Well, I now have it: The Gathering Storm, book 12 of the Wheel of Time, and the third-last volume in the tale. The book was partly written by Robert Jordan, and completed by Brandon Sanderson. Over (hopefully) the next two years, the remainder of the tale will be released and we will finally have the Wheel of Time in its entirety. It’s been a long … Continue reading The Gathering Storm – The Wheel of Time
I finally managed to get around to reading The Light of Burning Shadows by Chris Evans on the trip to Melbourne on Thursday. Yes, a book I ordered especially in from Amazon/America because I wasn’t sure if I could get it yet in Ballarat, which had been sitting on my bedside table for a couple of weeks as I kept finding myself otherwise occupied. Go figure. … Continue reading The Light of Burning Shadows – a review
“You don’t just put in a race of shapeshifters then ignore the tension of people wondering if someone they know has been replaced. That would just be irresponsible.” – Brandon Sanderson I’ve had a good time reading books recently. The big ones have been by Brandon Sanderson (designated heir of Robert Jordan): Elantris, and then the Mistborn trilogy. Elantris had something of a messy ending, … Continue reading A few thoughts on some fantasy books
I’ve just spent some of my lunch hour reading through Tim "Shroomy" Eagon’s just-published Dungeon Magazine adventure, "The Oasis of the Golden Peacock". Did I enjoy it? Yes, I did. What we have is a vaguely-Arabian Nights themed adventure (although, in this one, the beautiful princess seems to be kidnapping the scholar) with a number of really great links to the world of eladrin and the … Continue reading The Oasis of the Golden Peacock (preliminary review)
Last Friday, our copies of the Dr Horrible’s Sing-along Blog DVDs arrived courtesy of Adam. (And the CDs, for those of us who are huge Joss fans; that means Adam, Sarah and me). I haven’t listened to the regular commentary yet, but I certainly have to Commentary: the Musical! You’ve got to hand it to him: Joss is one twisted individual. There’s actually more music … Continue reading Commentary: the Musical!
At present, I’m running one of my groups through the H series of Wizards adventures; we’re about half-way through H2 at present. To some extent, I think the adventures published for a game display the feel of that game far more than the core rulebooks do. When I think about AD&D, it’s not really the rules that I concentrate on: it’s the early adventures. T1-4, … Continue reading Thoughts on Wizards’ 4e adventures
I’m back writing RPG reviews. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep doing them (writing reviews I find pretty draining), but for those who are interested, I’ve completed the following in the last few weeks: Castle Zagyg: the Upper Works (C&C) H1 Keep on the Shadowfell (D&D 4E) H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth (D&D 4E) Dungeon Master’s Screen (D&D 4E) Lands of Darkness #1: The … Continue reading Reviews!
Once upon a time, I thought the 1st edition DMG was a great book. It’s something that is still espoused by its fans on the ‘net. However, I’ve got to say that my appreciation of it is dimming, partly from the fact that I actually have read the book many, many times in the past few years. It’s not something that I just remember from … Continue reading The AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide
One of the Castles & Crusades products I was waiting for came yesterday: Engineering Dungeons. It’s a guide to building dungeons for C&C, primarily by random generation. I find it fairly disappointing; it fails to add much to the established material on dungeon-building (as found primarily in the 1e DMG and the 3e DMG), and indeed lacks certain areas that I would have found essential for … Continue reading Too many commas!
Well, Yggsburgh and Dark Chateau arrived in the mail yesterday. Yggsburgh is not what I was expecting. A little history: Gary Gygax invented D&D, and his campaign was all around Castle Greyhawk and the Free City of Greyhawk. Unfortunately, he was kicked out of TSR in 1985 or thereabouts, and much of his Greyhawk designs never saw print. Eventually, due to the d20 System and … Continue reading Yggsburgh
