Rating - 4: useful for any campaign (buy it)
Gaming book: Dungeons and Dragons, 3.5 Edition.
Role-playing games lie along a continuum from crunchy to fluffy. "Crunch" is rules mechanics: the game qua game. Without crunch, you are just playing make-believe, which is fine but is not what we are doing here. High crunch games hew closely to strict rules, and high crunch books have detailed rules, mechanics, and applications of them. "Fluff" is the story, the imaginative part of the game. Without fluff, you are just engaging in mathematical calisthenics, again fun but not what we are doing here. High fluff games make less use of dice and calculators, and high fluff books go extensively into settings, history, and personality. Good games can lie anywhere along that continuum, and the best games have excellent fluff with the right amount of crunch to make it work in practice.
This book has the best fluff ever.
Normally setting-specific material gets knocked down a rating point almost by definition. If you do not play in the Forgotten Realms, Realms-specific material is not useful to you except as inspiration for your own. This book is excellent not just for the quality of its writing but for its enormous potential to be used in any campaign. If you play Eberron, great -- here is how to use the dragonmarked houses. If not, great -- you have even more flexibility in how you use the ideas in the book, and they are still useful.
Dragonmarked takes ideas that were skipable in the original Eberron campaign setting and expands them each into something you could base a campaign around, if not multiple campaigns, or a great tool for a story arc, or just something convenient to have in the background. You have thirteen houses, each of which has interests to advance, internal politics, and relationships with the other houses, along with connections to the politics of the game world and other organizations. The level of detail is adequate for whatever degree to which you want to use the dragonmarked houses, and if you need to go a level up or down, that is there, too.
Let's take House Ghallanda as an example. You read the original book and say, "Great, there are halflings who have minor magical powers that make them better innkeepers. None of my players is going to burn a feat for that, and where am I going to go with this?" At the simplest level, this is a game mechanic for franchises. Anywhere worth going will have a Gold Dragon Inn, so this cuts down on your work in designing part of the setting; if you use the cliché adventure opening of "a shadowy figure approaches you in a tavern," it makes a lot of sense here, because all the wandering adventurers stay at the Gold Dragon Inn.
What about the house itself is interesting? It is the most widespread information network in the world -- innkeepers and bartenders keep their ears open and their mouths shut. If you want to know who you would talk to about x in this town, ask the Ghallanda representative. He has friends, and his friends have friends, and they have a web of favors that could let you run a halfling mafia story.
Let's go one level deeper and get inside the House. Maybe you are flitting across the globe along that web of favors, giving and receiving, or maybe you are getting yourself into the baron's ball with the caterers (your cousin in the House). Your family still has ties to nomadic halflings on the Talenta Plains. You are in the traditional role of providing succor to visitors and travelers, if you wanted to try something with an ancient Greek theme, of course balanced by the family's profits, if you wanted to try something with a modern corporate theme. You also have a line of poison-wielding anti-hero assassins in the family tree, so watch it.
How about House Ghallanda in relation to the others? You are connected to architects from House Thuranni, entertainers from House Phiarlan, and you might have a bouncer from House Deneith or Tharashk. In some locations, you might share space with House Sivis's message depot, and are the equivalent of an airport motel around House Orien's overland routes or House Lyrandar's airships. House Ghallanda is one of the least political houses, but you get all these chances to work in, with, or against the other houses' plans. This does not even mention the differences in philosophy with the other halfling dragonmarked house, and how you feel about those ancestral ties.
That would be the quick version of things you can do with the least dynamic houses. If you want to talk about a major power player in the setting like House Cannith, the rabbit hole goes still deeper.
Let's say you do not want to use the dragonmarked houses at all. These are still great inspirations for other organizations or characters. Each house comes with a coherent and/or conflicted approach to the world, and you can use those as thought-through philosophies. Mercenary halfling healers? A respected order of knights that cannot decide whether to collapse or to take over the world? Low-key half-elf racial supremacists? Yes, I can run with this!
Do I sound excited? Good ideas, great execution, excellent detail and levels of detail, useful for plug-and-play while integrated into a larger world. This is a home run. Let's go to the chapter-by-chapter (4 chapters, 160 pages).
The ten pages of Introduction are good, rather than a paragraph of flavor text in a mostly useless page. It sets the stage and structure for Chapter 1, giving a brief history of the dragonmarked houses, their internal structure, and the roles players can take in relation to the houses.
Half the book is "The Houses," thirteen of them. Each section starts with an introduction to the house, which varies in length based on the house's history or current state of disarray. Houses with large or recent problems, like fractured House Cannith, have long descriptions, while stable House Jorasco needs only half a page of introduction. "House X as an Organization" lists the guilds each house controls, how one joins the house, the benefits of membership and the Favored in House feat, how one advances, what sort of missions the house has for its agents, its status and relations in the world, and its holdings. You also get adaptation recommendations for different ways to use the house and a sample NPC (no repetitive text!).
Given my comments that started this review, I need to add little here. The house descriptions are good, useful, and compelling, and the consistency of presentation means that each gets similarly strong treatment. Some are sections are weaker than others, and I am particularly fond of the House Jorasco description.
Chapter two has the requisite "Prestige Classes," one for each of the twelve dragonmarks (across 40 pages). (Yes, twelve dragonmarks, thirteen houses: one of the houses split.) They mostly extend the houses' signature abilities into combat. The Blade of Orien uses movement in combat, the Storm Sentry uses weather, and the Unbound Scroll uses the written word. The Silver Key is similar to the Dungeon Delver. The two halfling house PrCs are both considered aberrations in their houses: poisoners with the Mark of Hospitality and plague-carriers with the Mark of Healing.
Chapter three is ten pages of "New Feats," all of which require a dragonmark of some kind. Each house gets a feat or two specific to its mark. Each class gets a feat like fast healing while raging. You can add new powers from the Spell Compendium to your dragonmark or acquire new options for action points. Aberrant marks get attention, too, with ways to advance and enhance them as one can do with the true dragonmarks. Most of these are weak character options given the feat investments required, but a Dragonmarked Heir with feats to burn will find further advancement here.
We conclude with a dozen pages of "Magic and Dragonmarks." Most of them are like the feats, tools for the dragonmarked, but some are tools against the dragonmarked and others relate to dragons. These also vary with dragonmark strength, so those who have invested in greater and Siberys marks will get more from the spells. You also get three new dragonmark items. The book ends with three pages on aberrant marks, discussing history and perceptions thereof. Aberrant marks get scattered attention throughout the book, but they remain a side story to the focus on the houses.
Amazon link
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Monday, February 19, 2007
Dragon Magic by Owen K.C. Stephens and Rodney Thompson
Rating - 3: useful for many campaigns
Gaming book: Dungeons and Dragons, 3.5 Edition
Dragon Magic aims to put a bit more dragon into "Dungeons and Dragons." While most books include some sort of dragon for the theme, this adds a bit of dragon to everything else. It gives you all the dragon-lite versions, where the Draconomicon gave you the high level dragon versions. Add a little bit of dragon to whatever you already do. (Should I mention Races of the Dragon here? It rates a 2; I found it mostly uninteresting except for the kobold content, and I don't use kobolds that much. I'd like to.)
It works. It works brilliantly. In terms of interesting mechanics, this is the the best D&D book since Tome of Battle. It gives you thematic options to play with that are neither worthless nor overpowered. You can use this in your game.
The great strength of the book is its "a little of everything" approach. While it does not hit absolutely everything in D&D, it does cover systems in the various secondary books. The new base class is a draconic warlock, a cousin to the PHB 2's Dragon Shaman. There are dragon-themed racial variants, substitution levels, feats, prestige classes, spells, psionic powers, soulmelds, invocations, a vestige, auras, pacts, companion spirits, magic items, and a legacy item. Not every subsystem gets represented (truename magic, martial maneuvers), but this does build upon the money you have spent on other books. The content has not been orphaned, and if you do not recognize a class or class ability I mention, it probably comes from another book you have not read.
Proceeding to the chapter-by-chapter analysis (5 chapters, 155 pages):
"Dragonbound Heroes" has 18 pages of racial variants, substitution levels, and feats.
"Dragon Aspirants" is the requisite prestige class chapter, 7 in 25 pages. But wait, there's more! It starts with a new base class, the dragonfire adept (6 pages). This is interesting. The class is a cross between the warlock and the dragon shaman. It gets spell-like abilities and a flexible breath weapon similar to the warlock's eldritch blast. While many new base classes sit on the sidelines or appear for a min-max level dip, this class is worthwhile to play throughout a campaign. The class cannot burn out all its power in a nova, nor does it reach godhood in its later levels; if you worry about the late-game dominance of the PHB casters, this is an alternate magic class that is useful but never campaign-breaking, peaking in mid-levels.
Our PrCs are the draconic psion, monk, marshall, spy/rogue, pact-bound mage, cleric, and wizard. They are all servants, students, or descendants of dragons; no dragonslayers this time. Is it unfair that I always characterize the PrCs that way? Each has a slightly different slant, and most give you fire, scales, claws, and/or wings.
Thank you, Wizards of the Coast, for not using such long descriptions of sample NPCs' abilities. They no longer reprint the ability text from the previous page. This is good. Instead, space is taken up by the new standard categories: Playing Class X, Class X in the World, Class X in the Game. These do not seem much better or worse than usual. You may be able to lift the text from here for use in your campaign, or you might require such substantial adaptation that you toss those pages from each PrC. Maybe it will give you an idea of how to incorporate them.
"Draconic Magic" is 45 pages of spells, magic items, and all the variants of them mentioned earlier. Beyond the expected new ways of dealing elemental damage, the spells include dual-school spells (good for spell focus, bad for specialist wizards with excluded schools), sorcerer-only spells, and a variety of spells that are stronger if you are dragonblooded. Efforts to reform the polymorph spells continue. Spells do appear on the shugenja and wu jen spell lists (more incorporating other books).
The four psionic powers are tied to four gem dragons, which seems appropriate. New abilities for the dragonfire adept class take up only five pages, covering their breath effects and invocations. Warlocks get another page of invocations, including the eldritch glaive that has become popular amongst multiclass warlocks. Meldshapers get two pages, although all the dragon soulmelds require the dragonblood subtype. Binders get a new vestige, Ashardalon, who just keeps paying from that original seres of adventures. The page and a half of draconic auras are available to dragons, marshalls, dragon shamans, and dragon lords (the dragonic marshall PrC from the previous chapter). Next we have five pages with a new subsystem of dragonpacts, which allow sorcerers to trade some powers with true dragons. You also get one page of draconic companion spirits, something from the Dungeon Master's Guide II with which I am unfamiliar.
We round out the chapter with magic items. The first batch is dragon-themed. The second batch is a dweomered dragon scale for each type of dragon, including the ones from Oriental Adventures. Finally, you get the promised legacy item, the Wyrmbane Helm.
Tiring list, isn't it? I said they gave you a bit for every system you might be using.
"Draconic Beasts" is the monster chapter for this book (18 pages). You get a dragon made of fire, a dragon horse, a dragon bird, a dragon great cat (yep), a dragon plant guardian of the land, and a wild magic dragon. The Aspects of Bahamut and Tiamat are CR 12, instead of the CR 10 versions in the Miniatures Handbook (which has more aspects). Picking up an idea from one of the Monster Manuals, you get a new tiamatspawn. There is also a new dragon called a spelleater, which looks like a giant demonic hippo. I like it. The chapter ends with six pages of variant dragon abilities, ways to adjust the big powerful dragons who do not appear so much in this book. If you do not want your dragons to be predictable, here are some ways to swap their powers around.
Our last chapter is "Draconic Campaigns" (26 pages). To me, these chapters can be hit-or-miss, based on whether something inspires you or if your campaign is designed for plug-and-play. Of course, these is a section on how to retcon dragon influence into your campaign (standard versions: "old but hidden/rediscovered" or "something new under the sun"). The most interesting part would be the campaigns built around dragons (deities, kings, destroyers, or in the shadows), which could be an entire campaign or a story arc. Patterns of dragon behavior: good thoughts. You get six pages of affiliations (PHB 2), dragon-related organizations. You get a few sites that do not seem very useful. It all ends with a brief sample adventure using various items from the book. Its brevity helps with plug-and-play, and it is a short, dense, violent romp (I have not tried it out).
This book gets a strong recommendation and a high 3 rating, but it does not quite reach a 4. Partly, this is because of its breadth: there may not be enough that you can use unless you buy a lot of books. Partly, this is because of its narrowness: if you do not want new dragon toys, there is nothing here for you. To me, the most useful parts of the book are the substitution levels, the dragonfire adept class, and whatever parts you can use from the Draconic Magic chapter (its breadth still impresses me). Ultimately, it comes down to the book's title: the book stands or falls on whether you have a use for dragon magic in your campaign.
Amazon link
Gaming book: Dungeons and Dragons, 3.5 Edition
Dragon Magic aims to put a bit more dragon into "Dungeons and Dragons." While most books include some sort of dragon for the theme, this adds a bit of dragon to everything else. It gives you all the dragon-lite versions, where the Draconomicon gave you the high level dragon versions. Add a little bit of dragon to whatever you already do. (Should I mention Races of the Dragon here? It rates a 2; I found it mostly uninteresting except for the kobold content, and I don't use kobolds that much. I'd like to.)
It works. It works brilliantly. In terms of interesting mechanics, this is the the best D&D book since Tome of Battle. It gives you thematic options to play with that are neither worthless nor overpowered. You can use this in your game.
The great strength of the book is its "a little of everything" approach. While it does not hit absolutely everything in D&D, it does cover systems in the various secondary books. The new base class is a draconic warlock, a cousin to the PHB 2's Dragon Shaman. There are dragon-themed racial variants, substitution levels, feats, prestige classes, spells, psionic powers, soulmelds, invocations, a vestige, auras, pacts, companion spirits, magic items, and a legacy item. Not every subsystem gets represented (truename magic, martial maneuvers), but this does build upon the money you have spent on other books. The content has not been orphaned, and if you do not recognize a class or class ability I mention, it probably comes from another book you have not read.
Proceeding to the chapter-by-chapter analysis (5 chapters, 155 pages):
"Dragonbound Heroes" has 18 pages of racial variants, substitution levels, and feats.
- The variant races are like what appear in most books: one for each PHB race based on the theme of the book, in this case dragons. Each race is associated with a dragon type, so silverbrow humans have traces of silver dragon blood and stonehunter gnomes are related to copper dragons. This goes beyond the standard races to include drow, lizardmen, hobgoblins, and orcs. As I said, this book covers more territory than most. To me, variant races walk the line between roleplaying tools and min-max fodder; they are more interesting as DM tools, to use in different regions of the game world.
- The substitution levels either add a bit of dragon to the class or add a way to attack dragons. Replace your heavy armor with a dragonscale husk or your undead turning with dragon control. The options for monks (add elemental damage to your attacks) and paladins (dragon-like mount) are interesting both thematically and mechanically.
- The feats are the least interesting part of this chapter (to me), and they fall into four categories. The first category is "ceremony" feats, day-long group buffs with expensive material components, which I do not expect to see much use. The second is initiate feats for the dragon gods, like those in other books, which give a small benefit and expand clerics' spell lists. The third and largest category is draconic feats, most of which are sorcerer heritage feats. There are also some draconic feats for assorted classes, so dragon music and dragon sneak attack. Lastly there are the miscellaneous feats, including one to give you the dragonblood subtype and two dealing with draconic auras. All of these feats let you narrowly define a character's draconic blood-tie.
"Dragon Aspirants" is the requisite prestige class chapter, 7 in 25 pages. But wait, there's more! It starts with a new base class, the dragonfire adept (6 pages). This is interesting. The class is a cross between the warlock and the dragon shaman. It gets spell-like abilities and a flexible breath weapon similar to the warlock's eldritch blast. While many new base classes sit on the sidelines or appear for a min-max level dip, this class is worthwhile to play throughout a campaign. The class cannot burn out all its power in a nova, nor does it reach godhood in its later levels; if you worry about the late-game dominance of the PHB casters, this is an alternate magic class that is useful but never campaign-breaking, peaking in mid-levels.
Our PrCs are the draconic psion, monk, marshall, spy/rogue, pact-bound mage, cleric, and wizard. They are all servants, students, or descendants of dragons; no dragonslayers this time. Is it unfair that I always characterize the PrCs that way? Each has a slightly different slant, and most give you fire, scales, claws, and/or wings.
Thank you, Wizards of the Coast, for not using such long descriptions of sample NPCs' abilities. They no longer reprint the ability text from the previous page. This is good. Instead, space is taken up by the new standard categories: Playing Class X, Class X in the World, Class X in the Game. These do not seem much better or worse than usual. You may be able to lift the text from here for use in your campaign, or you might require such substantial adaptation that you toss those pages from each PrC. Maybe it will give you an idea of how to incorporate them.
"Draconic Magic" is 45 pages of spells, magic items, and all the variants of them mentioned earlier. Beyond the expected new ways of dealing elemental damage, the spells include dual-school spells (good for spell focus, bad for specialist wizards with excluded schools), sorcerer-only spells, and a variety of spells that are stronger if you are dragonblooded. Efforts to reform the polymorph spells continue. Spells do appear on the shugenja and wu jen spell lists (more incorporating other books).
The four psionic powers are tied to four gem dragons, which seems appropriate. New abilities for the dragonfire adept class take up only five pages, covering their breath effects and invocations. Warlocks get another page of invocations, including the eldritch glaive that has become popular amongst multiclass warlocks. Meldshapers get two pages, although all the dragon soulmelds require the dragonblood subtype. Binders get a new vestige, Ashardalon, who just keeps paying from that original seres of adventures. The page and a half of draconic auras are available to dragons, marshalls, dragon shamans, and dragon lords (the dragonic marshall PrC from the previous chapter). Next we have five pages with a new subsystem of dragonpacts, which allow sorcerers to trade some powers with true dragons. You also get one page of draconic companion spirits, something from the Dungeon Master's Guide II with which I am unfamiliar.
We round out the chapter with magic items. The first batch is dragon-themed. The second batch is a dweomered dragon scale for each type of dragon, including the ones from Oriental Adventures. Finally, you get the promised legacy item, the Wyrmbane Helm.
Tiring list, isn't it? I said they gave you a bit for every system you might be using.
"Draconic Beasts" is the monster chapter for this book (18 pages). You get a dragon made of fire, a dragon horse, a dragon bird, a dragon great cat (yep), a dragon plant guardian of the land, and a wild magic dragon. The Aspects of Bahamut and Tiamat are CR 12, instead of the CR 10 versions in the Miniatures Handbook (which has more aspects). Picking up an idea from one of the Monster Manuals, you get a new tiamatspawn. There is also a new dragon called a spelleater, which looks like a giant demonic hippo. I like it. The chapter ends with six pages of variant dragon abilities, ways to adjust the big powerful dragons who do not appear so much in this book. If you do not want your dragons to be predictable, here are some ways to swap their powers around.
Our last chapter is "Draconic Campaigns" (26 pages). To me, these chapters can be hit-or-miss, based on whether something inspires you or if your campaign is designed for plug-and-play. Of course, these is a section on how to retcon dragon influence into your campaign (standard versions: "old but hidden/rediscovered" or "something new under the sun"). The most interesting part would be the campaigns built around dragons (deities, kings, destroyers, or in the shadows), which could be an entire campaign or a story arc. Patterns of dragon behavior: good thoughts. You get six pages of affiliations (PHB 2), dragon-related organizations. You get a few sites that do not seem very useful. It all ends with a brief sample adventure using various items from the book. Its brevity helps with plug-and-play, and it is a short, dense, violent romp (I have not tried it out).
This book gets a strong recommendation and a high 3 rating, but it does not quite reach a 4. Partly, this is because of its breadth: there may not be enough that you can use unless you buy a lot of books. Partly, this is because of its narrowness: if you do not want new dragon toys, there is nothing here for you. To me, the most useful parts of the book are the substitution levels, the dragonfire adept class, and whatever parts you can use from the Draconic Magic chapter (its breadth still impresses me). Ultimately, it comes down to the book's title: the book stands or falls on whether you have a use for dragon magic in your campaign.
Amazon link
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Crisis of Abundance by Arnold Kling
Rating - 3: worth reading once (borrow it from a library)
This is an excellent book on health care financing, combining everything you would want for a general audience. It is short and written with an approachable style, but it conveys solid economic thinking. If you read one book ever about health insurance, Medicare/Medicaid, or the United States' looming financial crisis, read this book.
The United States pays more for health care than other industrialized nations but does not get more out of it. Medicare's current unfunded liabilities total $68,000,000,000,000. This is not good.
Arnold Kling attributes this largely to "premium medicine," procedures that have low expected values relative to their costs. These include using expensive equipment that is only marginally better than simpler treatments, employing extensive medical specialists, and engaging in testing for low-probability high-severity problems. So while 95% of cases will be cured by "take two aspirin and call me in the morning," we give a referral and have three batteries of tests done because a few of those cases will be cancer. American medical facilities have high resources, patients have high expectations, and insurance lets everyone ignore the costs.
Mr. Kling cites three principles that are in play. First, we want unfettered access to health care; no one should be barred from having anything. Second, we want insulation from costs; money should not stand between you and medical care. Third, we want the whole thing to be affordable on a societal basis. This last point is where the current system is falling down, but if we want to improve it, we need to give up something from the other two.
No system is perfect. The American system is unsustainably expensive, particularly in the long run; we lose on point #3. The British system rations health care bureaucratically; it loses on point #1. Arnold Kling proposes sacrificing #2 and moving to a free market system for everyone except the very poor.
One key is understanding that what Americans call health insurance is really health care or cost insulation. Your car insurance does not pay for oil changes; it covers crashes that you could not pay for out of pocket. True health insurance would work similarly: it would cover major illnesses, but you would pay for doctor's visits, prescriptions, and routine care out of pocket.
The major value of this is to make people think about health care costs, not just benefits. When we are insulated from the costs of medical care, we treat it as if it were free, with the only limiting factor being the bother of the procedure itself. Run a test for every possible disease, and no technology is too good for me! This is how costs run away from us. Paying out of pocket, you need to decide whether it is worthwhile to pay $500 for a test that has a 0.01% chance of detecting cancer.
It is not the case that every possible medical treatment of value should be pursued. Sometimes that $500 would improve your life more elsewhere. For example, getting new brakes on your car might be more likely to save your life. Maybe those funds will save more lives if we spend them on environmental cleanup or educating children in poor countries. Cost insulation may be comforting, but it increases our costs and keeps us from helping others and ourselves in other ways.
Mr. Kling argues that markets are a more effective way of delivering health care than government rationing because they adapt better. The value of markets comes not from allocating resources more efficiently but from finding new techniques and technologies for using those resources. It is a process of trial and error where the ineffective approaches fall away and the successful ones spread quickly. No private system would survive creating a $68 trillion liability, while government tries to find new ways to paper over the problem and muddle through.
A government-led process will restrict choice while cementing existing winners. By definition, bureaucratic system move slowly and limit the range of options. That is their purpose. This is good for codifying the medical best practices once we find them, but not good for innovating. Meanwhile, governments are responsive to organized interests. In the case of health care, the strongest organized interests are medical companies and doctors' groups. It is quaint that some people think nationalized health care would reduce corporate control over the health care system. Whose phone call is your senator more likely to answer: yours or one from the CEO of a multi-billion dollar HMO? Which of the two of you contributed more to his re-election campaign?
One of the weaknesses of Crisis of Abundance's proposals is that it is cost-neutral. That is, while Mr. Kling wants you to spend more out of pocket on health care, he does not want you to spend more (or less) total. If we stop providing insulation-as-insurance through employers, that money instead goes to you directly. The implication is that total expenditures will go down, but that is not part of the proposal here. As presented, the plan reduces insulation without claiming to reduce costs. The immediate question is, so what was the point?
There is a political reason for this, but it does not work to my mind. Let's say that making you think about your medical expenditures would cut your total spending by 10% as you decide maybe you do not need so much bloodwork or that just-in-case MRI. The immediate rhetoric against the proposal is: "Arnold Kling wants to gut health care spending in America! Seniors and children dead in the streets! He thinks you should not get testing for serious diseases so that he and his corporate sponsors can keep their money!" So the proposal is cost-neutral with the understanding that you can cut your spending if you want to use that money elsewhere. But since he avoids that understood part, it looks like a change that saves no money. Meanwhile, the proposal is still subject to standard anti-market rhetoric: "Arnold Kling wants to eliminate your health insurance! He thinks you should be paying more out of pocket for the same health care! Millions of Americans will be dying in the street due to inadequately diagnosed medical conditions, but all he can think about is economic efficiency! Where is room for life in your equations, Mr. Kling?"
Is it wrong of me to expect bile against fairly restrained proposals that mis-characterizes them while engaging in ad hominem attacks? Maybe I just read too many blogs these days. This assumes that you can get the relevant people to read a book that does not claim to have all the answers. You do not get invited to speak on camera with "The goal is not to press a specific set of solutions or proposals, but to articulate an economic perspective on the issues involved." Yes, it is a brilliant 100 pages of "useful insights" that explain things clearly and concisely, without venom or partisanship. Who buys that kind of book?
To pick on one more weakness, Mr. Kling gives little attention to counter-arguments. You probably enter the book with views about what else might be causing America's runaway health care costs, such as overpriced pharmaceuticals, insurance administration, or medical malpractice suits. All of these views, along with arguments against them, take up about half of chapter 2. One is not expected to spend half of the book specifically refuting competing theories, but the few paragraphs given to each will not satisfy anyone who enters the debate with existing ideas. It is easy to teach someone who knows that he is ignorant; it is hard to teach someone who knows things that are not so. This is a great case for, but with so many competing narratives out there, it needs more support against, or at least a pointer to where such support exists.
No matter what your current ideas are, it is worth reading this book. It is clear, coherent, and quick. It explains economic insights well for a non-economist audience. If you work in this field, bump the rating up to a 4 and keep a copy at your desk.
Amazon link
EconLog
This is an excellent book on health care financing, combining everything you would want for a general audience. It is short and written with an approachable style, but it conveys solid economic thinking. If you read one book ever about health insurance, Medicare/Medicaid, or the United States' looming financial crisis, read this book.
The United States pays more for health care than other industrialized nations but does not get more out of it. Medicare's current unfunded liabilities total $68,000,000,000,000. This is not good.
Arnold Kling attributes this largely to "premium medicine," procedures that have low expected values relative to their costs. These include using expensive equipment that is only marginally better than simpler treatments, employing extensive medical specialists, and engaging in testing for low-probability high-severity problems. So while 95% of cases will be cured by "take two aspirin and call me in the morning," we give a referral and have three batteries of tests done because a few of those cases will be cancer. American medical facilities have high resources, patients have high expectations, and insurance lets everyone ignore the costs.
Mr. Kling cites three principles that are in play. First, we want unfettered access to health care; no one should be barred from having anything. Second, we want insulation from costs; money should not stand between you and medical care. Third, we want the whole thing to be affordable on a societal basis. This last point is where the current system is falling down, but if we want to improve it, we need to give up something from the other two.
No system is perfect. The American system is unsustainably expensive, particularly in the long run; we lose on point #3. The British system rations health care bureaucratically; it loses on point #1. Arnold Kling proposes sacrificing #2 and moving to a free market system for everyone except the very poor.
One key is understanding that what Americans call health insurance is really health care or cost insulation. Your car insurance does not pay for oil changes; it covers crashes that you could not pay for out of pocket. True health insurance would work similarly: it would cover major illnesses, but you would pay for doctor's visits, prescriptions, and routine care out of pocket.
The major value of this is to make people think about health care costs, not just benefits. When we are insulated from the costs of medical care, we treat it as if it were free, with the only limiting factor being the bother of the procedure itself. Run a test for every possible disease, and no technology is too good for me! This is how costs run away from us. Paying out of pocket, you need to decide whether it is worthwhile to pay $500 for a test that has a 0.01% chance of detecting cancer.
It is not the case that every possible medical treatment of value should be pursued. Sometimes that $500 would improve your life more elsewhere. For example, getting new brakes on your car might be more likely to save your life. Maybe those funds will save more lives if we spend them on environmental cleanup or educating children in poor countries. Cost insulation may be comforting, but it increases our costs and keeps us from helping others and ourselves in other ways.
Mr. Kling argues that markets are a more effective way of delivering health care than government rationing because they adapt better. The value of markets comes not from allocating resources more efficiently but from finding new techniques and technologies for using those resources. It is a process of trial and error where the ineffective approaches fall away and the successful ones spread quickly. No private system would survive creating a $68 trillion liability, while government tries to find new ways to paper over the problem and muddle through.
A government-led process will restrict choice while cementing existing winners. By definition, bureaucratic system move slowly and limit the range of options. That is their purpose. This is good for codifying the medical best practices once we find them, but not good for innovating. Meanwhile, governments are responsive to organized interests. In the case of health care, the strongest organized interests are medical companies and doctors' groups. It is quaint that some people think nationalized health care would reduce corporate control over the health care system. Whose phone call is your senator more likely to answer: yours or one from the CEO of a multi-billion dollar HMO? Which of the two of you contributed more to his re-election campaign?
One of the weaknesses of Crisis of Abundance's proposals is that it is cost-neutral. That is, while Mr. Kling wants you to spend more out of pocket on health care, he does not want you to spend more (or less) total. If we stop providing insulation-as-insurance through employers, that money instead goes to you directly. The implication is that total expenditures will go down, but that is not part of the proposal here. As presented, the plan reduces insulation without claiming to reduce costs. The immediate question is, so what was the point?
There is a political reason for this, but it does not work to my mind. Let's say that making you think about your medical expenditures would cut your total spending by 10% as you decide maybe you do not need so much bloodwork or that just-in-case MRI. The immediate rhetoric against the proposal is: "Arnold Kling wants to gut health care spending in America! Seniors and children dead in the streets! He thinks you should not get testing for serious diseases so that he and his corporate sponsors can keep their money!" So the proposal is cost-neutral with the understanding that you can cut your spending if you want to use that money elsewhere. But since he avoids that understood part, it looks like a change that saves no money. Meanwhile, the proposal is still subject to standard anti-market rhetoric: "Arnold Kling wants to eliminate your health insurance! He thinks you should be paying more out of pocket for the same health care! Millions of Americans will be dying in the street due to inadequately diagnosed medical conditions, but all he can think about is economic efficiency! Where is room for life in your equations, Mr. Kling?"
Is it wrong of me to expect bile against fairly restrained proposals that mis-characterizes them while engaging in ad hominem attacks? Maybe I just read too many blogs these days. This assumes that you can get the relevant people to read a book that does not claim to have all the answers. You do not get invited to speak on camera with "The goal is not to press a specific set of solutions or proposals, but to articulate an economic perspective on the issues involved." Yes, it is a brilliant 100 pages of "useful insights" that explain things clearly and concisely, without venom or partisanship. Who buys that kind of book?
To pick on one more weakness, Mr. Kling gives little attention to counter-arguments. You probably enter the book with views about what else might be causing America's runaway health care costs, such as overpriced pharmaceuticals, insurance administration, or medical malpractice suits. All of these views, along with arguments against them, take up about half of chapter 2. One is not expected to spend half of the book specifically refuting competing theories, but the few paragraphs given to each will not satisfy anyone who enters the debate with existing ideas. It is easy to teach someone who knows that he is ignorant; it is hard to teach someone who knows things that are not so. This is a great case for, but with so many competing narratives out there, it needs more support against, or at least a pointer to where such support exists.
No matter what your current ideas are, it is worth reading this book. It is clear, coherent, and quick. It explains economic insights well for a non-economist audience. If you work in this field, bump the rating up to a 4 and keep a copy at your desk.
Amazon link
EconLog
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Kilala Princess Volume 1 by Rika Tanaka and Nao Kodaka
Rating - 3: worth reading once (borrow it from a library)
Kingdom Hearts done as shoujo manga, which means that little girls in an anime style hang out with the Disney princesses. Not my thing, personally, but if you are in the target audience this would not be bad.
Kilala awakens a sleeping prince/secret agent from another world, setting her on a magical journey through the Disney stories to save her kidnapped friend. Complete with magical tiara.
I should stop reading shoujo manga for review, since I never really like it. I thought my niece might like this one, but she is probably not old enough to read it. Recommended for girly girls with a third-fifth grade reading level.
The art is good, true to the styles of both manga and Disney. The eyes are big. Rei, the sleeping prince, is the standard bishounen. Snow White and the other classic characters look as though they were pulled from cells of the films.
The plot is pretty thin. It usually is in kids' manga.
If you are not a ten-year-old girl, no, don't read it. It was not written for us.
Amazon link
Kingdom Hearts done as shoujo manga, which means that little girls in an anime style hang out with the Disney princesses. Not my thing, personally, but if you are in the target audience this would not be bad.
Kilala awakens a sleeping prince/secret agent from another world, setting her on a magical journey through the Disney stories to save her kidnapped friend. Complete with magical tiara.
I should stop reading shoujo manga for review, since I never really like it. I thought my niece might like this one, but she is probably not old enough to read it. Recommended for girly girls with a third-fifth grade reading level.
The art is good, true to the styles of both manga and Disney. The eyes are big. Rei, the sleeping prince, is the standard bishounen. Snow White and the other classic characters look as though they were pulled from cells of the films.
The plot is pretty thin. It usually is in kids' manga.
If you are not a ten-year-old girl, no, don't read it. It was not written for us.
Amazon link
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik
Rating - 2: not worth reading (read the strips online)
Penny Arcade is a web comic mostly about video games. In it, Gabe and Tycho (the stand-ins for Misters Holkins and Krahulik) comments on games and the industry, drink Sprite, terrorize small children, and occasionally die violently. We also get vignettes involving in-game characters, company executives, lascivious small appliances, or whatever. If you do not know what Penny Arcade is, this book is probably not for you. (Also, there is some swearing.)
This book collects the Penny Arcade strips from 2001, with some other bonus items. The strips plus pithy comments are 2/3 of the book.
You can go read all these strips online, right now, for free. Does this book add value to that? No, not much, and in some ways it takes away from the value of reading online. I recommend just reading it at their website, and only buy the book if you need a portable version for use away from somewhere with an internet connection.
Do I need to comment on Penny Arcade itself? You can click through a few strips to see if it is for you. The art visibly improves over time, and it was already pretty good at the beginning of 2001. Gabe continues to look better as years pass, while I think Tycho peaked a couple years back. It's a full color comic that takes longer to draw than it looks, since they do significant inking work. It's a clean, clear style. The strip's humor is usually profane, absurd, and/or in-jokes. I enjoy it, and 2001 included some good strips.
What is missing from the paper version? First, you do not have the news links. The strips do not always make sense out of context, and that context might have been ephemeral six years ago. You may also want Google access and further links to really get some of the obscure jokes. That is probably a strike against Penny Arcade, that the references can be that obscure and the humor is so quickly dated. The better strips are timeless, but a lot of them require some context.
You do get some context in terms of a few sentences about each strip. This commentary can even be new and insightful. It includes several editions of "Wow, we were wrong about that one." It is a peak behind the curtain, so if you have been longing for greater insight into what went on behind those three panels of a comic strip, well, here are a few sentences towards your enlightenment. Knock yourself out.
Bonus material! You get full page reprints of images from the Penny Arcade card game! I don't think these drawings were intended to be viewed at this size, but you get them. You also get four bits of abortive attempts at other comics. These are ideas they had that apparently did not go anywhere. So they went here. They are somewhat interesting as ideas, but there is not much there there. "Over Easy" is kind of amusing.
In the end, just read them online. You can also e-mail links to your friends, which is hard to do with a book.
Amazon link
Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade is a web comic mostly about video games. In it, Gabe and Tycho (the stand-ins for Misters Holkins and Krahulik) comments on games and the industry, drink Sprite, terrorize small children, and occasionally die violently. We also get vignettes involving in-game characters, company executives, lascivious small appliances, or whatever. If you do not know what Penny Arcade is, this book is probably not for you. (Also, there is some swearing.)
This book collects the Penny Arcade strips from 2001, with some other bonus items. The strips plus pithy comments are 2/3 of the book.
You can go read all these strips online, right now, for free. Does this book add value to that? No, not much, and in some ways it takes away from the value of reading online. I recommend just reading it at their website, and only buy the book if you need a portable version for use away from somewhere with an internet connection.
Do I need to comment on Penny Arcade itself? You can click through a few strips to see if it is for you. The art visibly improves over time, and it was already pretty good at the beginning of 2001. Gabe continues to look better as years pass, while I think Tycho peaked a couple years back. It's a full color comic that takes longer to draw than it looks, since they do significant inking work. It's a clean, clear style. The strip's humor is usually profane, absurd, and/or in-jokes. I enjoy it, and 2001 included some good strips.
What is missing from the paper version? First, you do not have the news links. The strips do not always make sense out of context, and that context might have been ephemeral six years ago. You may also want Google access and further links to really get some of the obscure jokes. That is probably a strike against Penny Arcade, that the references can be that obscure and the humor is so quickly dated. The better strips are timeless, but a lot of them require some context.
You do get some context in terms of a few sentences about each strip. This commentary can even be new and insightful. It includes several editions of "Wow, we were wrong about that one." It is a peak behind the curtain, so if you have been longing for greater insight into what went on behind those three panels of a comic strip, well, here are a few sentences towards your enlightenment. Knock yourself out.
Bonus material! You get full page reprints of images from the Penny Arcade card game! I don't think these drawings were intended to be viewed at this size, but you get them. You also get four bits of abortive attempts at other comics. These are ideas they had that apparently did not go anywhere. So they went here. They are somewhat interesting as ideas, but there is not much there there. "Over Easy" is kind of amusing.
In the end, just read them online. You can also e-mail links to your friends, which is hard to do with a book.
Amazon link
Penny Arcade
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Girl Genius: Omnibus Edition 1 by Phil and Kaja Foglio
Rating - 3.5: worth reading, parts worth re-reading (borrow or buy it)
I have been a fan of Phil Foglio's work for most of my life, but I have rarely sought it out. I think Girl Genius launched around the time I stopped buying many comics, so I never got into it. I still think of him as the guy who does "What's New."
We once again have one of those books where the early plot twist is given away by the premise of the book, if not the title. So I am going to say it. If you want to remain pristinely unspoiled, just start reading the web comic now.
Agatha Clay's inventions never worked, until today. She is a Spark, a genius who can create wonderful devices in fits of inspiration. Better, she is the lost heir of the Heterodynes, legendary mad scientists. Of course, her awakening is coming on Castle Wolfenbach, flying fortress of the land's Spark dictator...
This Omnibus Edition collects the first three volumes of Girl Genius, in black and white. The first volume seems to have been black and white anyway. Since this was my first exposure to Girl Genius, I found the colors a bit garish upon first exposure to the original versions, but I have mostly warmed to them. I still find the overuse of purples a bit off-putting, but the colors do good things with yellow, orange, and green. The Omnibus stands on its own in black and white.
A bit more about the art? This being Phil Foglio, I expected more round female parts to be visiting. The art is surprisingly restrained in that respect, for which I should perhaps credit Mrs. Foglio. Agatha is given the tendency of inventing in her sleep, though, which leaves her in her undergarments for entire scenes.
The drawing style is ... Foglio. If you do not know it, you will pick it up in a few pages. The faces carry do a lot of the work, well drawn with small noses and expressive eyes. It is a classic comic style that is easy on the eyes. Until meeting Mr. Foglio, I had not realized how many of his male characters have variations on his face. Agatha pretty much is Kaja, so the Omnibus cover looks a family portrait. Okay, a bit younger and thinner.
The backgrounds are what boost the book to a 3.5. They are very busy with lots of little touches like decorating a room with prime numbers. You could spend a long while looking at the details. The book format beats the web in being easier to scrutinize at length. Complex backgrounds are notable because they are a huge bear to draw. No sane artist wants to repeat that overly complex laboratory background in every panel, while trying to keep straight whether the vat was to the left or the right of the whirling clicky thing. When you do a crowd scene with dozens of people and robots, you must draw every one of them. That is why manga has simple backgrounds and you rarely see a comic with every major character in the world on the same page. The complex backgrounds are so good and prevalent that you do not notice the times when he cheats past them.
The story is set in a steam-powered tech/fantasy world. "Gaslamp" is the term, since "steampunk" seems inappropriate. It is not punk. There are tiny and giant robots, powered by gears, and a small variety of humanoids like the jagermonsters. It's medieval Europe with unlikely tech and a few oddities. We spend volume one in a city, two and three on an airship.
Characters are relatively flat. We are not seeing a lot of development, nor is the story particularly character-driven. Everyone seems caught up in events that are not fully in anyone's control. Antics and wacky hijinx ensue. Agatha may get to be the master of her destiny at some point.
Oddly, the comic relief characters are worth noting in what is already a comedic adventure. Everyone gets to be a comic character, but the jagermonsters stand out for silliness. They're fun.
The plot arcs are simple and straightforward. We are moving from one place to another. It moves quickly. It is not an earth-shatteringly great story at this point, but it does not take long to read, either. Give them more pages, and this should continue to be amusing, perhaps with greater depth. These are still introductory adventures, not bad ones, but the story will obviously grow. We are not yet deep into it.
The adventures continue online, and more volumes are available for order. If you buy and read all the volumes, "The Advanced Class" is all new stuff. Otherwise, the free online version will catch up with the dead tree version sometime.
I will leave you with one of my favorites from Girl Genius: "Agatha is Given the Locket (Flashback)." It may not work out of context, but the art is great: little Agatha is adorable, and Uncle Barry is, well, Phil. Lots of work being done with expressions. Agatha's dialogue on the second page is excellent characterization, demonstrating intelligence and naivete. It is a good vignette in two pages. Also, the color work on that last frame is not something you get in the black and white version.
Amazon link
Girl Genius, the web comic and everything else
Studio Foglio
I have been a fan of Phil Foglio's work for most of my life, but I have rarely sought it out. I think Girl Genius launched around the time I stopped buying many comics, so I never got into it. I still think of him as the guy who does "What's New."
We once again have one of those books where the early plot twist is given away by the premise of the book, if not the title. So I am going to say it. If you want to remain pristinely unspoiled, just start reading the web comic now.
Agatha Clay's inventions never worked, until today. She is a Spark, a genius who can create wonderful devices in fits of inspiration. Better, she is the lost heir of the Heterodynes, legendary mad scientists. Of course, her awakening is coming on Castle Wolfenbach, flying fortress of the land's Spark dictator...
This Omnibus Edition collects the first three volumes of Girl Genius, in black and white. The first volume seems to have been black and white anyway. Since this was my first exposure to Girl Genius, I found the colors a bit garish upon first exposure to the original versions, but I have mostly warmed to them. I still find the overuse of purples a bit off-putting, but the colors do good things with yellow, orange, and green. The Omnibus stands on its own in black and white.
A bit more about the art? This being Phil Foglio, I expected more round female parts to be visiting. The art is surprisingly restrained in that respect, for which I should perhaps credit Mrs. Foglio. Agatha is given the tendency of inventing in her sleep, though, which leaves her in her undergarments for entire scenes.
The drawing style is ... Foglio. If you do not know it, you will pick it up in a few pages. The faces carry do a lot of the work, well drawn with small noses and expressive eyes. It is a classic comic style that is easy on the eyes. Until meeting Mr. Foglio, I had not realized how many of his male characters have variations on his face. Agatha pretty much is Kaja, so the Omnibus cover looks a family portrait. Okay, a bit younger and thinner.
The backgrounds are what boost the book to a 3.5. They are very busy with lots of little touches like decorating a room with prime numbers. You could spend a long while looking at the details. The book format beats the web in being easier to scrutinize at length. Complex backgrounds are notable because they are a huge bear to draw. No sane artist wants to repeat that overly complex laboratory background in every panel, while trying to keep straight whether the vat was to the left or the right of the whirling clicky thing. When you do a crowd scene with dozens of people and robots, you must draw every one of them. That is why manga has simple backgrounds and you rarely see a comic with every major character in the world on the same page. The complex backgrounds are so good and prevalent that you do not notice the times when he cheats past them.
The story is set in a steam-powered tech/fantasy world. "Gaslamp" is the term, since "steampunk" seems inappropriate. It is not punk. There are tiny and giant robots, powered by gears, and a small variety of humanoids like the jagermonsters. It's medieval Europe with unlikely tech and a few oddities. We spend volume one in a city, two and three on an airship.
Characters are relatively flat. We are not seeing a lot of development, nor is the story particularly character-driven. Everyone seems caught up in events that are not fully in anyone's control. Antics and wacky hijinx ensue. Agatha may get to be the master of her destiny at some point.
Oddly, the comic relief characters are worth noting in what is already a comedic adventure. Everyone gets to be a comic character, but the jagermonsters stand out for silliness. They're fun.
The plot arcs are simple and straightforward. We are moving from one place to another. It moves quickly. It is not an earth-shatteringly great story at this point, but it does not take long to read, either. Give them more pages, and this should continue to be amusing, perhaps with greater depth. These are still introductory adventures, not bad ones, but the story will obviously grow. We are not yet deep into it.
The adventures continue online, and more volumes are available for order. If you buy and read all the volumes, "The Advanced Class" is all new stuff. Otherwise, the free online version will catch up with the dead tree version sometime.
I will leave you with one of my favorites from Girl Genius: "Agatha is Given the Locket (Flashback)." It may not work out of context, but the art is great: little Agatha is adorable, and Uncle Barry is, well, Phil. Lots of work being done with expressions. Agatha's dialogue on the second page is excellent characterization, demonstrating intelligence and naivete. It is a good vignette in two pages. Also, the color work on that last frame is not something you get in the black and white version.
Amazon link
Girl Genius, the web comic and everything else
Studio Foglio
Thursday, February 01, 2007
H.I.V.E. by Mark Walden
Rating - 2: not worth reading (skip it)
This would make a great cartoon series and may be adequate for the first book of a series, but the book fails to stand on its own.
At the Higher Institute for Villain Education, you learn to become the best of the worst. State of the art facilities and dedicated (evil) staff will help you learn to become a stylish and sophisticated world dominator. Please enjoy your stay, as you get no say in the matter and you will be here for the next six years. Otto, young mastermind in training, would prefer to leave, and is crafting his plans to escape the secret volcano lair even as he meets the colorful cast.
This is an obvious set up for a series. There are too many things introduced by not explored. Characters explicitly get shadowy backgrounds and hidden secrets to be explored, which are then not explored. The book ends with the shadowy background of secrets to come. This, frankly, is annoying, especially when the book does not say "#1 of the X series" on it.
As a kids' cartoon, this will work great. The concept of villain school is a winner, and you already have your kooky cast of professors and kids each with their own specialty set up, including a leader for them who is second-best at everything. Great! Granted, that sounds a lot like Robin from Teen Titans, which by the way has a school for villains called the Hive. If the cartoon comes out, you will want Tara Strong to voice Shelby; she does Raven on Teen Titans and Bubbles on the PowerPuff girls, the two sides of Shelby's character.
The characters lack enough definition to say a lot about them. We get some background about Otto, but details on the rest of them are being left for another episode. Everyone has a defining characteristic and an obvious story to tell, from the trainer's metal hand to the secret of the yin-yang amulets. As a stand-alone book, this collection of tidbits fails almost entirely. Even as part of a series of books, it is shaky to toss this much obvious foreshadowing into one book and deliver so little.
The story itself is weak, partly because so many pages are spent setting up the next book. Otto wants to escape, and he makes a run for it with friends. Okay, that works so far as it goes, although it again reads like a cartoon script. Why do we have a plant-based climax stacked on top of that, again with a big shout of "FORESHADOWING!" (which delivers in this case)? Ignoring the physics and conservation of matter involved in the giant monster, was this really the way to end an escape story? The story ends without concluding. Maybe it will work better in the big two-part, hour long pilot episode of the cartoon, when we can meet all these characters and see their obvious hooks through their art, animation, and voice-acting, rather than devoting separate time to laying it all out.
Have I picked on the book too much? What we have here is not bad in and of itself. If Mr. Walden had a couple hundred more pages to play with or a smaller font, this could be something substantial. As it is, we have an incomplete bit of something larger, and it is so obviously incomplete that it fails to create a hunger for the whole thing.
But it might make a really great cartoon. Seriously.
Amazon link
This would make a great cartoon series and may be adequate for the first book of a series, but the book fails to stand on its own.
At the Higher Institute for Villain Education, you learn to become the best of the worst. State of the art facilities and dedicated (evil) staff will help you learn to become a stylish and sophisticated world dominator. Please enjoy your stay, as you get no say in the matter and you will be here for the next six years. Otto, young mastermind in training, would prefer to leave, and is crafting his plans to escape the secret volcano lair even as he meets the colorful cast.
This is an obvious set up for a series. There are too many things introduced by not explored. Characters explicitly get shadowy backgrounds and hidden secrets to be explored, which are then not explored. The book ends with the shadowy background of secrets to come. This, frankly, is annoying, especially when the book does not say "#1 of the X series" on it.
As a kids' cartoon, this will work great. The concept of villain school is a winner, and you already have your kooky cast of professors and kids each with their own specialty set up, including a leader for them who is second-best at everything. Great! Granted, that sounds a lot like Robin from Teen Titans, which by the way has a school for villains called the Hive. If the cartoon comes out, you will want Tara Strong to voice Shelby; she does Raven on Teen Titans and Bubbles on the PowerPuff girls, the two sides of Shelby's character.
The characters lack enough definition to say a lot about them. We get some background about Otto, but details on the rest of them are being left for another episode. Everyone has a defining characteristic and an obvious story to tell, from the trainer's metal hand to the secret of the yin-yang amulets. As a stand-alone book, this collection of tidbits fails almost entirely. Even as part of a series of books, it is shaky to toss this much obvious foreshadowing into one book and deliver so little.
The story itself is weak, partly because so many pages are spent setting up the next book. Otto wants to escape, and he makes a run for it with friends. Okay, that works so far as it goes, although it again reads like a cartoon script. Why do we have a plant-based climax stacked on top of that, again with a big shout of "FORESHADOWING!" (which delivers in this case)? Ignoring the physics and conservation of matter involved in the giant monster, was this really the way to end an escape story? The story ends without concluding. Maybe it will work better in the big two-part, hour long pilot episode of the cartoon, when we can meet all these characters and see their obvious hooks through their art, animation, and voice-acting, rather than devoting separate time to laying it all out.
Have I picked on the book too much? What we have here is not bad in and of itself. If Mr. Walden had a couple hundred more pages to play with or a smaller font, this could be something substantial. As it is, we have an incomplete bit of something larger, and it is so obviously incomplete that it fails to create a hunger for the whole thing.
But it might make a really great cartoon. Seriously.
Amazon link
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