, with Siri, Faran, Aral, and Kelos in the city of Wall. We open on Aral dreaming/ visionquesting and meeting with Namara in a bar crowded with those he's killed over the years. While the goddess may be dead, a piece of her lies in Aral, and encourages him to continue the path he's been walking since the end of Book 1. Which means, at last, it's time to confront the strange Risen who currently heads the Church of Shan. Well, at least moreso than the occasion where Aral snuck in and cut the Son's face.

Anyway, a possible alliance with members of the church army fall apart as an army of Risen attacks the place where the meeting happens. The army of Risen actually act as a motivational device to get everyone to Jax's school and then on to the fallen Temple of Namara where they finally find a way to bind Namara's infused swords to their wielders, something that hasn't been done since Namara herself invested them with the Blades.

And then we journey into the Celestial city for the final confrontation, which pretty much takes up the last third of the book.

Along the way, we see Aral get appointed  First Blade by Siri, the students of Jax become full fledged Blades, and meet a few legends of the world in which this is set.

We also see Aral's final transformations into Campbell's Hero of 1000 Faces. Ultimately, by the end, Aral Kingslayer struggles with his desire to do justice without the deaths of millions in the Civil Wars to follow the death of the Son and his desire to become more than the tool of his mentor in Kelos' mad plan to upset the apple cart and create a new world without corrupt nobles and royalty.

It's really a fine book, although it feels a bit like the last chapters of a D&D campaign, with no real transition between plot points.

I do hope he writes more in this series, given the rather.... brief ending, but then I'm still hoping for another WbMage book which will probably never happen. 

Non-Smoking, please

I was a bit concerned when I picked up Kelly McCullough's sort of most recent Fallen Blade novel, Drawn Blades, mainly because it's book 5 in the series, and his other series, WebMage, ended after 5 novels.

Thankfully, as we find out after this one ends, there is indeed a 6th one that evidently got released this month.

None of which is helpful here, beyond letting readers know that Aral's adventures will continue.

Anyway.

We rejoin Aral in the city of Tien not long after the end of the last book;s tales of government restructuring. To that end, Aral is back again sitting at his favorite bar (although he's now sober) when a smokey ghost forms from the tavern fire, looking nothing so much like Siri, one of the other blades who's nickname was Mythkiller. Siri's avatar performs a pantomime ceremony of handfasting, leaving Aral with a rather interesting ring made of smoke on the 3rd finger of his left hand.

After an attack by a mythic beast and some assistance from Aral's librarian contact and his familiar, contact is made with Siri through smoke again, and the end result Faran and Aral are off to The Sylvani Empire. Which is an adventure in and of itself, since in quite possibly the most unique way of gaining travel speed, they wind up traveling by Dukoth as far south as the Wall. (Note here: The Dukoth are a race of First Ones who are more or less Elemental Earth. Aral's smoke ring gets their attention, and the need to speed Aral and Faran across the land.) Along the way, we learn more of the First Ones, races created by the gods prior to humans. Seems the First Ones rebelled again being slaves to the gods, and there was a war in Heaven. The gods won. As such, most of the First Ones live behind the Wall that separates the Empire from the human lands. Mind you, a few of the First Ones rose to a level near Godhood and were punished to be buried and never dying. One of the Buried Ones was dealt with by Siri before these novels began, thus her title of Mythkiller.

However, due to magical principles and a dead goddess, when we finally meet Siri in the flesh, we find out her smoky nature is due to her becoming part of the binding holding The Smoldering Flame in his burial. Namara, before she died, helped keep his influence over Siri in check, but after the Emperor of Heaven killed Namara, the binding weakened a bit, giving Siri and her Shade some smoke overlap.


Not longer after the touching reunion and consummation of wedding vows as part of the deeper magics, Kelos enters the picture, making for a Namara's disciples reunion from Hell. Kelos is working to find a key that will resurrect a god before the Son of Heaven finds it, and before one of the Buried Ones finds it and tries to use it.

There's much going on in this book, including filling in much of the metaphysics of the world. things like the true nature of the blades Namara gave her acolytes, the nature of the Son of Heaven and his end goals, and the rather fractured relationship between Kelos and Aral and Kelos and Siri.

I reserved the new one this evening, and I look forward to seeing where this goes next. McCullough may miss a few dangling plot threads (like the attack by the mythic beast that never really gets explained), but his world building is nothing less than spectacular.

The circle closes

So, after a few unexpected adventures in plumbing this week, I did managed to finish Kelly McCullogh's Blade Reforged, part of the continuing adventures of Aral Kingslayer.

Wow.


We start this book with Aral trying to spring an old friend from King Thauvik's (son of King Ashvik, who died to give Aral the title Kingslayer) torture prison. After finding the task nigh impossible, Aral instead helps set up Baroness Maylien (also his part time lover, and the one who got the plot rolling back in Book 1) to take the throne.

Complicating this is a Blade legend, the Kitsune, and the return of former Blade turned servant of the bad church, Devin. The Kitsune would be a Blade long thought dead, who entered dead Namara's service long before Aral was born, supposedly killed by teacher Kelos. Surprise! Nuriko is still alive and still accompanied by her many tailed fox shade familiar! And she's also sort of in league with Son of Shan, in a less restricted manner than Kelos, who was already sort of a free agent in service to the Son. Devin, on the other hand...

Well, Devin again ends up making a deal with Aral, who, despite their complete hatred of each other, is being more tormented by Nuriko than Aral could ever attempt to accomplish. Also, if Aral is able get rid of the Kitsune, the Son's torments of Devin are likely to be lesser than if her plot manages to go forward. (As we have been learning through the series in dribs and drabs, the Son is not a nice person. That his form of discipline involves God enforced oaths, tattoos and then flaying skin to remove said tattoos to preserve in an art gallery should not exactly be a surprise.)

Devin, unsurprisingly, doesn't want Thauvik dead, mainly because the King is more or less under the thumb of the Son. However, with Nuriko warping the Son's goals....

Oh yeah, and Maylien starts a revolution to take the throne after Thauvik kills off half the nobility to prevent Maylien's legal adoption (and therefore legitimate claim of succession) becoming public knowledge. Which leads to a few new characters, including Prixia, who becomes Maylien's general after her father gets killed and declared a traitor in the adoption fiasco. Captain Fei again provides fascinating background information about what's going on in the figurative shadows.

Oh yes, and Aral has finally achieved some measure of sobriety, which cuts down the passages devoted to self-incrimination over drinking quite a bit. (I'm not knocking addiction recovery at all here. Aral's sobriety is long coming, and it's good to see him accomplishing it one day at a time.)

The events following the climax provide quite a preview of things to come, as well as providing a literal interpretation of both the first book's title and the current book's title.

I'll be very interested in seeing how the series progresses from here.

That was a sharp retort

I've talked before about how much I'm enjoying Kelly McCullough's Fallen Blade series, and having just finished book 3, Crossed Blades, I'm happy to report it's just gaining steam.

As a quick recap, in the last book, one of the apprentices from the Temple of Namara (that Aral, our narrator worked out of before Shen and his devotees declared the goddess dead and destroyed the temple) was found and apprenticed herself to Aral. Faran has been a quick study in using the shadow arts, having worked as a spy and assassin prior to reconnecting with Aral.

We start this chapter with the reappearance of Jax, Aral's one time fiancee, who wound up in bed with Aral's best friend and later traitor to the order, Devin. Jax managed to escape from the Son of Heaven's torture chambers along with a few other Blades, starting a sanctuary and school in the high mountains of her home country. However, rumor of Aral's reappearance in the eleven Kingdoms coupled with the capture of her current lover and the apprentices at her school leads her to the city of Tien to find her lost lover in hopes of freeing them.

What we find out early on is that Jax is being blackmailed by a high ranking priestess in the Temple in order to capture Aral. We also find out that Aral's mentor, Kelos, is now in league with the Temple, acting as the Sun's shadow. Not that Kelos doesn't have his own agenda, but....

Again, much of the book focuses on Aral's climb out of the depths of his depression and recovering from his alcoholism. We also delve quite a bit into Aral's psyche as he deals with his doubts over his previous vocation and whether or not he was doing right by bringing justice in Namara's service. Ultimately, give the preview of the next book tucked into the end of this one, I rather doubt that question is easily answered, as Aral's mindset evolves on the matter.

Another high point is the interactions between Jax and Faran, who hate each other at first sight, and have to work around their differences in order to achieve their goal.

Kelos is by far the most interesting addition to this book, as his motivations remain clear as mud until the very end. One hopes he reappears down the line, as he provides a very interesting perspective on the cause of justice.


Really, while the entire premise sounds like the stuff of an RPG, the verve and flair of the author and his characters makes it worth the investment of time to read.

Haven't been here in a while...

Here recently, I went through this blog and goodreads and found out new books had come out in series that I completely missed. Kelly McCullough's Bared Blade happens to be the first one to come in at the library.

I started the series waaaaay back here, so here's a quick refresher on setting. Aral lives in the city of Tien, doing work in the underworld. He started life as a Blade, a servant of the goddess of justice, Namara. Namara got killed by the new gods and her temple razed; he servants were mostly destroyed, although a few remain, working clandestinely for the new King. (Aral killed the old one.) Aral has a shadow familiar, Triss, who provides much of the comic relief.

Aral ended the last book crawling his way out of the bottle and getting a new lease on life, which is why it's kind of amusing that he's in a bar at the start of this one. (His struggles with drinking provide an undercurrent of conflict throughout.) However, like any good noir (even fantasy noir), trouble walks in wearing the form of two beautiful women, one of whom resembles Aral's old flame.

The fact that both women share a mind with a meld has kind of an effect on their relationship with Aral. (They're the visible parts of a Dyad, two bonded mages who also share a third mind, in this case named Valor of Steel.) The Dyad also happen to be targets of the local Elite Kingsguard, who break in and tear up the bar where Vos is talking with Aral. Upon escaping, Aral runs afoul of Qethar, a Durkoth seeking the Kothmerk. (That's a lot of gobbledegook. Durkoth and an Other race, beings purely of the Earth. As such, he's kind of a moving Greek statue. that can make the Earth move under his feet. And more.) Qethar and Aral enter an uneasy truce to find the Ruby ring that confers rulership of the Durkoth that was last seen in the slaughtered parter the Dyad was part of.

There's a lot of crossing and double crossing, plus more revelations from Fei, the shadowside Police officer who knows exactly who Aral is. And ongoing revelations from Aral as he tries to figure out what justice actually is without a goddess providing it.

Once again, McCullough writes an excellent yarn, and I'm kind of curious as to what the next book in the series (that cam out last December) has in store, given some of the plot development in this one. As I said last time, everything of his that I've read has been worth the time investment.

What happens when the journey ends?

I'm almost done with Kelly McCullough's Broken Blade, Book 1 in his new Fallen Blade series.

The premise is fairly straightforward, narrated by one Aral Kingslayer, who has long since stopped using his moniker, preferring instead to work as a "shadowjack". His Holy Order fell several years back, and his goddess was killed by "the new gods"; the Son of Heaven now runs the government. Thankfully, Aral still has Triss, his shadow familiar. Triss, who exists as Aral's shadow, mostly hides as Aral's shadow, occasionally taking his "normal" shape of draconic shape.

Into his life of drunken forgetfulness walks Maylien, a girl dressed as a servant who wants Aral to do courier work for her. The price is more than generous, but the hob doesn't turn out quite as Aral imagined. Mainly because the Baroness Marchon, upon who's balcony he is to deliver the message, is having a clandestine meeting with Devin, another of the "Blades" whom Aral worked with in his Holy Order. Devin, it seems, has sold out his temple after the fall, becoming an assassin for hire. (The order killed people who were in need of their next turn on the wheel of karma, not murder for hire.)

Somehow, this set up begins awakening the old Aral, particularly after finding out that Maylien is the Baroness's elder sister and should have the barony, being tortured by people who know something about controlling shadow familiars, etc. It's less the hero's journey, and more an exploration of what happens after the hero returns home and find the world isn't what he left in the first place.

I've discussed McCullough's past series before (his WebMage pentad, concerning an alternate Earth wherein the universe runs on a computer based on Greek mythology. It's quite imaginitive and I loved all five books), and there are a few series I can point you towards that discuss what happens when Campbell ends and the hero continues to exist.

There is, of course, Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis's Dragonlance Legends trilogy, which while mostly being about time travel in a fantasy world, also shows this trope of what happens when a hero (Caramon) returns from heroing and can't get his life back together. By the end of Legends, Caramon has finally fixed his life and his relationship with his brother Raistlin. Well, sort of. For those of you who have never read the Dragonlance Chronicles or Legends, let's just say that Caramon and Raistlin don't have issues as much as they have volumes. Even if they are derivative of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (which isn't surprising, since he more or less set the groundwork for most modern fantasy. Not to mention, Frodo also finds he can't really go home again.), they remain good reads in their own right.

There is also Richard K. Morgan's A Land Fit for Heroes, which starts with The Steel Remains. I'm not sure how to describe this series. I started reading it because Ringil, one of the three major protagonists, is gay. The alien half-human is also bi, and hooked on a marijuana type drug. The third, a horseman from the outlands, has issues with his tribe forcing him out. The series is interesting, but very graphic, and every character tends to swear like a sailor on a golf course. There's also the rather graphic description of Ringil's boyfriend's public execution for being gay. However. there's an awful lot of densely packed plot involving another alien race making their return to Ringil's world and potentially enslaving the humans. Mind you, this provides motivation for the three war heroes (all three served in a previous war before the series starts fighting along side the rest of humanity against dragons and lizard armies. After the lizards were defeated, humanity returned to their warring states and leagues.) to get back together eventually, but in the mean time, we get a look at three lives of old war heroes more or less put out to pasture by the people they saved.

While the hero after the journey isn't quite a full cliche yet, the possibilities remain interesting, particularly juxtaposed again more modern and real issues of people returning from war and trying to reenter society. For most, they can do it; for others, it's it quite difficult. But no one returns unchanged, and I think that's why stories in this vein remain facinating.