2006 Reviews: Index by Rating

71 books read and reviewed this year. The order is by rating then by author/title, with the gaming books in a separate section at the end.

4: worth reading multiple times (buy it)

Thriving on Vague Objectives by Scott Adams

Dawn by Octavia Butler (Xenogenesis, book 1)

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales

Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons

The Geography of Girlhood by Kirsten Smith

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

The Strictest School in the World by Howard Whitehouse

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

3.5: worth reading, parts worth re-reading (borrow or buy it)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Permutation City by Greg Egan

Prayers for the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

3: worth reading once (borrow it from a library)

Flatland by Edwin Abbott

The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov

Hugging the Rock by Susan Taylor Brown

Adulthood Rites by Octavia Butler (Xenogenesis, book 2)

Imago by Octavia Butler (Xenogenesis, book 3) ((3)

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

Ida B by Katherine Hannigan

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones

Anne Freaks Volume 1 by Yua Kotegawa

In the Land of the Lawn Weenies by David Lubar

The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni (I Promessi Sposi translated by Bruce Penman)

Sold by Patricia McCormick

Saturday by Ian McEwan

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (Twilight series, book 2)

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (Twilight series, book 1)

The Complete Strangers in Paradise Volume One by Terry Moore

Blindness by José Saramago

Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage

The Warlock in Spite of Himself by Christopher Stasheff (The Warlock Series, book 1)

Funny You Should Ask... Volume 2 from Thomson Gale

Runaways, Volume 1 by Brian Vaughan and Adrian Alphona

Big Fish by Daniel Wallace

2.5: parts of it are worth reading once (borrow it from a library)

The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen by M. T. Anderson

Restoring the Lost Constitution by Randy Barnett

The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke

The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell

2: not worth reading (skip it)

God's Debris by Scott Adams

Justice League Unlimited: Jam Packed Action - Volume 1 by Stan Berkowitz and J. M. DeMatteis

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

Teen Titans: Jam Packed Action - Volume 1 by Rick Copp, Tom Pugsley, and Greg Klein

Absolutely Normal Chaos by Sharon Creech

Against the Giants by Ru Emerson

Soccer Chick Rules by Dawn FitzGerald

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days Volume 1 by Fumino Hayashi

Do Not Go Naked into Your Next Presentation by Ron Hoff

Dead Men Kill by L. Ron Hubbard

Bad Buster by Sofie Laguna

SWF Seeks Same by John Lutz

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

The Beatrice Letters by Lemony Snicket

The End by Lemony Snicket

King Kobold Revived by Christopher Stasheff (The Warlock Series, book 2)

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu

Super Emma by Sally Warner

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood

1.5: parts of it are worth reading once (maybe borrow it from a library)

Mindful Politics edited by Melvin McLeod

1: not worth considering (burn it)

Lunch Lessons by Ann Cooper

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

Sardine in Outer Space by Emmanuel Guibert and Joann Sfar

Don't Think of an Elephant! by George Lakoff

5 Minutes And 42 Seconds by T. J. Williams


Gaming Books

4: useful for any campaign (buy it)

Tome of Battle by Richard Baker, Matthew Sernett, and Frank Brunner

3: useful for many campaigns

Complete Mage by Skip Williams, Penny Williams, Ari Marmell, and Kolja Raven Liquette

Magic of Incarnum by James Wyatt, Frank Brunner, and Stephen Schubert

2: of use for some campaigns (but not most)

Complete Psionic by Bruce Cordell and Christopher Lindsay
Rating - 3: useful for many campaigns

Weapons of Legacy by Bruce Cordell, Kolja Liquette, and Travis Stout

2006 Reviews: Alphabetical Index

71 books read and reviewed this year. The order is by author then by title, with the gaming books in a separate section at the end. The number in parentheses is the rating.


Flatland by Edwin Abbott (3)

God's Debris by Scott Adams (2)

Thriving on Vague Objectives by Scott Adams (4)

The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen by M. T. Anderson (2.5)

The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov (3)

Restoring the Lost Constitution by Randy Barnett (2.5)

Justice League Unlimited: Jam Packed Action - Volume 1 by Stan Berkowitz and J. M. DeMatteis (2)

Hugging the Rock by Susan Taylor Brown (3)

Adulthood Rites by Octavia Butler (Xenogenesis, book 2) (3)

Dawn by Octavia Butler (Xenogenesis, book 1) (4)

Imago by Octavia Butler (Xenogenesis, book 3) ((3)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (3.5)

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke (2)

The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke (2.5)

Teen Titans: Jam Packed Action - Volume 1 by Rick Copp, Tom Pugsley, and Greg Klein (2)

Lunch Lessons by Ann Cooper (1)

Absolutely Normal Chaos by Sharon Creech (2)

Permutation City by Greg Egan (3)

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (1)

Against the Giants by Ru Emerson (2)

Prayers for the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno (3.5)

Soccer Chick Rules by Dawn FitzGerald (2)

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin (3)

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (2)

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green (4)

Sardine in Outer Space by Emmanuel Guibert and Joann Sfar (1)

Ida B by Katherine Hannigan (3)

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days Volume 1 by Fumino Hayashi (2*)

Do Not Go Naked into Your Next Presentation by Ron Hoff (2)

Dead Men Kill by L. Ron Hubbard (2)

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones (3)

Anne Freaks Volume 1 by Yua Kotegawa (3)

Bad Buster by Sofie Laguna (2)

Don't Think of an Elephant! by George Lakoff (1)

In the Land of the Lawn Weenies by David Lubar (3*)

SWF Seeks Same by John Lutz (2)

The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni (I Promessi Sposi translated by Bruce Penman) (3)

Sold by Patricia McCormick (3)

Saturday by Ian McEwan (3)

Mindful Politics edited by Melvin McLeod (1.5)

Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales (4)

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (Twilight series, book 2) (3)

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (Twilight series, book 1) (3)

The Complete Strangers in Paradise Volume One by Terry Moore (3)

Blindness by José Saramago (3)

Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage (3)

Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons (4)

The Geography of Girlhood by Kirsten Smith (4)

On Beauty by Zadie Smith (2)

The Beatrice Letters by Lemony Snicket (2)

The End by Lemony Snicket (2)

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (4)

King Kobold Revived by Christopher Stasheff (The Warlock Series, book 2) (2)

The Warlock in Spite of Himself by Christopher Stasheff (The Warlock Series, book 1) (3)

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (3.5)

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart (2)

Funny You Should Ask... Volume 2 from Thomson Gale (3)

Runaways, Volume 1 by Brian Vaughan and Adrian Alphona (3)

The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell (2.5)

Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu (2)

Big Fish by Daniel Wallace (3)

Super Emma by Sally Warner (2)

The Strictest School in the World by Howard Whitehouse (4)

5 Minutes And 42 Seconds by T. J. Williams (1)

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood (2)

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny (4)


Gaming Books


Tome of Battle by Richard Baker, Matthew Sernett, and Frank Brunner (4)

Complete Psionic by Bruce Cordell and Christopher Lindsay (2)
Rating - 3: useful for many campaigns

Weapons of Legacy by Bruce Cordell, Kolja Liquette, and Travis Stout (2)

Complete Mage by Skip Williams, Penny Williams, Ari Marmell, and Kolja Raven Liquette (3)

Magic of Incarnum by James Wyatt, Frank Brunner, and Stephen Schubert (3)

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

(Twilight series, book 2)

Rating - 3: worth reading once (borrow it from a library)

Stephenie Meyer has the interesting ability to write books where the plot is irrelevant to the story. That is, the events have almost no bearing on what is going on. Each book is about a relationship. This one is not as good as the previous, but the writing is excellent enough to make it worth reading.

I am tossing out that spoiler warning again. If you have not read Twilight yet, go do so. Pleasantly, New Moon does not spoil the secret on the back cover this time, but since it is immediately obvious, I am going to spoil it here. Also, the most important event happens early on, so I am going to spoil that here too, or else I cannot say much about the book. So let me give you some quick comments in case you want a substantive review that does not spoil this book or the previous.

The writing quality is just the same here, so if you liked Twilight, you will probably like this. In fact, the book is very similar: teen romance/relationship novel with a supernatural twist, told from the first person perspective such that everything is about Isabella Swan. The rest of the cast gets about as little characterization as last time, so it really is all about Bella. The emotional descriptions are dead on; I will now mention what they are and why, so if you are planning to read this without being spoiled, now is the time to go.

Really, shoo.

Okay, welcome back. Twilight was the vampire novel, and this is the werewolf novel. You might have expected "Midnight" and "Full Moon" for those respective titles. Anyway, Bella's new best friend is a werewolf, which is not shocking considering that she is dating a vampire. Haven't we seen this episode of Buffy?

Are teenagers really this stupid? I don't just mean Bella, I mean the ones who really need this many pages to work out a "mystery" that is immediately obvious. Hey, Jacob's a werewolf. I had hoped that we had dodged that bullet when it was mentioned in the first book then never addressed, but no, here are the werewolves. Also, we have an elite coterie of vampires enforcing the Masquerade. If the third book brings up mages, vampire clans, or vampire werewolves, Ms. Meyer can just sell the rights to White Wolf, and they can sell gift packs with her trilogy and Sonja Blue. I think they appeal to different audiences, but hey, why not get the entire World of Darkness?

I have digressed. Bella needs half the book to puzzle out something that was stated a quarter of the way through the first book. She needs the entire book to figure out that Edward was lying, which is immediately obvious as he is doing it. I can justify it for her, especially the latter, but do our readers really need it drawn out like this to give them a chance to say, "I knew it!"?

Speaking of drawn out, this one does have some unnecessarily long bits that would have benefited from a confident editor. Think of it as the same thing as Twilight, only replace every instance of "Edward is really pretty" with a paragraph of "there is a gaping hole in my chest." The repetition is about as constant as my use of "well" in the previous review, only the book runs over 500 pages. We do not need the deluxe treatment every time she feels it. Or maybe the readers do need to be reminded that often.

That description is good. The gaping wound of a missing love is described very well (there is that "well" again). It is on-target and thorough. If you need a good description of how that sort of thing feels, here is your convenient reference.

The description of avoiding that pain by blanking out is similarly excellent. Zombie Bella is another spot-on description of an emotional state, one that benefits from repetition in that it takes constant care to remain unaware. Perhaps that would become tiresome over 500 pages as well, but it works here.

Her relationship with Jacob is the centerpiece of this book. In some ways, it fails because of the limitations of the first-person perspective. In terms of how Bella sees it, perfect, great narrative. We even see (explicitly and not) that Bella is not being entirely fair to Jacob's side of things. With a little more development, this style could develop into a great example of an unreliable narrator. But that failure to give Jacob his due limits how fully that dynamic can be explored. With Edward, there was nothing beneath unending devotion (tempered by "I should not be doing this"). Jacob has a more conflicted status, and Bella is consciously avoiding dealing with it.

Bella is implicitly and explicitly flawed in this book. She thinks that she should be more honest with Jacob and not use him, but she fully intends to use him for her own needs. In this way, we get an unmentioned insight into Edward's conflict between what he thinks he should do and what he emotionally needs to do. Taking Jacob's side here, her extended considerations of how she could settle for him are rather unfair to the lad, not because he would not settle for that as well, but because she never actually gets around to telling him. If a male character were to use a woman for his physical needs this way, he would be immediately recognized as an exploitative cad; here, she is preying on a younger boy who feels for her and has no better options. This gives another opportunity to recommend the book: if you know a young man who needs an explanation of how a woman might use him, because she thinks her emotional needs are more important than his, here you go. She knows she is going to hurt him and that her using him is unfair and wrong, but she needs someone to fill the emotional hole in her life until someone better comes along. This is where "he's a nice guy with a good sense of humor" gets you.

Can I go back to the events' being irrelevant? This is the werewolf book, in which wolves appear twice and immediately go off-camera. Someone is stalking Bella to kill her, and almost gets a cameo appearance. Again, we have a climactic event that is set up, conducted, and disposed of in a self-contained chunk of the book that you could skip without losing much. You are not reading this book for the imaginative twists and turns.

On the obvious set-up front, that climactic event beats the werewolves. Heck, it could have been werebears given an early comment, and I honestly hoped the book would not be pursuing the set-up from the first book. The mention of Italy early on, however, is like having a play where someone shouts, "I am putting this gun on the mantle" in the first act. Wow, I wonder if that is foreshadowing about something that will be important later on?

The writing style is the same. Quick and easy, the pages fly by and draw you in. The great value of the book is again in Bella's emotional life and her relationships with others, and that never fails to excel. The descriptions are always right, from her emotional paralysis and recurring suffering to her friends' reactions to her re-awakening. Even their disappearance is perfect; a boy comes on the scene and all the friends fade away, with an occasional hint of "hey, you left all your friends behind" (but only a hint, because who cares, more important things are going on).

Poor Angela. She seems to be the nicest person in town, and she gets a cameo, even intentionally being shut out for being insightful and caring. Alice gets more of a role in the book than Edward. We need more development of her, because her character has not been pinned down firmly. Her personality seems flexible to the needs of the story, rather than being a factor that helps the story development.

I am going to close with a question on the physics of the story. The vampires' various abilities do not work on some people. Why? Specifically, why do some of them fail on some people, seemingly at random? Bella is immune to Edward, Aro, Jane, and Demetri, but not Alice, Jasper, James, or Marcus. The werewolves are immune to Alice, but no one else seems to be, and they are not immune to Edward. So some random people are immune to random powers, but no one has ever noticed this happening before Bella came on the scene? Yes, I am willing to suspend disbelief for mind-reading vampires and werewolves that defy the conservation of matter, but I still need consistency in the magic powers.

So there you go. Worth reading due to the quality of the writing and depictions, and it is best to walk into the book with minimal expectations of the plot. That is how I will be approaching the third volume.

Amazon link
Author's website

As a note, when I was getting galleys at the American Library Association conference, I was assigned two books that I had to had to get: New Moon and An Abundance of Katherines. I of course forgot immediately and was sent back to get more copies for others when it was noticed that I had New Moon.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

(Twilight series, book 1)

Rating - 3: worth reading once (borrow it from a library)

This is a great time to be reading young adult fiction. Most of the acclaimed adult literature is pretentious crap about people ruining their lives; many of the Newbery Award winners are the same story, only we'll set it in China this time, or make it about pottery!; but the top young adult books are really worth reading. We have great new writers like Stephenie Meyer and John Green. We have new ideas or interesting takes on old themes. We have styles that are readable and approachable, simple enough for a young audience but very worthwhile for an older audience.

Much like Sold or The Gospel According to Larry, this is a book that gives away the secret on the back cover. The author makes it a quarter of the way through the book before making it explicit; the advertising copy throws it into the first sentence. I think that takes something away from the book, so if you can take a recommendation without detail:

Read Twilight. The text flows smoothly and quickly, and you will soon find yourself well into the book. You know from the opening that the story is more than it appears, but the most important part is that the story is what it appears to be: a high school girl moves in with her father in a new town, and life is very different. She meets a boy. Antics ensue. Is that a trite summary? As I said, an interesting take on an old theme. It is done well.

If you are taking that recommendation, walk away now. There are about to be spoilers. Really, if you have never heard of Stephenie Meyer, this is a good time to hit the library and avoid asking anyone about the book. Don't read the back cover, just start on page one, and maybe come visit us again about half way through. Shoo. Last warning!

Are they gone?

Okay, now it is just us, and you may know that Stephenie Meyer has written a couple of very popular vampire novels for a teen audience. There, I said it. This is the first one.

Frankly, it is a sub-genre I would not normally touch, since it seems tainted by ... well, its members. It is too easy to combine a teen angst novel with a Harlequin romance, then give it a goth overtone and romanticize both death and (eternal) youth, include some fantasy and maybe magical realism, and what else can we throw in to make an unreadable series with a name like "Shadows of the Blood" or something? I refuse to Google that and see if I guessed an actual title. Anyway, too much industrially produced dreck that cannot decide whether suicide is more fun than being a teenager. If you are targeting a male audience, add some werewolves by the second or third book to get a better violence quotient.

This is not one of those books. Sure, the vampires are eternally young and beautiful, and they are more graceful and talented than anyone else. The angels are demons that walk among us, complete with a romantic hint of danger and tragedy. Anything that could be shlock elsewhere is here, but it is done well.

The exaggeration facilitates a common teen story. What matters is how Edward appears to Bella. In this case, she happens to be exactly right, that he is the most beautiful boy in the world, so we can skip the "what does she see in him" part, and the repetitions of his appearance fit perfectly naturally with an infatuated girl's perspective. She really is clumsy enough to trip on a flat floor, while he has unearthly grace. He never has morning breath, and he has the speed and power to play the white knight at a moment's notice. This is the standard narrative of the awkward teen and her too-perfect-for-words love: what does he see in her and oh how wonderful it is to fall in love. Only he really is all that, and there really is some irreducible quality that draws him to her.

Again, a standard teen story about how they are wrong for each other but cannot stay apart. Only in this case, he needs to be careful not to slip and eat her, while she is aging before his eternal eyes.

These are all pretty standard story pieces, but they are used well. The writing style is simple and stays out of the way of the story. This contrast is especially strong after reading Stephenson. You know how there are authors like Douglas Adams, in whose writing the most interesting and tone-setting parts are the digressions that develop some evocative or hilarious detail? And then there are others who you read for a brilliant turn of phrase, striking metaphor, witty dialogue, or some such trick of the writer's craft? Ms. Meyer is the opposite of that. She writes with a natural and flowing style, one that lays out the story and carries you through it. It is easy and pleasant to read. It is economical, and while this is not a short book, it does not have long and useless passages that you could sever without loss.

This is what Hemingway was supposed to be doing. Writing simply is not a matter of using short words and sentences. It is about having clear prose, the sort that you do not notice as you read it. The book is about the characters and the story, not the author. There are no mouthpiece characters.

The characters are surprisingly shallow, in retrospect. Most of the cast is sketched. They get a trait or two, and that is all they need. They are simple, one-dimensional characters from whom you do not really want more. Even Edward is fairly flat, despite being explicitly conflicted. It is a static sort of conflicted, a moth continuously hovering near the flame. He could be fairly summarized as, "He is attracted to Bella, but believes it would be better to resist it." Oh, and he is an immortal monster who wants to redeem his existence by living a moral life, but that is the same sort of resisting the call of the blood.

Mostly, we have Bella. Bella is a model of indirect characterization in the first-person perspective. Despite Edward's claims, she is a fairly ordinary teenage girl, and we live in her skin for several hundred pages. I could have used a bit more explanation of why several characters thought she stood out from, say, Jessica; they certainly seemed interchangeable enough to Mike, once he was pushed in that direction. Giving her an inexplicable smell and mental shield is specialness by fiat.

The story is strongest where it is shallowest. It is a potentially tragic love story done well. It breaks down a bit after the baseball game. The tracker breaks the flow of the story without improving to it. The climax does not work, and part of it happens off-camera, while giving us a portion of the story that comes through an inconsistently maintained haze of pain and/or drugs. That part of the book has a "hurry up and wait" feel that fails to mesh.

That would be why the book does not get a 4. In terms of return on investment for time spent, the smooth and easy writing provides an unenjoyable and untaxing time. You will probably get everything you need from the first read, however, and there would be sections to skim or skip on a return trip. Re-reading potential will be idiosyncratic. I am told of Bella-Edward fan rings out there to rival the Buffy shippers, and I imagine those readers will make several trips through the book. More power to them. That is the beauty of a library recommendation: if you love the book that much, you can still buy your own copy.

I have been entirely too critical of a rather good book. The problem of writing well is that you set the bar high; I can say a lot about great promise, whereas truly lousy books can be dismissed quickly and without nuance. Also, I only have so many ways to say it is written well without gratuitous thesaurus use. It is like good cooking -- you use common ingredients and techniques, but some people excel while others botch it. Ms. Meyer excels.

I was impressed to see that the movie rights had been sold before the book hit the shelves. Someone knew they had a hit on their hands. Little, Brown and Company seems to be a great publisher with some really exciting titles.

Amazon link
Author's website

Complete Mage by Skip Williams, Penny Williams, Ari Marmell, and Kolja Raven Liquette

Rating - 3: useful for many campaigns

Gaming book, again Dungeons and Dragons. Another entry in the "Complete" series, differing from the Complete Arcane in that...well, I cannot say what different niche this fills, but it is another book of mage-related stuff, so if that interests you, here you go.

For your $30, you get about 160 pages. The warlock must have been the winner from the Complete Arcane, because there is much attention to them here, with some notes for other Complete classes. I will jump straight to the section-by-section comments.

Chapter 1 is 25 pages on the different sorts of mages. This means about a page each on arcane versus x, the schools of magic you could specialize in, and the various party roles a wizard could fill (damage, buffing, mind control, recon, etc.). I have seen too many versions of this content to judge the quality of the new presentation. If you have not considered what sort(s) of personality might be drawn towards necromancy or divination, there is something new for you here. Alternately, this is quick reference in case you need a mage on short notice, although I have not examined how optimal their recommendations are.

Chapter 2 is 20 pages of alternative class features and feats. The PHB base classes (and a few Complete base classes) get some different level options to make them work better with or against magic. Most of the feats fall into three categories: heritage feats, similar to ones seen elsewhere specifically for sorcerers to "get in touch with their blood"; school-specific feats for specialists; and 25 reserve feats, which effectively give casters spell-like abilities for leaving certain kinds of spells uncast. These last are mostly of the form "leave x uncast to get unlimited uses of a weaker version of x," so you can throw bolts of fire so long as you hold onto a fire spell, a small cone of cold for holding a cold spell, etc. This is comparable to trading a feat and a top-level spell for a warlock's blasting ability. There are also five caster-specific tactical feats.

Chapter 3 is 11 prestige classes in 40 pages. Every book must have more prestige classes, and they seem to be the primary purpose of the Complete series (no trio of base classes this time, though). They fall into the usual categories. The first is the combination classes: warlock-cleric, warlock-mage, wizard-sorcerer, abjurer-warrior, and diviner-rogue. Next we have standard classes with a theme: good warlock, fey mage, crusader mage, and nightmare illusionist. Finally, we have the standard classes with a focus: spellcasting-focused bard and really specialized specialist. This is notable in that it is available at level 4, and there is very little downside for a specialist wizard in taking it other than losing familiar progression.

Chapter 4 is 35 pages of spells and invocations. New spells are listed for some Complete classes. Spells include a variety of new ways to deal Xd6 damage, buffs that can be cashed in for one-time effects, and spells that have extra effects if you cast them twice. There are also variations on existing spells and several transformation spells to address the altered polymorph. I cannot say that any of them fill gaping holes in the existing universe of spells.

Chapter 5 is 10 pages of magic items, with an emphasis on rods and staffs. I notice that item descriptions have grown over time, so that even a simple item takes up about a quarter-page. I am rarely excited by magic items and never by staffs, so I will move on. There are some alchemical items, along with "optional material components" that also fail to interest me.

Chapter 6 is 20 pages of "arcane adventures." This means a few pages of magic-themed adventure hooks and 13 "magical locations," which are mostly locations you would visit once a year for year-long buffs. There have been some versions of this sort of treasure/magic item before. This formalizes a common convention where the hero/villain returns to the source of his power every month/year/century to renew himself. I cannot see this mechanic being used much without destroying what makes it special, the way that ubiquitous magic items would make Excalibur just another magic sword you are going to outgrow. On the other hand, you could build an entire campaign around a world where ley lines cross and make such locations common. The long-duration effects would replace most magic items in the game, and the necessity of controlling territory and sacred sites would fuel the conflict between heroes, monsters, nations, religions, gods, etc. You see a bit of that mechanic in White Wolf games like Werewolf or Mage.

This book has interesting but unnecessary options. If you do not have Complete Arcane, buy that over this. If you want more options for warlocks and specialty wizards, this is a great buy. Reserve feats are an interesting mechanic, although the design tendency seems to favor fewer large encounters rather than needing sustained power throughout the day.

I do find the need to make a variant of everything for everything tedious: just make a generic system and get it over with, and wasn't the point of free multi-classing to get rid of the (prestige) classes that are half of A and half of B? Do we just keep making damage spells until we have every type of damage in every shape at every level? It is curious that these tendencies arise along with the quasi-generic classes; it makes more sense to have specialist wizards than separate classes for each, and the same for types of dragon shamans, swordsages, and so on. D&D's design seems to be simultaneously groping towards providing classes with options and towards providing every option in a separate class.

Amazon link

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

rating - 3.5: worth reading, parts worth re-reading (borrow or buy it)

This is another title from the list of top sci fi books. As an online gamer, there is some rule that says I must read this book. Worth reading.

In a sci-fi near future, America has dissolved into corporate franchise city-states, where the Mafia runs the pizza business and the CIA has merged with the Library of Congress and gone private as an information superstore. Hiro Protagonist is a hacker, researcher, and the greatest swordsman in the world. Half his life is spent on the Metaverse, what virtual reality is supposed to have been by now. He gets to stop the end of the world in the face of a disease/computer virus/religion/language/Sumerian myth. Yeah, that's all one thing.

Snow Crash also gives us a strong, fun female character in Y.T., who is to bicycle couriers what the Metaverse is to our current internet. She is bold and brassy, enormously competent, and prone to the dumb, impulsive things we expect of teenagers. Teenagers on kinetically boosted skateboards with stunguns and ADD.

Hiro himself is a lot of fun to read. He combines swagger with geek cluelessness, and not in the annoying way that real online people do. Maybe it is because he is about twice as old as the annoying hacker punks we see about. He is vastly more competent than Y.T. but does not look it since he gets to take on every more vastly difficult tasks.

My heart, of course, loves a world where information is power. Library access and information-processing software are extremely valuable. The only thing more powerful than Earth is the Librarian. Go team. Someone has speculated on a future where we have no news organizations, but rather the merged Googlezon links folks' blogs about what is going on around them, and it all works off searches, links, advertising, and views of valuable content. That is something like what Hiro does for a living.

Beyond our core pair, characterization is about as thin as you would expect from sci fi. Two characters, not a big Idea novel, so we get a nuanced picture of both, along with a bit on Raven.

The plot is pretty solid. It is a straightforward adventure story, with a mixture of technology and mythology that lets is stretch in different directions. Knockout punch in a can? Check. Sumerian gods? Check. Evil version of Ted Turner? Check. We have a very bad problem, and along the way we puzzle out what it is, exactly how bad it is, who is responsible, and how we can stop it.

Pacing is good. Most of the book is set at an upbeat swagger with digressions into the library for a freeform exploration of some history, linguistics, theology, programming, and a few other things.

That library song and dance is the part you can skip on a re-read. Maybe it is just me, since I am familiar with half the material covered, but it seems like a long digression from the story. This is where we get most of our exposition, and it is better than most multi-page laying out of fictional worlds' history and metaphysics, but you can skip even well-written background. Go read some Sumerian myths if you want them; Tiamat and Marduk are waiting for you.

This takes a greater extreme when Hiro explains the villains' evil plot. This is a switch from the normal point where the Big Bad monologues; instead, our hero does it for him and explains it to others. If you have not pieced everything together by then, there you go. It comes across a bit like Plato explaining how the Republic should be built, with the other characters sitting around and asking helpful questions at the right points.

Actually, the entire ending is weak. We have a most-of-a-climax, a few kinda-climaxes, and no resolution except for an explosion. The story dissolves into separate mini-endings, rather than tying things up. Everything seems in place for a sequel that is unlikely to be written.

The writing is good. I am not going to recommend >400 pages to you without it being worthwhile. Stephenson can write. He sets a tone and has a voice that carries you through unnecessary passages in a way that makes you glad they are there. In Douglas Adams's writing, some of the best parts are digressions that express the spirit of his universe rather than developing the plot; Stephenson does the same thing for cyberpunk.

Stephenson gets bonus points for creating slang and jargon we still use, like avatar. We do not yet have a Metaverse, whatever they may think they are doing in Second Life.

Amazon link

Against the Giants by Ru Emerson

Rating - 2: not worth reading (skip it)

I was pleased to see an example of low fantasy, but this is a poor example. The story is weak, character knowledge is contrived, characterization is poor where extant, the pacing is uneven, and descriptions of violence and combat vary from excessively harsh to nearly whitewashed.

I give you the book's back cover summary: "A village burns while its attackers flee into the night. Enraged, the King of Keoland orders an aging warrior to lead a band of adventurers on a retaliatory strike. As they prepare to enter the heart of the monsters' lair, each knows that only the bravest will survive. Against the odds. Against the giants."

Ms. Emerson presumably did not write that copy, and whoever did had not read the book. Of it, the following is accurate: "an aging warrior [leads] a band of adventurers...[a]gainst the giants." The village was attacked in the rain, the King of Keoland did not appear, it was a recon mission, there was no epiphany about bravery.

The book has all the hallmarks of something written under contract. Someone at TSR decided to novelize their classic adventures, so they found someone who had done Xena novelizations and set her loose.

The book covers three old D&D adventures. The first quarter is set-up, the next half of the book is the first adventure, one-sixth covers the second, and the last is crammed into about thirty pages, including the anti-climax. Pacing lurches and things become exceedingly convenient where necessary to cut the page count.

Have I said enough? Don't read this book.

Amazon link

The Amazon comments are amusing, particularly some people who took issue with the book's failure to follow D&D rules. Your biggest problem with the novel was that the Spiritual Hammer spell did too much damage? The point is well made that everyone was one-shotting giants. The fearsome enemies died in a few seconds each and rarely did any damage. When you end your suicide mission with more people than you started with, the enemy has failed to live up to the hype.