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Pavis – Gateway to Adventure: The Classic RPG City is Back! (Part Two)

Pavis – Gateway to Adventure: The Classic RPG City is Back! (Part Two)

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pavis_coverLast week I began my review of Pavis – Gateway to Adventure, the new RPG supplement from Moon Design Publications for its HeroQuest roleplaying game in the fantasy world of Glorantha, with a bit of history of this greatest of RPG cities, and an overview of what this massive new book contains. This week, I’d like to look at the book’s content in far more detail, with a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of just what you get in its 416 pages.

Chapter by Chapter

To begin with, the book’s cover is a nice full colour painting depicting a priest of the cult of Pavis, the city god, atop the ziggurat-like temple of Pavis in the new city, facing east over assembled city-folk and worshippers as the sun rises. In contrast to the green and earth tones of the previous two Sartar books, the cover is predominantly pinks, purples, and greys, emphasizing the hazy, desert-like environment of the city. It gives a feel for the predominance of religion – and religious intrigue – in the city.

After credits, contents, and introduction sections, the book launches straight into “Making Your Character”. If you have Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, you’ll know what to expect here; except that in addition to the Sartarite settlers of Pavis County, there are also HeroQuest keywords and character creation guidelines for Old Pavisites, Sun Domers, Zola Fel Riverfolk, and even Lunar Settlers.

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When The Hero Comes Home: A Review

When The Hero Comes Home: A Review

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When the Hero Comes HomeWhen the Hero Comes Home is an anthology from Dragon Moon Press co-edited by Garbielle Harbowy and Ed Greenwood. It’s a surprisingly thin book, given that it holds nineten stories by twenty writers (including two Black Gate contributors, Peadar Ó Guilín and Jay Lake, in collaboration with Shannon Page). Its theme is exactly what it says: the homecoming. The point where the story usually ends. I have some reservations about how the book turned out, but the idea’s intriguing: what do you find when you make it back to where you began? Has the place changed, or have you?

One thinks of Odysseus’ return to Ithaca, or of Frodo’s discovery of what’s happened to the Shire. The conclusion of the story that sums up the themes of all that’s gone before. The last unexpected twist, the discovery that heightens emotion and gives the protagonist one final conflict. Arthur Miller said that every great play has to do with the question “how may a man make of the outside world a home?” But what, ultimately, is home? How do we recognise it?

Not all of the stories in When the Hero Comes Home have these kinds of questions on their minds. Overall, though, the tales do tend to examine the idea of ‘home,’ rather more than they do the idea of ‘hero.’ Then again, the existence of a hero, however defined, is inherent in the theme; it’s the nature of the home that implicitly has to be established. So: these are stories about fairly unambiguous heroes, finding that things at home are more complicated, and often more disappointing, than they’d thought.

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Quoth The Raven: “Nevermind”

Quoth The Raven: “Nevermind”

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the_raven_posterThe Raven (2012)
Directed by James McTeigue. Starring John Cusack, Alice Eve, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Luke Evans, Brendan Gleeson, Kevin McNally.

This is more of a funeral oration than a review: The Raven flew right into a car windshield this weekend and failed to crack either the windshield or the top five at the U.S. box office, instead pulling in a sad $7.2 million to flop down at seventh place. This coming weekend, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes will tread it into dust, from where its spirit will be lifted “nevermore.”

And that’s fine, because The Raven is a sad sack of a film. It’s bad, but instead of feeling resentful of the filmmakers, you feel bummed that their good intentions and concepts never gelled — and they were apparently quite aware of it. The Raven knows it isn’t good, and that’s the saddest part.

For a great U.S. author inexpensively reachable in the public domain, Edgar Allan Poe has always posed a puzzle for feature-length filmmakers. Poe predominantly wrote short stories and poetry (producing only one novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, which I always thought sounded like the start of a dirty limerick), and his tight construction and “unity of effect” philosophy of writing makes his work difficult to translate into a length of ninety minutes or more. Short stories often make superb material for feature films – the form is closer to narrative movies than the novel is – but Poe helped define the form with an economy of story, time, and place beyond the call of duty. When this combines with the intricacy and detail of Poe’s language, it puts any screen adaptors in a tough position. Most films with Edgar Allan Poe’s name in the credits are more homages to his work than straight adaptations.

The Raven, the third major film to carry the title of Poe’s most famous poem, takes the “loose inspiration” tactic, mixing the concept of previous fictionalized biopics like Kafka (1991) and Hammett (1982), where the author plays the part of the hero within a story similar to those he writes. However, I doubt either Steven Sorderberg or Wim Wenders were on the producers’ minds. They were probably thinking of the success of the recent Sherlock Holmes films and all the serial killer movies to come in the wake of The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en.

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Rich Horton Reviews Fox and Phoenix by Beth Bernobich

Rich Horton Reviews Fox and Phoenix by Beth Bernobich

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fox-and-phoenixFox and Phoenix
Beth Bernobich
Viking ( $17.99, hc, 368 pages, October 2011)
Reviewed by Rich Horton

A few years ago Beth Bernobich published a delightful YA novelette called “Pig, Crane, Fox: Three Hearts Unfolding” in Steve Berman’s anthology Magic in the Mirrorstone. Now her first YA novel has appeared, a sequel to the earlier story. It’s also very nice, another benchmark in an evolving career that may become something quite special if Bernobich keeps doing work as interesting as she has done to date.

In “Pig, Crane, Fox” the main protagonist, Kai, is a boy working in his Mother’s magic shop. He (as with most people in his milieu) has a spirit companion, the pig Chen. He and his friends regard themselves as pretty streetwise – and maybe they are, to some extent. Then they get involved with the Princess Lian, as her father, ruler of their city-state, establishes a contest for her hand. Kai is mature enough to ask instead for Lian to be granted her real wish – to study at the major university in the Phoenix Empire.

The setting is explicitly Chinese-derived, though not in any recognizable China. It’s quite fantastical in nature – magic is everywhere – but with a distinctly Science-Fictional attitude informing things, such as the way magic is used. That setting, that mix of SF and Fantasy (a characteristic of much of Bernobich’s work, in different ways) was a big part of the attraction of the story, but so were the well-realized characters.

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Art of the Genre: Review, Paizo’s Dragon Empires!

Art of the Genre: Review, Paizo’s Dragon Empires!

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pzo9240_500I’m sure I’ve mentioned TSR’s Oriental Adventures on more than one occasion from my soap box of a blog. This book is the only 1E D&D book I have with water damage because the day I bought it I was so enthralled that I thought I could take a bath while reading it [bad idea].

Anyway, from that moment forward I was deathly intrigued by the Orient, be it Kara-Tur in the Forgotten Realms, the T’ung in my home brew world, the non-magic stage of feudal Japan in Bushido, or of course the realms of Rokugan in Legend of the Five Rings.

Three weeks ago, as my six-year old son broke apart a flex pole tent system and began using it as a weapon, I had the pleasure of showing him firsthand what a three piece staff looked like in the Oriental Adventures book, making it also a fine teaching tool as well as a gaming supplement.

Therefore, you can well imagine my unchecked delight to find that Paizo was not only producing two source books for their Pathfinder system concerning the Orient in Golarion, but also a full Adventure Path that dealt with the region.

In this article I’m going to talk a bit about three outstanding products newly released in the past six months from Paizo concerning their Dragon Empires setting.
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33 Years to Immortality. Maybe.

33 Years to Immortality. Maybe.

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singularity-coverIn 2045 we will reach Event Horizon, aka the Singularity. In that year we will transcend biology and our bodies will meld with machines. “There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality,” predicts author Ray Kurzweil in his 2005 treatise The Singularity is Near.

Though it built computer intelligence, humanity will be surpassed by its creation. Powered by artificial intelligence, machines will design their next generation without human intervention, growing exponentially beyond all human potential. These machines will not only be smart, but indistinguishable from humans. Writes Kurzweil: “Within several decades information-based technologies will encompass all human knowledge and proficiency, ultimately including the pattern-recognition powers, problem-solving skills, and emotional and moral intelligence of the human brain itself.”

Kurzweil’s predictions of the Singularity are optimistic: Rather than being reduced to ineffectual dinosaurs headed for slow extinction, or wiped out in some Terminator-like rise of the machines, we will merge with technology, and our bodies will no longer be subject to disease and weakness and age. “We can expect that the full realization of the biotechnology and nanotechnology revolutions will enable us to eliminate virtually all medical causes of death,” writes Kurzweil.

So 33 years until immortality. But what sort of a life will we lead in this Brave New World of man-machine perfection?

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Michaele Jordan Reviews The Dead of Winter

Michaele Jordan Reviews The Dead of Winter

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dead-of-winterThe Dead of Winter

Chris Priestley

Bloomsbury USA Childrens (215 pp, $16.99 hardcover, January 31, 2012)

Reviewed by Michaele Jordan

First and foremost, the reader needs to know that The Dead of Winter is a traditional ghost story. If you are looking for a modern view point or a cross-genre twist, this is not the book for you. It cleaves to Gothic imagery and draws on many classic antecedents.

It is set in the Victorian era; the year is not specified, but the setting makes it plain. Like many earlier works, it is presented as the journal of a first person narrator, told from a distant future, and opening with a solemn assertion that the contents of the book are entirely true, little as the reader may be inclined to believe them. Preface aside, Priestley draws on a Dickensian model to provide the young protagonist so necessary to a children’s book.

The story opens with Michael Vyner at his mother’s funeral. He is now an orphan, as his father has been dead for years. In fact, the father—an army man—died heroically, saving the life of his superior officer, Sir Stephen Clarendon. Sir Stephen has always been grateful, but Michael’s mother was too proud to accept much assistance, so Michael has never met the man his father died to save or even been encouraged to take pride in his father’s courageous sacrifice.

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Pavis – Gateway to Adventure: The Classic RPG City is Back! (Part One)

Pavis – Gateway to Adventure: The Classic RPG City is Back! (Part One)

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Pavis Gateway to Adventure-smallWow. This is a big book. I mean, seriously big. It’s 420 pages of letter-sized softback, absolutely crammed with information about one of the most famous cities in fantasy roleplaying – Pavis, City of Thieves, Gateway to Adventure.

Let me be frank: I’m a fan. I have been ever since Pavis first saw the light of day back in 1983. And, since this freshly published brand new supplement for the HeroQuest fantasy roleplaying game hit my mailbox last week, I’ve become a fan all over again.

This week and next, I’m going to review Pavis – Gateway to Adventure, and try to give some idea of why it’s such a special book. This week, I’ll consider the history of the city of Pavis as a roleplaying game product, and give a high-level overview of what the new supplement contains; next week, I’ll look into the book in much more detail, and provide a chapter-by-chapter breakdown.

So what is Pavis, and why should you care? Well, if you’re a fan of the ancient fantasy world of Glorantha, the invention of RPG and fiction writer (and sometime shaman) Greg Stafford, then you’ll know all about Pavis already. But if you’re not – then prepare yourselves for a treat. Because whether you’re a roleplayer, or a fan of fantasy fiction with a love of well-crafted worlds, meticulous cultural detail, and awesome fantasy cities, Pavis – Gateway to Adventure might just be for you.

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Charlene Brusso Reviews The Alloy of Law

Charlene Brusso Reviews The Alloy of Law

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the-alloy-of-lawThe Alloy of Law
Brandon Sanderson
Tor ( $24.99, 329p)
Reviewed by Charlene Brusso

Sanderson burst onto the fantasy landscape with his creative Mistborn series, about a world where allomancers and feruchemists use different metals to feed their magical powers. With its solid world-building, believable characters, and twisty intrigues, the Mistborn series turned what could have been an adequate medievaloid good guys vs the Dark Overlord into a thoroughly memorable read.

Sanderson could have gone ahead and continued to mine that same setting for plenty more stories. And those hypothetical books would’ve been fun–but not half as much fun as what he actually chose to do with The Alloy of Law.

The new book begins some 300 years after the core events of the original Mistborn trilogy. The old characters are now hazy figures of legend. Rising technology, both Allomancy-based and non-magical, means railroads, barges and boats, steel skyscrapers, and, in wealthier enclaves like capital city Elendel, even electric lighting.

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Alana Joli Abbott Reviews Chicks Kick Butt

Alana Joli Abbott Reviews Chicks Kick Butt

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chicks-kick-butt-anthologyChicks Kick Butt
Rachel Caine and Kerrie L. Hughes (eds.)
Tor (pages 349, $14.99, trade July 2011)
Reviewed by Alana Joli Abbott

Anthologies should accomplish two things. Readers unfamiliar with the authors should have their interest piqued and should want to read more by those authors. Readers familiar with the works of the writers should feel that the story is a reward – an extra – that enhances their reading experience of the other works. In the case of Chicks Kick Butt, several – but not all – of the stories engaged me and left me wanting more by the writers.

Overall, it is a strong collection, filled with writers who have had novels on bestseller lists, many at The New York Times. Perhaps most pleasantly, the stories tend to be about women who are not too awesome to be interesting. While a few of the heroines are amazing fighters who literally kick butt, most are vulnerable or unsure of their own abilities; it is their determination, perseverance, and wits that sees them through. Given frequent complaints about how “strong woman” has had a single definition in the media, this anthology bucks the trend by featuring women with a variety of strengths.

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