3fer

 So, being lazy and writing one big entry to cover Amber & Ashes, Amber & Iron, and Amber & Blood by Margaret Weis. 

Picking up not long after the end of the War of Souls, the Dark Disciple trilogy follows Mina around after the death of Takhisis, and helps us better understand the little lady who started this great big war. 

We open on Mina being courted by Chemosh, Lord of Death. This doesn't work so well for Krynn, since Chemosh, annoyed by Sargonas trying to rule the Dark Pantheon, wants youthful followers, which means he imbues Mina with the ability to more or less make people of Krynn living vampires. 

One of the first Beloved being Rhys's, a monk of Majere, brother, who kills off the cloister. Rhys is upset by this, and winds up becoming a monk of Zeboim, the sea witch. Who wants him to track down Mina with help from one of the new style Kender who can speak to the dead. 

Eventually, we get wrapped into a plot involving the Hall of Sacrilege (a store room of relics collected by the Kingpriest of Ishtar) that's been buried under the Blood Sea since the First Cataclysm. Given it's an old Tower of Magic, Everyone is surprised to find ot Nuitari has restored it and plans on moving the Black Robes in, in exchange for giving his brother and sister towers of their own. 

Mina, as an offering to Chemosh, raises the tower out of the sea. Which leads to Majere revealing to the remaining pantheon exactly who and what Mina is. 

Seems ol' Mina is actually the love child of Paladine and Mishakel, who was hidden from Krynn to prevent ruining the balance. Which leads Rhys and Nightshade and Atta (the dog) to try to get Mina to Godshome. 

While the books are a bit far fetched, even for the RPG genre, it's a lot of fun to see the Krynnish pantheon act like Greek deities, squabbling over everything and getting to know them a bit more closely than what we've had in the past series. It's also fun seeing how people who worship one god in particular also leave offerings for others gods just to cover bases. 

Fun reading, if not quite as epic as other stories in teh series.

Krynn in the NEW New Age

 Finished Dragons of the Vanished Moon by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis in the comfort of my own recliner this afternoon. 

One thing I found myself pondering, and unless they release another Annotated version, I'll likely never know, is if this on is again drawing from Mr. Hickman's Mormon root and giving us a parable of maybe Revelation. 

As we found out at the end of the last volume, The One God is really Takhisis, who used the reshaping of the D&D multiverse at the end of 2nd Edition to move it somewhere else, right around the time Chaos got banished. 

We open on Mina and her Queen sort of killing Palin and Dalamar. Sort of, because their spirits remain attached to the bodies, which now amble around. Tasslehoff and Conundrum manage to use the Device of Time Journeying to go back, and wind up in Krynn's actual past, meeting such folks as Huma, before winding up in Sanction after Raistlin's arrival, and then springing forward. We find out this is a plot by both the soul of Raistlin himself and the missing 20 Gods currently trying to figure out where Krynn ran off to. 

And it gets ugly. Malys, the great red dragon over;lord dies, the Qualinesti and Silvanesti join together, just in time for the minotaurs to invade Silvaneti territory...Tasslehoff, ends up grabbing Odylia and Gerard and taking them to where the dragons of good are trapped, freeing them in time to save the elves from destruction by Ogre. 

And then, in Sanction we watch how the old Gods return yet again and the fates thereof.

There is one main trilogy that follows this one (I ordered copies, but they aren't here yet), and it was insteresting how many of the problems in there are foreshadowed here. Galdar tries to get Mina to see the people worship and love her, not Takhisis. Similar problems arise in the next trilogy. 

I remembered more or less how this one ended, but there's a hell of a lot of pathos and tragedy in the closing moments. A much better read than what I remember.

Oh, so that's what's going on.

 Finished Dragons of a Lost Star (book 2 of the War of Souls trilogy) today, and it's improved over my memory of my last reading of it. 

We open on the great green dragon Beryl attacking the Citadel of Light, where Palin and Tasslehoff wind up walking off the silver staircase and somehow ending up in Dalamar's tower, which had been in Palanthis, but now floats around Wayreth. (Don't ask. Krynn's physics are nuts.) Palin and Dalamar want Tasslehoff to go back and get stepped on. Tasslehoff doesn't like this, and escapes through a chimney.

Mina and her army are on the move, and taking over Solamnic strongholds. 

Qualinesti falls, but takes Beryl with it. 

Goldmoon, following a river of the dead (who are sucking everyone's magic), winds up in Solanthus, the meeting her former pupil Mina at Dalamar's tower, where (spoiler alert for a 2 decade old book) we find out the One God of Mina is actually Takhesis. 

Now the fun part here is, having read this when it came out, I noticed all the lovely foreshadowing on this read through, which made me very happy. Doesn't change that the timeline on Krynn is FUBAR.

Krynn in the new age

 As a bit of explanation, spent the past week moving, which has curtailed my time to do things, like write reviews on here. 

Dragons of a Fallen Sun picks up roughly 30 years after Dragons of the Summer Flame, in what was referred to as the Fifth Age. (As I gather, the sales of this era were horrid. That they introduced a whole new set of rules to accompany the setting following the departure of the Gods didn't help.)We open on a bit of setting, as we learn the Knights of Neraka (formerly the Knights of Takhesis) now occupy a bunch of land that used to belong to the "good" races, while the Solamnic Knights now occupy some of the "bad areas". Silvanesti is under a magical dome, Qualinesti is occupied. Into this, Tasslehoff Burrfoot (last seen dying under the heel of Chaos [or sitting by a forge with Flint in the afterlife]) warps in, having used the Device of Time Travel to come forward for Caramon's funeral. 

Which, along with the appearance of Mina (think Joan d'Arc, with a shaved head and amber eyes and healing unseen in the Fifth Age) sets the plot in motion. Mina starts by taking over a division of Knights in the name of the One True God, and leads them on a few really campaigns to take ground the Knights of Neraka have coveted, gaining converts among everyone she encounters, including Silvanoshi, King of Silvanost, son of Porthos and Alhana. 

In the mean time, Tasslehoff is running around finding the survivors of the War of the Lance, including Goldmoon, Laurana, and Jenna. (Palin, son of Caramon, accompanies him, as does Solamnic Gerard.) With magic fading, Palin tries to the use the device to go back in time, only to find there is no past before Chaos was banished. 

Goldmoon has been restored to her youth. She's also beginning to find out the dead have not moved on, and indeed are eating magic. Beryl, a big dragon is coming to destroy everything. 

There's a lot more politicking in here than in previous volumes, and it's obvious that the authors have been writing together for a very long time. It's also fairly easy to construe this book, and really, the series as a whole as an apology for Summer Flame. Having last read this as it released, I know most of the surprises coming up later on, but I still found myself sucked back in wondering how this is all going to work out in the end. 

Really well written. 

It's too damn hot

Much as I remember hating Dragons of Summer Flame by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman the one and only time I read it previously, it wasn't nearly as bad the second time around. This doesn't mean I liked it that much, but , much like the previous rereads of other RPG fiction that once annoyed me, it didn't fill me with bitterness this time around. Mostly.

 So, we open on the Drak Paladin order, the Knights of Takhisis, setting ground on the island of the Irda, a long lost race that in prior times were cursed to become Ogres. The Irda are exceptionally xenophobic, and decide to crack the legendary Greygem open to power a shield over their island. (Background here. In game materials, the Dwarven god, Reorx,  was tricked into containing Chaos, father of the Gods in a gem. It managed to to create chaos in its wake, before vanishing into history.) Needless to say, this is a really bad idea, as Chaos is freed and begins his threat to destroy the world of his children. 

Which brings us to some of the Children of the Heroes of the Lance, particularly Palin, son of Tika and Caramon; Steel Brightblade, son of Sturm and Kitiara; and Usha, supposedly the half Irda daughter of Raistlin. Steel is a Knight, Palin is a White Robe wizard. They end up running through the world together after Palin is captured by the Knights. They end up being joined by Tasslehoff and Usha as the book goes on. 

We get minor updates on other surviving Heroes of the Lance, and the return of a supposedly dead Hero, last seen sleeping in the Abyss. 

And, by the end, alomst everyone is dead, Chaos is banished, and Krynn enters a new age without Gods. 

So, I remember half the reason I hated this had to do with the chump death of a fan favorite. It's still annoying. However, I can say with the amount of crap going on in here, it probably would have worked better as a trilogy, rather than as one big long epic, bouncing around between characters we barely get to know and some major plot points we don't get to see.While I understand it was written to revise the ruleset for the setting (the game itself had undergone a few class revisions that were not present in the setting; they also made a whole new system specifically for the so called 5th Age that as near as I can tell flopped like a lead balloon), I also can't help but remember the next trilogy in the setting pretty much retcons the heck out of this book. 

Yeah, for what it is, it's an ok read, but honestly, it has no real audience, since people who don't read fantasy or know about DragonLance won't read it, and most fans of the series will hate it.

The power of 5

 So, today we're reviewing The Quintessential World of Darkness, a collection of 5 novels/novellas/short stories from each of the original 5 World of Darkness games. (Well, sort of.) As such, I'll be looking at each entry as a separate paragraph or so. 

The book opens with Kevin Andrew Murphy's The Lotus of Five Petals, which centers around the Eastern Vampire courts that became their own game somewhere prior to the Revised editions of the mail line games. Interestingly enough, it's the whole reason I bought a used copy of the collection, since this one amused me more than the game ever did. (In theory, Kindred of the East had a very interesting setting and managed to reconcile the main games into one more integrated world. In practice, it tended to turn into vampires doing Jackie Chan or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.) Anyway, this, the only piece of fiction ever published outside of the sourcebook for the setting, tells the tale of Anchalee, knocked up by Minnesota sailor Howard, who gets killed on the streets of Bangkok. She gets her Second Breath (aka becomes a vampire) and gives birth to Howard's baby, who is now a Dhampir. Lady Miao, one of the more enlightened vampires of Bangkok brings Anchalee into her court, where a prophetic game of Mah Jong suggests Howard should come back in the picture. Howard returns, along with his friends Jim and Warren. Lady Miao claims Warren (who is of Chinese decent) as her choice of playmates during the visit, while her female impersonator secretary, Phat Ho, chooses Jim, who, despite being straight, has more than a few Obviously Gay Traits. Howard gets gifted with a blessing from Kwon Yin, and it eventually resolves as best it can. It's very subversive in its humor, and I love it like candy.

The second book, The Silver Crown by Bill Bridges, I actually have as a paperback, and you can find that review here. 

Third is Mister Magick by Edo van Belkom, which concerns the world of Mage. You can tell this one was written fairly early in first edition, since nothing lines up with more detailed pictures as the line evolved. Our main character, Romano, is an Italian-Canadian who escapes Canada to become a big name Vegas magician. He has two enemies, one of whom is a jealous assistant, and another a televangelist. While Romano is supposed to be a Cult of Ecstasy mage, one gets the sense that all he has in common with the Tradition is Time magic. While it's ok, I had a hard time trying to translate the setting with the later much richer metaplot that the game had. 

Next, we come to the world of Wraiths and Rick Hautala's Beyond the Shroud. I'll be honest, Wraith has a really engrossing setting, but the few times I've played, it runs into the issue of every character actually being Psyche and Shadow, which gets confusing easily. This book does a fairly good job of illustrating this world, with David trying to save his living wife and dead daughter from another Wraith with designs on one of Jack the Ripper's blades that's conveniently in possession David's ex-wife's new boyfriend. 

Last, we have the short story The Muse by Jody Lyn Nye. In this one, a Scottish artists finds a fairy muse who wants to return to Arcadia. Nothing really happens where the narrator can see it, so we're left with a guy who loves to draw the lady doing strange things who eventually disappears on Samhaine. 

As you can tell, the fiction within is kind of a mixed bag, and not all of it particularly resembles the source material. But, if you can find a copy, or just want one of the volumes, it will entertain.

The continuing story of a quack that's gone to the dogs

 We return to brooding with P. N. Elrod's I, Strahd: The War With Azalin, in which we continue the previous Strahd volume and hear the vampire's side of the story that was covered in Gene DeWeese's King of the Dead. Our framing story has the fearless Von Richten listening to his regular book dealer in Mordent agree to consignment sell a book with the further journals of Count Strahd of Barovia. 

So, basically, Azalin arrives in Barovia from his kingdom on Oerth. He and Strahd get on like oil and water, but wind up in a codependant relationship, as both need each other to try to escape the mists. There's also a Vistani prophecy concerning Azalin's arrival, leading to Strahd working more carefully than normal for the years Azalin is trapped in the domain. 

While the "War" is a bit of a misnomer (the only open battle is a big skirmish during a point when Barovia and Darkon shared a border; most of it is married couple bickering between a vampire and a lich), it remains fun reading. Particularly since unlike Azalin, who knows exactly why and how he's being punished, and understands that he could end it at any time, Strahd is fairly circumspect about what's going on in his domain. He understands that additions occasionally crop up on his borders, and everyone begins to forget that they didn't used to be there, but he has no real awareness of exactly what is going on. 

While not as fun as the first vampire confessional, it remains engaging.

On the other side of the proscenium

 I preordered Chita: A Memoir by Chita Rivera with Patrick Pacheco as soon as I found out about it. For those unaware, I've had a great love of Chita since seeing her perform at the Tony's for Kiss of the Spider Woman. This was followed by getting to see her live twice, first on the last preview of The Visit, and later her One Woman show at Carnegie Hall, which also marks when I converted my husband to the Church of Chita. As I've read different Broadway histories and biographies of the stars, she turns up in quite a few places, and it's absolutely wonderful to get the stories in her own words. 

As should  probably be expected, she opens with West Side Story, where she originated the role of Anita, Bernardo's girlfriend. We hear of auditioning at Leonard Bernstein's apartment with Steven Sondheim on piano, and how they taught the role to her as they were writing it, and the sheer joy of getting costumed for the "Mambo" number where Tony meets Maria. We hear of the touches she added to it (things like only wearing one earring, and learning to not show off the dress with flourishes until the time is right, and how even now, she sees men of all shapes and sizes walking through Hell's Kitchen and Midtown wearing her dress, and how she always wants to give them the advice her costumer gave her when she got the dress. 

Then we go back to her family and growing up in DC, and how she got enrolled in ballet school after breaking her mother's coffee table. (There are a few sad moments in here; by far the one that his me hardest was when her mother sold her father's clarinet and tenor sax to pay bills after he died.) 

From there, we hear of her getting a scholarship to the American Ballet Academy in New York City, and living with her Aunt and Uncle in the city. While she trained in classical ballet, she also fell in love with modern dance, and wound up accompanying a friend to an audition for a touring show, which Chita ended up getting in. (Call Me Madam which had Ethyl Merman on Broadway, and Elaine Stritch on tour.) 

From there, it's a whirlwind of tours until West Side Story, and then on to other shows, Los Angeles, and Italy. She had a daughter named Lisa with her husband (a Jet in West Side Story)...

So many stories. We hear of a performance for the Queen where she met Judy Garland for the first time (along with John, Paul, George, and Ringo. There's actually a really sad tale in here about John calling for Judy to show her wrists; seems Judy had likely tried to kill herself prior to the show.) 

We hear about her affair with Sammy Davis Jr. during the run of Mr. Wonderful.

We hear tales of Fosse and Verdon, of Liza, of Paul Lynde and Dick Van Dyke, and we hear both the good and the bad and the love she feels for all of them, and her love for the creatives behind the shows. 

We hear of her doing cabaret shows during the hiatus of Chicago when Fosse had a heart attack, and how she, like a lot of up and coming and come back artists were performing at gay clubs and bath houses. We relive the bad part of every Broadway history, the early 80's when Broadway literally died. 

The last two chapters deal with Kiss of the Spider Woman and The Visit and the sadness involved in the death of Roger Rees during the run of the latter. 

There are so many other things I could add here, but honestly, I'll suggest everyone get a copy and read it. There's a reason Lin-Manuel Miranda calls her out as a legend in In The Heights. This was worth every penny I paid too get it at release.

The great granddaddy of them all

 So, one of the biggest releases in the Ravenloft line (I think it was the only one released in  Hardcover), and I can now say I've read it 30 years after the fact. 

I, Strahd by P. N. Elrod covers the Dark Lord himself, Strahd, and explains his life story in his own words. (There's a nifty framing device where Van Richten sneaks into Castle Ravenloft and reads Strahd's folio of recollections on Eternity.) 

And what do you know? It's actually both well written and entertaining and not wholesale ripping off other works for plot points!

We hear about it all. Strahd's conquest of the castle from a bad Baron, his brother the Paladin who fell in love with Tatyana, only to have Strahd kill him to make Tatyana love him instead, his deal with the Dark Powers that turned him into a vampire, the greedy soldier who slaughters almost everyone in the castle on the day of Sergei and Tatyana's wedding. We see Strahd bind the land to him, thus causing the mists to encroach...

Oh so much. And so juicy to read. While I assume Elrod had canon that had to be included/not changed for plot purposes, they do a great job keeping the sound of dice rolling in the background out of the plot, fleshing out a character who isn't exactly an anti-hero, but for whom evil is a way of life. 

Honestly, as much as I've avoided this one for a few decades (I thought there were more interesting Dark Lords; the only other P. N. Elrod book I ever tried reading I couldn't get in to), I kind of wish I had read it in release.

Finishing up

 I had hoped Planar Powers by J. Robert King would finish out the Blood Wars trilogy in a readable style, but sadly, it was not to be. 

Let's start with Aereas. As we found out through the last book, he's now a disembodied spirit working as a Judge-Excecutioner for the Lady of Pain. However, now he has a closet, a cantrip allowing him to shrink people and things. Which he uses to smuggle condemned prisoners out of the torture/execution rooms and create a world as The Closet Lord. 

Nina, on the other hand, is living in Celestia with Phaeton, as well as Aereas's kid Tara and Nina's son Aegis. The Devas aren't happy to have lesser beings among them, so we get a rehash of Milton as everyone gets kicked out of heaven. 

We also have Leonin, last seen standing in the Beastlands waiting on Nina to return, now realizing he's missing his ribs and picking up a hag and passing through the machine realm. (Which includes a parody of a Disney song that actually made me laugh. And we get a side story (a few paragraphs after every chapter) discussing the disposition of the door in Boffo's shop that opens on a Prime Material world. 

While this was the most cohesive of the series, it's also really really deeply...flakey? I mean, the wonder I felt reading the setting is nowhere to be found anywhere in the trilogy. Even the war the trilogy is named after really had nothing to do with much of anything in the series. 

While I'm not sorry about reading it, I don't think it rates a reread any time in the near future.