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.

Hogwarts After Dark

 I'm evidently behind the curve on reading Olivie Blake's The Atlas Six, but I'm happy I caught up. 

We're in a world on a similar trajectory of history as the world we live in, but magic is a real thing here, with roughly 15% of the population having some kind of magical powers. (My math may be off here. Point being, it's not so rare as to be unheard of, but rare enough a vast majority of the population has no magic.) As we open, six major practitioners are invited to join the Alexandrian Society, which is presented as the original Library of Alexandria, now protected by the best of the best. Once a decade, the library will select 6 to join for a year, 5 will be initiated for a second year, after which they're allowed to return to their life or join fully. 

In this, we get Libby and Nico, two physical mages who just graduated from NYUMA as co valedictorians; Raina, who is both a battery and a plant master; Parisa, a telepath; Callum, an empath; and Tristan, an illusionist who can see through illusions. 

Each has several layers of outside baggage we get occasional in depth peeks at. In particular, Nico has a friend/lover who is the son of a mermaid and a fawn. Tristan's father is a criminal witch, Libby has a mundane boyfriend. Which all seem to matter less as they bond, even after finding out that the reason 5 get initiated is they're expected to sacrifice one of their own. 

In many ways, it's a grown up Hogwarts (most of the characters could be considered Pansexual; while none of it is presented in steamy terms, gender doesn't seem to matter to most of them as they begin to hook up), but rather than having a specific outside villain, we never are quite sure who could be considered the embodiment of the antagonist. While we end with a much clearer picture of whom is probably a bad guy, we really don't end knowing exactly who is moving which pieces and why. By the time I reached the last page, I had multiple possibilities swirling through my head as to how I think the story should progress, which I won't go into here, since there would be spoilers....)

Really well written and fun, since you spend most of the book both loving and hating the central six. I am looking forward to the next book, just to see what happens next.

Crecesnt Lake memories

 So, Mercedes Lackey finally finished book two of her Founding of Valdemar series, which was really a lot of fun.

Into the West picks up not long after the last book ended, with all of the Duchy of Valdemar that wanted to escape the Empire living on a lake far west of the Empire. We're again focused on Kordas and Delia, as they work to make their way west for the lake, looking for the perfect place to establish a kingdom. 

On one hand, we see Delia becoming more independent of Kordas, whom she spent the first book mooning over, just as we see Kordas doing his best to do right in the situation he has brought his people in to. On the other hand, given how many of these books end with a lifebond or a romance, I remain worried Kordas's wife will die/leave him and he'll wind up with Delia by the end of it. 

Any rate, the story is well presented, resolving several problems from the first volume, while introducing the problems of people from a highly advanced society giving up things and starting over. We encounter a really fun carnivorous forest, and encounter the Talydras.

Really enjoying this one. Kind of hoping a continuation comes sooner than later.

Figaro

 I'll admit, I was predisposed to dislike Darcy Coates' Gallows Hill early on, as the narrator referred to her parents television from 1997 as an antique. While it did improve, it's not particularly among the best horror fiction I've ever read. (Once again, Goodreads lied.)

We spend the book following around the recently orphaned Margot Hall as she returns to her ancestral home on Gallows Hill following the death of her parents. What we know at the outset is that her parents sent her to live with her Grandmother at the tender age of eight, and she has no memories of her parents. Her parents died the same night or heart attacks in bed, their faces frozen in a rictus of fear. As the sole child, she now owns the cursed Winery of Gallows Hill,. built on a hill that stood in for the local gallows until the town incorporated. 

Most of the non seasonal workers live on site. 

Her first night, Margot gets awakened by what she assumes are service bells, and is convinced someone is in the house with her. She finds a tape with her name on it that has a puppet show her parents made talking about the family outside who don't like her. 

From there, we find out that indeed, the dead of Gallows Hill roam the grounds at night, and are prone to attacking people outside, or even breaking in to houses to get at the living. 

Fairly standard, right down to the curse. 

While the writing is actually pretty good, my problem came in with the fact I figured out the cause of the curse fairly early on, the logical issues with everyone just accepting zombies are something you get used to, and the absolute silliness of the finale. 

I mean, it's fun for spooky reading, but ultimately as forgettable as the long dead hanged men's names.

You enter a tavern and cast magic missle at the darkness

 In another Goodreads selection, I finished Slaying the Dragon by Ben Riggs today on lunch. 

As compared to last week's, this one was a lot better.

Mr. Riggs, who does geeky journalism, has basically gone and written a story to TSR from its inception to the buyout by Wizards of the Coast; which is very interesting, with a few drawbacks, which we'll come to. 

Now, much of what he reports is known, like Gary Gygax founding TSR in his Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, basement, and the general growth and domination of the RPG marketplace. We hear about the hiring of various talents, and how people were paid. I finally found out what the heck the entire D&D vs AD&D was. (I think my first D&D campaign was in 1980. Much of this would have gone over my head at the time.) We hear about Gary Gygax losing control of the company to Lorraine Williams. We hear of the highs of sales, and the novel department. And we watch as two California expansions crash and burn, and finally find out how the financials were crashing and why no one really knew. We learn of talent developed and alienated.

Frankly, accounting isn't my strong point, so much of the later discussions on why TSR nearly went bankrupt went over my head, but he does an OK job of explaining what was going on, particularly in the 90's when many of the geek industry (comics, RPGs) went into a major slump. (Something about the contract with Random House meaning they would get loans on royalties for everything shipped to them. Having financial issues? Over print and ship more than you'll ever sell, then collect the money. Which works well, until the sales slump, everything gets returned, and suddenly you owe the distributor more than you ever going to be able to pay. And it worked ok, particularly during the Reagan era.) We hear about Williams, who own the rights to Buck Rogers, trying as hard as she could to get any sort of game/novel/comic done with a character she owned. We hear of TSR managing to screw themselves by deciding to compete against DC comics, who had happily been publishing D&D comics prior to TSR deciding to make comic modules. 

So, there are a few problems, which he does his best to work around. The biggest one is that Williams declined to be interviewed, and Gygax died before he got started on the book. This means we're missing input from two very major people around whom this all revolves. The other problem is that the prose goes beyond purple into magenta at a few points. However, Riggs obviously loves the game as much as the rest of the player base, and that love shines through the entire book. There are conclusions he reports from WotC that while I see what they're saying based on the numbers (basically, the conclusion they came to from the sales numbers was that multiple settings are competing against each other, and a generic rule book sells better than a specific setting book, and therefore games are turning their noses up at an setting which isn't their very specific favorite...), in my experience, while I may not like certain settings, there are a few I love, but like every other gamer, finding a group to play with and choosing a setting tends to influence what I'm inclined to buy. 

By far the best parts of the books are when his love of the game is front and center, discussing different settings, authors, artists, and designer, and making me want to go look up the evidently really bad video on how to play DragonQuest. Or Riggs waxing poetic about the really underrated Planescape setting. I was sad to read that most people used SpellJammer as a was to switch settings in a hurry, since the whole setting was so much MORE than that. 

I'm also happy he cut off with the production of 3rd Edition, and the less said about DragonLance 5th Age and the SAGA rules, the better. 

IF you're a gamer, it's worth a read. You won't find the whole story here, but you'll at least get a fairly good rendition of one.

Not so much Bad Gays as Bad History

 So, while the end of November and all of December was rereads, I started off the New Year with a bit of non fiction courtesy of Goodreads.com's best of 2022 lists.

Unfortunately, the book that starts off 2022 is Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller. Which is not to say the book itself is bad, but it has some fairly major issues.More on that in a minute. 

The format is little mini-biographies of famous gay people who are considered bad using the authors' politics. 13 chapters, one lesbian, and a few chapters discussing 2 or more figures from the same period. 

Things get off to a bad start with the first biography, discussing Emperor Hadrian and his lover Antonius. Now, I can point to three different sources that give three different stories of how Antonius ended up taking a permanent bath in the Nile. To label Hadrian as a Bad Gay, they state as gospel that Antonius was sacrificed by Hadrian to preserve his youth. (Honestly, and this is my personal opinion, I'd guess the two had been drinking heavily and someone stumbled. I can't prove it, but no one else can disprove it either. Although the original version I heard was that Antonius drowned himself to keep from losing his looks.) 

At any rate, this is a springboard for their entire premise that Bad Gays are ones who are Imperialists, Colonizers, or support right wing ideology. Which, ok, I can sort of agree with that, but in a few chapters, the person they're supposedly discussing only shows up in a few sentences, while we get diatribes on how higher class gays could get away with buggery, while the proles would be imprisoned or executed. Which....sort of? Depends on who's running the moral panic in each age. And frankly, listing James VI and I, but not his descendants kind of misses some really bad gays. Not that Cromwell really won any awards....

Then there's the whole chapter on Weimar Republic gays, where they assert that the left wing had absolutely nothing to do with the problems in the republic. Um, yeah. 

While I understand that the authors are both European and likely Democratic Socialists, there's a hell of a lot of what reminded me of Adam's reaction to Fortean Magazine in Good Omens. Just assume the reader will swallow it whole without argument. 

I mean, I do agree with their more modern chapters discussing gays of privilege getting what they want then saying screw you to the lesser gays (this book is a great example of this ) however, idealism doesn't put food on the table. And you may bitch about capitalism (I think we all do), but short of going completely ascetic, there's no real way to survive without finding a way to exist in the system. (Seriously. The last chapter, dealing with Pim Fortuyn, spends a lot of time talking about how by letting the movement focus on things like marriage and joining the military really cut a lot of people out who were suffering from AIDS. While I can't speak to European laws, legal marriage here in the states is basically shorthand for bypassing a bunch of legal paperwork.) 

Oh and the whole Philip Johnson chapter. Yeah, based on what he did, he is a BAD GAY, but while they claim some of his badness is taking Modern Architecture from Utilitarian and Proletarian to something just for the elites, they don't blame him nearly enough for unleashing the abortion that is Modern architecture on an unsuspecting world.   

So, while they book did have some high points, (like T. E. Lawrence, who evidently spent much of his later years being a land bound Billy Budd), the cardinal sins of not exactly being profiles of the people they're discussing, never really proving their points, and inserting opinion as fact really makes me not want to recommend this book. Or if I did, suggest people dig through their bibliography and get a fuller story.