Whne crazy meets crazy

 One of the major themes running through Seana McGuire's new InCrypted nove Backpacking Through Bedlam revolves around the difficulty of reintegrating during homecoming, and it kind of struck a nerve, particularly in the bonus novella tucked in at the end of the book. 

We pick up where the last volume ended, with Alice, Thomas, and Sally leading refugees from the Crossroads bottle dimension to hopefully a new home dimension. Which involves Alice and Thomas learning to love each other again after 50 years apart, and Alice learning to find a way to deal with Sally, who was more or less adopted by Thomas during the exile. 

About halfway through, after visiting the dimension where Sarah ended up dropping a college, they wind up back on Earth, where Rose and Mary wind up sending the trio to New York to help Verity and Dominic chase The Covenant out of New York and away from the dragons. 

The novella concerns James learning that Sally has been rescued, and dealing with his feelings therein. 

While the first half of the novel really doesn't quite feel as intense as previous novels in the series, the second half and the novella strike the chords I've come to love from this particular series. Really fun read.

They're building landing strips for gay alien martians!

 So, I technically finished Stuff The Don't Want You to Know by Ben Bowlin, Matt Frederick, and Noel Brown yesterday, but it's been a week. 

The setup is almost opposite what we normally see in conspiracy compilations, as they move from downright preposterous (with roots in what is real) into very real, provable discussions. 

But honestly, it's fun to go through, since some of it is a fuller story on things I knew already (Tuskeegee in particular.) 

Honestly, there isn't that much to say here, beyond it being a fun if occasionally disturbing discussion on things that increasingly are being presented as truth, and why it is people are inclined to believe them. (Case in point, one of the reviews I read about it spent a paragraph complaining that the debunk of one theory was false, since a particular cable news station said differently.)

So yeah, if you want an exploration of modern folklore, it's worth reading.

In the Lich of time....

 As a warning, along with sporadic library reserves, I found a bunch of old RPG novels among the remnants of mom's house, then found a few other volumes on used book sites, so expect some really odd entries over time. 

Today was King of the Dead by Gene De Weese, which is more or less the origin of Azalin, who's later stories are found in Lord of the Necropolis. (If you click that link, there's an awesome picture attached to the post.) For those not versed in such esoterica, Azalin is a lich who rules the Ravenloft Domain of Darkon, and is pretty much the arch nemesis of Strahd, the Vampire Lord around whom the entire setting is based. Firan, as he was known as a human, started in Oerth, aka the Greyhawk setting, middle son of a King who thoughts magic users were evil. So, because of course he does, Firan learns the arcane arts, manages to get his younger brother possessed, then runs off to follow his mentor somewhere outKingdom. 

He learns tricks to siphon off the life force of those he kills, and becomes king after his eldest brother dies. Firan rules by executing anyone who breaks his laws. He marries, finds out the wife cursed him, erases the curse, and she bears him a son. Irik, named after his possessed younger brother, ends up commiting treason against daddy dearest, since he doesn't agree with Firan's policies. Firan beheads Irik, and then regrets it, thinking he should raise his son and teach him to be more like his father. Well, that doesn't quite go as planned, and Firan starts hearing taunting voices of those he cared about, which in turn leads him to turn himself into a lich. (An observation: most of the art depicting Azalin makes him look a bit like Skeletor right before He-Man kicks his ass.) 

So, Firan eventually gets sucked into the mists and winds up in Barovia. He refers to himself by his old title on Oerth (Aza'Lin), which the Barovians take to be his name. We get a short chapter on his working with and against Strahd, before Azalin enters the mists again, and eventually becomes the leader of his own Dark Domain, and his punishments of never being able to learn new magic, and finding the only way he could fully resurrect his son is to torment himself. Or, he could forgive himself, but that would mean him admitting he was wrong. 

It's fun, and frankly, Azalin more than Strahd understand the nature of the realm and its torments. He's probably the only Darklord who understands how to end his imprisonment, but is too stubborn to do so. 

It's a tad silly in places, but it's a fun read none the less.

Let's split up! That always works!

 So, Cradle of Ice, the second book in what's allegedly going to be a trilogy, opens with our team of intrepid protagonists splitting up to accomplish different goals. 

Nyx, our major heroine, is accompanied across the Frozen wastes in the dark side of Urth by Shiya, Rhaif, Graylin, and a company of pirates, as well as her friend Jace to discover one of the places where they can get the Urth rotating again. Along the way, they discover The Cradle, an area under the ice that is warm that supports human life. A different race of the hive mind bats live there, but they're under the control of something else.

In the meantime, Prince Kanthe and Freyll have gone to the southern Crown to the Empire of Klashe, where intrigues abound. Kanthe winds up engaged to the Emperor's daughter, who is in love with the leader of the faction that opposes the caste system in place in the Empire. (Not that Kanthe doesn't have his own suitors, the Princess's brother makes his desire failrly clear, as does on of the female assassins running around. 

By the end, the plot has advanced as several goals are met, we have much more information as to what Shiya is (courtesy of a "lesser" bronze being who's been disguised on Klashe for a few centuries), and we have a set up for the next book which suggests either it's probably going to be rushed to a conclusion or expanded into 5 books. (Between the private war between Kanthe and his Twin brother, who now rules the Northern kingdom, the fact that they still have to go to the center of the desert wasteland on the always sun facing side of Urth, and they have to get a third relic from the now rather hostile Northern Kingdom....)

Yeah, I've gotten sucked into this series. I look forward to seeing what the next volume brings.

On a midnight dark and dreary

And we're back in Sithicus, as Lord Soth faces down his own misrule of the dark domain in Spectre of the Black Rose. In my last post, I mentioned how Soth's imprisonment by the dark powers was mildly controversial, and here, we see his release back to Krynn. (Theoretically for a second time, if one takes the adventure World of Krynn as canon.) 

Essentially, Soth has sat on his armored ass for a very long time letting Sithicus run itself. His torment on Krynn has changed, as his Keep in Sithicus is not quite the same as Dargaard Keep in Ansalon. His skeletal knights and banshee tormentors also change number, as memory in Sithicus is an illusion. 

Which has left Azreal the Dwarven Werebadger to run the country as he sees fit, annoying Magda's daughter Inza. (Magda is alive for the first part of the novel, but we quickly find out her daughter doesn't much like her.) War threatens with Invidia, as the ruler (not the actual Lord) wishes to exterminate the Vistani. 

We also have the mysterious Cobbler, who cuts off people's feet who publicly break oaths; The Whispering Beast, who calls those who break oaths to him as food; and the mysterious White Rose, who has her own connections with Soth. We have Azreal trying to take control of all the shadows of Sithicus, and Inza, who ultimately wants Soth's throne. Almost everyone is plotting with and against everyone else. 

In other words, Gothic Horror.

In the end, Soth regains his memory and returns to Krynn, and we see again how his pride prevents his redemption. Pretty much every other character gets an unhappy ending, which works just as well. 

This was actually a heck of a lot more fun than the first volume, since by this point, we know everyone in here is up to no good, which makes the ending that much more satisfying. Soth is home, so he can find his redemption a few years down the road. (I ordered the War of Souls trilogy today, so I'll eventually get to relive that silliness. Although given that plot line involved Takhisis moving Krynn across the universe, I feel like Soth's sojourn into Ravenloft kind of foreshadowed that plot twist, although I think most readers tend to think of that trilogy as an apology for Dragons of Summer Flame, which seems to be pretty universally despised.) 

If you can find a copy, this is one of the fun ones.

CONTROVERSY!

 Before I get deep into this, let's discuss some of the fun behind James Lowder's Knight of the Black Rose, or what happens when creators clash with property owners. According to the copyright, this got released in 1992, which was after Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis were on the outs with TSR, However, their DragonLance novels and game accessories were quite popular even then. (Of note, the game module that inspired the entire setting of Ravenloft was written by Tracy and his wife..) Anyway, Lord Soth was a secondary antagonist in the DragonLance setting, a Death Knight who was working with Kitiara for his own reasons. His backstory was tragic, and he was an inveterate scene stealer. Plus, he just LOOKED cool. So it wasn't a particularly great surprise that TSR decided to make D&D Reese Cups by having the Mists swallow Soth on Krynn and drop him in the new Gothic Horror setting. Now, he eventually escaped and wound up back on Krynn (with one partial escape assumed to be during The Grand Conjunction as chronicled in the debatebly canon source book World of Krynn), only to die a final and noble death during The War of Souls. As far as Soth's creators are concerned, Soth never left Krynn. As far as D&D canon goes, he did, although most people reconcile it by assuming he escaped to return at the moment of his exit. Anyway, info dump done, let's discuss.

So, we open towards the very end of the Blue Lady's War, when Kitiara went to Palanthus to greet whichever Krynnish god wound up coming out of the dragon portal. (The entire story is told in Legends.) Kitiara dies, and Soth heads back to his lovely Dargaard  Keep with his banshees and skeletal men at arms. However, we expand here on Soth sending his seneschal Caradoc to the Abyss to go get Kitiara's soul, so Soth can reanimate her body to be his eternal companion. (Soth has relationship issues.)

Caradoc winds up hiding Kit's soul, thinking Soth won't return him to mortality. (Mind you, some of the discussions here closely mirror the Planescape setting. Which I think came out somewhere around when this got written.) Soth strangles the ghost (perk of being undead, I suppose), the mists close in, and hey, everyone's in Barovia. 

What follows is a showdown between a Chaotic Evil vampire and Lawful Evil Death Knight. We also meet a Vistani lass named Magda (the Vistani during this era were basically stereotyped Roma, straight out of central casting) and a werebadger named Azreal. They cross Barovia into Gunderak and back, and eventually, Soth winds up in the Mists again, and ultimately refuses redemption, so he becomes the Dark Lord of Sithicus. 

By far the best part of this story is how in depth we plunge into Soth's days before the Curse. We hear the tale throughout DragonLance, but here, we're on Soth's shoulder as he has his first wife killed, married his second, gets expelled from the Knighthood, and ultimately fails in his redemption and gets cursed by wife #2. It adds a lot of humanizing effect onto the character, showing us his tragic nature. He's really a dark mirror image of the stereotypical paladin. Yes, his honor is tarnished and rusted, but the iron is still strong under it all. 

Now, I first read this when it was published, having picked it up at the local bookstore/smoke shop a few blocks from my house. At the time, I had not read the earlier source material, and had no real idea of who Soth was. Now, having read all of it, this made a hell of a lot more sense. I'm really happy I found my copy again, it was fun to reconnect with it after all these years.

When the Sky Falls....

 So, on a whim, I checked out James's Rollins's The Starless Crown out of the library, thinking it looked interesting. Which it wound up being, although given the large amount of queer adjacent fiction I've been reading of late, the lack of anything resembling queer folks in here was kind of a shock.(Yeah, I know.)

Anyway, we open on a knight helping a "Pleasure Serf" escape into a swamp. Said serf gives birth to a girl not long after the knight runs off to prevent pursuit of the surf. 

Over the course of the story, we find out the girl survived and was raised by human sized bats, giving her access to certain ancestral memories. Nyx, as she is now known, gets dragged into what looks to be a trilogy, along with her support scribe, Jace, as the King of Halandii wants her in relation to a prophecy that she will destroy the world. Along the way, we get involved in the crown prince trying to kill his brother, a thief who found an alchemical wonder of an animated copper woman, and Nyx's long exiled father. So, yeah, fairly standard for fantasy story lines.

The setting (planet Urth) is a bit more original, although there are hints we're in the old trope of a future Earth. The Urth is tidally locked with the Son, so that one hemisphere is constantly light, and one dark. (Much like the Moon here in the present Earth.) As such, as far as we know, everything mostly lives in "The Crown", towards the area where twilight would be the norm. (The sun doesn't really set, and there are seasons, so axial tilt is still a thing.)  The two major factions present in Halandii (and rumored to have a different integration in the enemy state Klashe) are the Alchymists and the Religious, although there are Orders on both sides who have mastered both mysteries. And as we get hints of throughout the book, it's likely the moon will crash into Urth within a few years of they can't find a way to stop it. 

I enjoyed reading this, even if nothing in here is particularly original. Still fun though.

I'm sensing a recurring theme here

 Olivie Blake's The Atlas Paradox has now joined the done reading list, and I find myself confused by, well, just about everything.

This is not to say it's not an enjoyable read, it's more a case of trying to figure out exactly what the heck is actually going on. 

So, we pick up where the last one left off, with the 5 remaining trying to figure out where the 6th initiate is. (Short answer, 30 years in the past.) With that member trying to find their way back to the present, we spend much of this volume swinging back and forth in time, as time is passing for all characters, and various plot boil around during all eras. Add into this various conversations being presented, and then flowing back to other conversations happening earlier then catching up with the narrative, there is much going on. 

I still have no idea who the actual antagonist is in this. We have 2 possibilities, plus a dark horse (Dalton, who has a whole subset of things locked up in his mind). We have an entire narrative on whether or not the initiates are actually Gods of some sort because of their powers. We have entire conversations about alternate universes (or Quantum realities if you prefer), and whether you could insert yourself into one, or even create your own universe. 

On a much less lofty note, we end with a same gendered kiss between a couple I'd assumed were together, so ya know...

I'm unsure if the author is going for a trilogy or an ongoing series. Either way, I'm curious what direction this is going in next.

Another take on Dark Academia

 So, I'm not quite sure how I found Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House, but I'm really happy I did. 

The general premise here is that the secret societies (Houses) of Yale (Skull and Bones, Manuscript, etc) all have access to various schools of magic, with Lethe being the society designated to keep an eye on the Ancient Eight to prevent magical problems. 

Lethe involves about 5 titles, Virgil, Dante, Centurion, Oculus, and Dean, plus a society of alumni we don't really meet. Alex (aka Galaxy) is our Dante, newly initiated into the House, under the guidance of Darlington, her Virgil, who was the prior Dante. Dawes in the Oculus, a grad student who spends most of her time researching and crushing on Darlinton. The Centurion, Turner, works for the New Haven Police. 

Alex was chosen for the position of Dante by Dean Virgil, who found out she can see ghosts ("Greys" or "Quiet Ones") without the aid of a rather poisonous magical potion. That she was a street rat in Cali before getting uprooted to Ivy League Connecticut makes her life more difficult. 

Anyway, as we jump between Fall and Winter, we see Alex and Darlington supervise other House's rituals, prior to Darlington getting sucked into a portal. We watch as Alex undertakes an investigation against the wishes of the Dean into the death of a drug dealing townie that interrupted a Bones rite involving reading the entrails of a live victim. We watch as she violates a few rules in the name of solving a murder of someone no one on campus cared about. 

It's a really engaging read I couldn't put down easily. While I did figure out a few twists ahead of time, there were plenty of other surprises lurking behind the doors. I can't wait for the next volume.

What not to read while dealing with an estate

 I ordered Grady Hendrix's How To Sell A Haunted House because I enjoy his fiction. Unfortunately, some of the subject matter cut a little close to the bone, which made getting through the first third a bit rough. 

We have Louise Joyner as our focus character, whom we meet right as she announces her pregnancy to her parents. She gives birth to Poppy, and five years later, both her parents die in a car accident. Which means going back to Charleston and dealing with her brother Mark. 

So, like I said, the first 1/3 of the book involves them trying to deal with funeral arrangements, dealing with the extended family, and the quite natural pettiness the two exhibit towards each other. I mean I could only aspire to the levels of just sheer petty these two get into, as we find out that since Mom died after Dad by a few minutes, her wishes get honored. Which means the estate goes to Mark, while Louise gets all of her art.(Like I said, this was touching my nerves, since, while my situation doesn't exactly mirror this set up, there were a lot of echoes.) 

So, we start getting inklings of what's going on as Mom's odd collections (she was a Christian Puppeteer, collected taxidermy and dolls) seemingly rearrange themselves in the house. Louise blames Mark, right up until the Nativity Squirrels attack. 

And then, oh lord, do things get moving. 

Much of the drama surrounds a puppet that comes off as Dunham's Peanut, only evil instead of dull. Pupkin, one of Mom's first dolls, who evidently inspires his wearers to do things like get people to drown, burn houses down, etc. (There's a few moments of how much of this is unresolved psychological trauma, but as Louise and Mark compare notes at Waffle House, it becomes clear that there's something very real there. Particularly when Pupkin starts attacking them in the house without a hand up his butt.)

Eventually, the extended family comes together to do an exorcism on the demon puppet, which leads into a moment of pure Hendrix, as Mark's atheism gets dismissed ("You're Presbyterian, just like your parents") to a debate on whether or not ghosts are demons. 

While the fantastical elements are well done, I still feel the reconciliation between siblings is the most far fetched thing in here. 

Enjoyable read. Just make sure you're not in a similar set up before reading.