2006-2008 Reviews: Index by Rating

4: worth reading multiple times (buy it)

Thriving on Vague Objectives by Scott Adams
Dawn by Octavia Butler (Xenogenesis, book 1)
After Life by Simon Funk
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
Heavy Metal and You by Christopher Krovatin
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
Hardball by Chris Matthews
Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons
The Geography of Girlhood by Kirsten Smith
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon and Georges Jeanty
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
Girl Genius: Omnibus Edition 1 by Phil and Kaja Foglio
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge
The Misenchanted Sword by Lawrence Watt-Evans
The Faceless Fiend by Howard Whitehouse

3: worth reading once (borrow it from a library)
Flatland by Edwin Abbott
Candyfreak by Steve Almond (+)
The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov
Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
What Would Dewey Do? by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block
Hugging the Rock by Susan Taylor Brown
Adulthood Rites by Octavia Butler (Xenogenesis, book 2)
Imago by Octavia Butler (Xenogenesis, book 3) ((3)
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You by Peter Cameron
The Myth of the Rational Voter by Bryan Caplan
Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Who's in Control? by Richard Darman
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Catherine Liszt (+)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
Ida B by Katherine Hannigan
Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2006 Edition edited by Rich Horton
How to Tell a Secret by P.J. Huff and J.G. Lewin
Faeries' Landing: Volume 1 by You Hyun
House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
Crisis of Abundance by Arnold Kling
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)
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The Magic of Recluce by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
The Complete Strangers in Paradise Volume One by Terry Moore
Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk
In the Palace of Repose by Holly Phillips
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
Bonk by Mary Roach
The Free Lunch by Spider Robinson
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
Blindness by José Saramago
Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage
The Riddle of Scheherazade by Raymond Smullyan
Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
The Warlock in Spite of Himself by Christopher Stasheff (The Warlock Series, book 1)
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart
The Arrival by Shaun Tan
Kilala Princess Volume 1 by Rika Tanaka and Nao Kodaka
Funny You Should Ask... Volume 2 from Thomson Gale
Runaways, Volume 1 by Brian Vaughan and Adrian Alphona
Waiter Rant by The Waiter
Big Fish by Daniel Wallace
The Secret Lives of Men and Women compiled by Frank Warren
Generation Dead by Daniel Waters
My Friend is Sad by Mo Willems
Today I Will Fly! by Mo Willems
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny
The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny
Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny
Sign of the Unicorn by Roger Zelazny

2.5: parts of it are worth reading once (borrow it from a library)
The Monster Hunter's Handbook by Ibrahim Amin
The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen by M. T. Anderson
Restoring the Lost Constitution by Randy Barnett
Bipolar Disorder Demystified by Lana Castle
The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Leviathan on the Right by Michael Tanner
Candide by Voltaire
The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams
The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny

2: not worth reading (skip it)
A Perfect Mess by Eric Abrahamson and David D. Freedman
God's Debris by Scott Adams
Batman: Son of the Demon by Mike Barr and Jerry Bingham
Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear
Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett
Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? by Michael Benson
Little Big Man by Thomas Berger
Justice League Unlimited: Jam Packed Action - Volume 1 by Stan Berkowitz and J. M. DeMatteis
The Name of This Book Is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch
If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino
Confessions of a Blabbermouth by Mike Carey, Louise Carey, and Aaron Alexovich
The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg
Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
Imperial Earth 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
God's Problem by Bart Ehrman
Against the Giants by Ru Emerson
Soccer Chick Rules by Dawn FitzGerald
Beastly by Alex Flinn
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
The Breakthrough Imperative by Mark Gottfredson and Steve Schaubert
Saffron and Brimstone by Elizabeth Hand
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days Volume 1 by Fumino Hayashi
Do Not Go Naked into Your Next Presentation by Ron Hoff
Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik
Dead Men Kill by L. Ron Hubbard
Leave the Building Quickly by Cynthia Kaplan
Irreducible Mind by Edward Kelly and Emily Kelly, et al
Bad Buster by Sofie Laguna
SWF Seeks Same by John Lutz
Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress by Shelly Mazzanoble
28 Days Later: The Aftermath by Steve Niles, Dennis Calero, Diego Olmos, and Nat Jones
Not Quite What I Was Planning edited by Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith
The Defense of Kamino and Other Tales by John Ostrander, Jan Duursema, et al
Sabine by A. P.
Sword-Dancer by Jennifer Roberson
Superman: Peace on Earth by Alex Ross and Paul Dini
The Last Day by Dave Sim and Gerhard
Villains United by Gail Simone, Dale Eaglesham, and Val Semeiks
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 Methuselah Enzyme by Fred Mustard Stewart
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! by Jesse Ventura and Dick Russell
Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu
H.I.V.E. by Mark Walden
Tortoises by Jerry Walls
Super Emma by Sally Warner
Star-Begotten by H. G. Wells
Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood
Trumps of Doom by Roger Zelazny
Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming by Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley

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
Leapholes by James Grippando
Sardine in Outer Space by Emmanuel Guibert and Joann Sfar
Rave New World by Lynne Hansen
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)
Dragonmarked by Keith Baker, Michelle Lyons, and C.A. Suleiman
Tome of Battle by Richard Baker, Matthew Sernett, and Frank Brunner
Legacies: The Sublime by Joseph Carriker, Jr., Sam Inabinet, Wood Ingham, Mur Lafferty, Travis
Player's Handbook by Rob Heinsoo, Andy Collins, and James Wyatt
Martial Power by Rob Heinsoo, David Noonan, Robert J. Schwalb, and Chris Sims
Bloodlines: The Legendary by Wood Ingham, Christopher Kobar, Mur Lafferty, Dean Shomshak, Travis Stout and Chuck Wendig
Monster Manual by Mike Mearls, Stephen Schubert, and James Wyatt

3: useful for many campaigns
Mage: The Awakening by Kraig Blackwelder, Bill Bridges, Brian Campbell, Stephen Michael DiPesa, Samuel Inabinet, Steve Kenson, Malcolm Sheppard
Werewolf: The Forsaken by Carl Bowen, Rick Jones, James Kiley, Matthew McFarland and Adam Tinworth
Magic Item Compendium by Andy Collins, Eytan Bernstein, Frank Brunner, Owen K.C. Stephens, and John Snead
Vampire: The Requiem by Ari Marmell, Dean Shomshak, and C.A. Suleiman
Dragon Magic by Owen K.C. Stephens and Rodney Thompson
Complete Mage by Skip Williams, Penny Williams, Ari Marmell, and Kolja Raven Liquette
Dungeon Master's Guide by James Wyatt
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
Weapons of Legacy by Bruce Cordell, Kolja Liquette, and Travis Stout
Lodges: The Faithful by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Matthew McFarland, and Adam Tinworth
Bloodlines: The Hidden by John Goff, Jess Heinig, Christopher Kobar, Brand Robins, Dean Shomshak and Chuck Wendig
VII by Christopher Kobar, Greg Stolze, and Chuck Wendig with Will Hindmarch
Warlords of the Accordlands: Master Codex by Allison Medwin et al.
Trojan War by Aaron Rosenberg
Complete Champion by Ed Stark, Chris Thomasson, Ari Marmell, Rhiannon Louve, and Gary Astleford

2006-2008 Reviews: Alphabetical Index

Flatland by Edwin Abbott (3)
A Perfect Mess by Eric Abrahamson and David D. Freedman (2)
God's Debris by Scott Adams (2)
Thriving on Vague Objectives by Scott Adams (4)
Candyfreak by Steve Almond (3+)
The Monster Hunter's Handbook by Ibrahim Amin (2.5)
The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen by M. T. Anderson (2.5)
The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov (3)
Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum (3)
What Would Dewey Do? by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum (3)
Restoring the Lost Constitution by Randy Barnett (2.5)
Batman: Son of the Demon by Mike Barr and Jerry Bingham (2)
Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear (2)
Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett (2)
Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? by Michael Benson (2)
Little Big Man by Thomas Berger (2)
Justice League Unlimited: Jam Packed Action - Volume 1 by Stan Berkowitz and J. M. DeMatteis (2)
Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block (3)
The Name of This Book Is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch (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)
If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino (2)
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You by Peter Cameron (3)
The Myth of the Rational Voter by Bryan Caplan (3)
Confessions of a Blabbermouth by Mike Carey, Louise Carey, and Aaron Alexovich (2)
The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg (2)
Bipolar Disorder Demystified by Lana Castle (2.5)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (3.5)
Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh (3)
Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke (2)
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke (2)
Imperial Earth by Arthur C. Clarke (2)
The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke (2.5)
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan (3)
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (3)
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)
Who's in Control? by Richard Darman (3)
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (3)
The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Catherine Liszt (3+)
Permutation City by Greg Egan (3)
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (1)
God's Problem by Bart Ehrman (2)
Against the Giants by Ru Emerson (2)
Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2006 Edition edited by Rich Horton (3)
Prayers for the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno (3.5)
Soccer Chick Rules by Dawn FitzGerald (2)
Beastly by Alex Flinn (2)
Girl Genius: Omnibus Edition 1 by Phil and Kaja Foglio (3.5)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin (3)
After Life by Simon Funk (4)
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (2)
The Breakthrough Imperative by Mark Gottfredson and Steve Schaubert (2)
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green (4)
Leapholes by James Grippando (1)
Sardine in Outer Space by Emmanuel Guibert and Joann Sfar (1)
Saffron and Brimstone by Elizabeth Hand (2)
Ida B by Katherine Hannigan (3)
Rave New World by Lynne Hansen (1)
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days Volume 1 by Fumino Hayashi (2*)
Do Not Go Naked into Your Next Presentation by Ron Hoff (2)
Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter (2.5)
Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik (2)
Dead Men Kill by L. Ron Hubbard (2)
How to Tell a Secret by P.J. Huff and J.G. Lewin (3)
Faeries' Landing: Volume 1 by You Hyun (3)
House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones (3)
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones (3)
Leave the Building Quickly by Cynthia Kaplan (2)
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen (3)
Irreducible Mind by Edward Kelly and Emily Kelly, et al (2)
Crisis of Abundance by Arnold Kling (3)
Anne Freaks Volume 1 by Yua Kotegawa (3)
Heavy Metal and You by Christopher Krovatin (4)
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)
Wicked by Gregory Maguire (4)
The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni (I Promessi Sposi translated by Bruce Penman) (3)
Hardball by Chris Matthews (4)
Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress by Shelly Mazzanoble (2)
Sold by Patricia McCormick (3)
Saturday by Ian McEwan (3)
Mindful Politics edited by Melvin McLeod (1.5)
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (3)
The Magic of Recluce by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. (3)
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)
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd (3.5)
The Complete Strangers in Paradise Volume One by Terry Moore (3)
28 Days Later: The Aftermath by Steve Niles, Dennis Calero, Diego Olmos, and Nat Jones (2)
Not Quite What I Was Planning edited by Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith (2)
The Defense of Kamino and Other Tales by John Ostrander, Jan Duursema, et al (2)
Sabine by A. P. (2)
Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk (3)
In the Palace of Repose by Holly Phillips (3)
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman (3)
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (4)
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman (3)
Bonk by Mary Roach (3)
Sword-Dancer by Jennifer Roberson (2)
The Free Lunch by Spider Robinson (3)
Superman: Peace on Earth by Alex Ross and Paul Dini (2)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling (3)
Blindness by José Saramago (3)
Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage (3)
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (2.5)
The Last Day by Dave Sim and Gerhard (2)
Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons (4)
Villains United by Gail Simone, Dale Eaglesham, and Val Semeiks (2)
The Geography of Girlhood by Kirsten Smith (4)
On Beauty by Zadie Smith (2)
The Riddle of Scheherazade by Raymond Smullyan (3)
The Beatrice Letters by Lemony Snicket (2)
The End by Lemony Snicket (2)
Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (3)
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 Methuselah Enzyme by Fred Mustard Stewart (2)
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart (2)
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart (3)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard (4)
The Arrival by Shaun Tan (3)
Kilala Princess Volume 1 by Rika Tanaka and Nao Kodaka (3)
Leviathan on the Right by Michael Tanner (2.5)
Funny You Should Ask... Volume 2 from Thomson Gale (3)
Runaways, Volume 1 by Brian Vaughan and Adrian Alphona (3)
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! by Jesse Ventura and Dick Russell (2)
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge (3.5)
Candide by Voltaire (2.5)
The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell (2.5)
Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu (2)
Waiter Rant by The Waiter (3)
H.I.V.E. by Mark Walden (2)
Big Fish by Daniel Wallace (3)
Tortoises by Jerry Walls (2)
Super Emma by Sally Warner (2)
The Secret Lives of Men and Women compiled by Frank Warren (3)
Generation Dead by Daniel Waters (3)
The Misenchanted Sword by Lawrence Watt-Evans (3.5)
Star-Begotten by H. G. Wells (2)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon and Georges Jeanty (4)
The Faceless Fiend by Howard Whitehouse (3.5)
The Strictest School in the World by Howard Whitehouse (4)
My Friend is Sad by Mo Willems (3)
Today I Will Fly! by Mo Willems (3)
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams (2.5)
5 Minutes And 42 Seconds by T. J. Williams (1)
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe (3)
Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood (2)
The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny (2.5)
The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny (3)
The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny (3)
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny (4)
Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny (3)
Sign of the Unicorn by Roger Zelazny (3)
Trumps of Doom by Roger Zelazny (2)
Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming by Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley (2)

Gaming Books

Dragonmarked by Keith Baker, Michelle Lyons, and C.A. Suleiman (4)
Tome of Battle by Richard Baker, Matthew Sernett, and Frank Brunner (4)
Mage: The Awakening by Kraig Blackwelder, Bill Bridges, Brian Campbell, Stephen Michael DiPesa, Samuel Inabinet, Steve Kenson, Malcolm Sheppard (3)
Werewolf: The Forsaken by Carl Bowen, Rick Jones, James Kiley, Matthew McFarland and Adam Tinworth (3)
Legacies: The Sublime by Joseph Carriker, Jr., Sam Inabinet, Wood Ingham, Mur Lafferty, Travis (4)
Magic Item Compendium by Andy Collins, Eytan Bernstein, Frank Brunner, Owen K.C. Stephens, and John Snead (3)
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)
Lodges: The Faithful by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Matthew McFarland, and Adam Tinworth (2)
Bloodlines: The Hidden by John Goff, Jess Heinig, Christopher Kobar, Brand Robins, Dean Shomshak and Chuck Wendig (2)
Player's Handbook by Rob Heinsoo, Andy Collins, and James Wyatt (4)
Martial Power by Rob Heinsoo, David Noonan, Robert J. Schwalb, and Chris Sims (4)
Bloodlines: The Legendary by Wood Ingham, Christopher Kobar, Mur Lafferty, Dean Shomshak, Travis Stout and Chuck Wendig (4)
VII by Christopher Kobar, Greg Stolze, and Chuck Wendig with Will Hindmarch (2)
Vampire: The Requiem by Ari Marmell, Dean Shomshak, and C.A. Suleiman (3)
Monster Manual by Mike Mearls, Stephen Schubert, and James Wyatt (4)
Warlords of the Accordlands: Master Codex by Allison Medwin et al. (2)
Trojan War by Aaron Rosenberg (2)
Complete Champion by Ed Stark, Chris Thomasson, Ari Marmell, Rhiannon Louve, and Gary Astleford (2)
Dragon Magic by Owen K.C. Stephens and Rodney Thompson (3)
Complete Mage by Skip Williams, Penny Williams, Ari Marmell, and Kolja Raven Liquette (3)
Dungeon Master's Guide by James Wyatt (3)
Magic of Incarnum by James Wyatt, Frank Brunner, and Stephen Schubert (3)

The Free Lunch by Spider Robinson

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

Good, but not great. I would not go out of my way to recommend it to anyone except an intelligent adolescent who is fond of science fiction, but I do not regret having read it.

Mike has decided to live in a theme park where happiness is complete. Slipping off a ride, he falls in with Annie, the Mother Elf who has long been Dreamworld's unofficial resident and caretaker. Annie and an enemy of Dreamworld have both discovered that more workers are leaving the park each day than arrive. Who is responsible, and what side are they on?

I went to the library looking for Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow or Mindkiller by Spider Robinson. Finding neither, I grabbed a random Spider Robinson book, which turned out to be about people living in a souped-up Disneyland. Serendipity reigns.

The setup is a bit simplistic. Our protagonist is a precocious youth. His mentor is an older, less brilliant, but more experienced version of him, initially distant but loving underneath. The enemy is a force of rapacious evil and hatred, as ugly without as within. His henchman is the coolly competent killer. There is a mysterious force whose explanation is not fully coherent. You have seen all these before.

The telling of it is good. The sempai-kohai relationship is textbook, with intuitive affinity and the right level of gruffness. It fits the interactions of intelligent people working together. This relationship is the backbone of the book.

The villainy is weak because it is cliché. We have the caricature of the corrupt CEO, a ball of hate going through great effort to destroy an amusement park. You already know the dispassionate mercenary, utterly professional and somehow overcome frequently.

Stock characters are used appropriately here, but they gives the book a bit of that prefab feel. You normally at least dress up the tropes a bit more. This could be less of a problem for younger readers.

It is a quick read. It should not be difficult to grasp the language or story elements. Events are sped by having intelligent protagonists who make intuitive leaps, rather than spending a quarter of the book puzzling out the obvious. This keeps things moving.

The background problem and solution do not work, for obvious reasons that cannot be explained without spoilers. Given the technology available, one could go with fixing the problem rather than circumventing it. The book itself explains why the solution chosen would fail disastrously and destroy everything. And, because this is a sci fi book, I can say without spoilers that I do mean everything, not everything involved. This is a rather large side effect from amusement park antics.

Forgiving that, as we usually do in non-hard sci fi, it is a simple story that works well with a few creative wrinkles. Fair light reading, not anything you must read before you die. It could easily appeal to non-sci fi fans, and even prolific readers will have difficulty catching all the references.

Amazon link

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

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

Our hero is an insane terrorist who blows up Parliament, right after killing some vice officers to defend the worst attempted-prostitute in London. This sets a certain tone.

In Book One, we meet V and Evey, and we have V's origin story. In Book Two, Evey deals with abandonment and torture while V engages in imaginative bastardry. In Book Three, V re-envisions himself as a force of creative destruction, an incarnate idea attacking a system.

There was a three-year gap between the publication of Books Two and Three. There seems to have been some hope of cleaning up V, making him more of a tragic hero than the psychopath introduced earlier. I find it more likely that V is romanticizing his actions, and it is a bit jarring to go directly from his actions in Book Two to a vision of heroic anarchism in Book Three.

Our hero really is insane. He is usually a cypher, encouraging the reader to project his or her thoughts upon him, but Act One should sufficiently establish that he is working on his own logic. Conveniently, he wins at Xanatos roulette after his chance to expound upon anarchism as a higher order.

The art is great in a way that I usually would not enjoy. I tend to prefer the cleaner lines and higher production quality of more recent work. ("Production quality" refers to the comic itself, the paper, ink, and colors, and is not a shot at the creators.) Many older comic art styles lack fine definition. Here, the drawing is still of that type, but the use of lighting and shadow adds the missing dimensions. The chiaroscuro is excellent.

This is particularly notable in the faces. Without fine lines, faces rarely carry much of the work, but bold lines and shadows let them work here. It works best with strong emotions, especially rage. The effect is all eyes and teeth and bulging flesh. It is least successful in Book Two, where Evey looks more old than suffering. One rage, sporadically used, works well; one suffering, applied for pages at a time, does not.

V's face bears note, since so much is done with a mask. The mask always has the same expression, but it manages to look expressive. Part of that is the suggestion that V is laughing as he kills, which could be just the misleading mask. But then he recites, and the mask seems more fitting. It would be worthwhile to read his lines twice, once going with the smiling face, once imaging a hard voice that contradicts it. A proper reading will mix both over time, but one could read a line entirely differently by taking the grinning face as sincere or ironic.

Look at me, going on about the art first thing. It is usually an afterthought in these reviews, but much of the book is shadowplay, and the art contributes.

On one last art note before heading to the story, I was intrigued by the choice in recounting a crime scene. In a text medium, it is perfectly natural to have the investigator standing there afterwards, recounting what must have happened. In a visual medium, you would show the events, perhaps with a voiceover, likely with occasional shots of the investigator talking. He points to a bloody spot, then you immediately cut to the knife going in. For the scene in question, V uses the latter approach, but it flips the balance: we mostly see the investigator talking, with scattered visuals of the action. It is a bizarre and wonderful choice that feels natural and effective in the moment.

I found Book One to be the best part of the book. V's first arc has more solidity, and it introduces villains very well. The fascist dictator gets his self-justifying soliloquy, seeing his goal past his atrocities. One villain is a textbook abusive spouse, which I think worked well, although I can see how someone could find it ham-handed. The story arc is tight, the execution is dynamic.

Book Two establishes the world in greater detail, and it takes V to a place darker than our earlier serial killer. Without spoilers, this is the kind of moment that lets fans define themselves as really unhealthy people, the kind who watch Saw and try to justify Jigsaw's occasional philosophical rambles. It is possible that V is a high-minded idealist who is willing to get his hands dirty; given the number of people he kills and tortures, directly or through cat's paws, innocent or not, that interpretation is overly charitable.

Book Three opens with one of the best uses of the 1812 overture I have seen. The idea is fairly obvious, but the execution works. I have already commented on the events, so I will comment solely on the ending. There are three different pages that could have been the last. The first two complete the story arc, the second one making it circular. The actual ending gets in one last kick, a particularly harsh one, and suggests a different direction. I am not sure how much I like it. Just as the opening sets a certain tone, ending on that tangent suggests a read on what came before. I will move on, since it is difficult to comment on the last page without spoilers. Conveniently, the comments are open season for spoilers, if anyone wants to discuss it.

The story is well contained. There are many moving pieces, but it is a small field, and the direction is clear. After so many books that have bitten off more than they could chew, it is good to see a story that understands how much territory it needs to cover. The pacing is excellent, stylized in points. There is not much to be said other than, "This is how to do it right." There are small units that move the action forward, they build to larger, self-contained units that contribute to a larger whole. There are reasons why Alan Moore has been one of the most acclaimed names in comics for decades.

The philosophy is fun. V gets to expound on authority, order, chaos, and anarchy at length. But the best bit is in Alan Moore's letter at the end, and even if you already know David Lloyd's (relatively) famous line, it is worth re-reading, so we end on this note:

"I was thinking, why don't we portray him as a resurrected Guy Fawkes, complete with one of those papier mache masks, in a cape and conical hat? He'd look really bizarre and it would give Guy Fawkes the image he's deserved all these years. We shouldn't burn the chap every Nov. 5th but celebrate his attempt to blow up Parliament!"

The moment I read these words, two things occurred to me. Firstly, Dave was obviously a lot less sane than I hitherto believed him to be, and secondly, this was the best idea I'd ever heard in my entire life.

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Superman: Peace on Earth by Alex Ross and Paul Dini

Rating - 2: not worth reading (skip it)

If you like Alex Ross's paintings, you might get it for the art.

Superman tries to have one day where no one on Earth goes hungry.

That is about it. Big Blue delivers food and ruminates on man's inhumanity to man. There is not a lot of story. It mostly serves as a frame for Alex Ross's paintings, in a Marvels sense of putting the Man of Steel in-frame with normal people rather than supervillains. Not being much text, it is a quick read, even if you take a while to look at each over-sized picture page. Still, it is probably not worth a great effort to find a copy.

Unless, as I said, you collect Alex Ross art. Then go nuts, although this is not his best work. I like his Clark Kent more than his Superman.

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A Perfect Mess by Eric Abrahamson and David D. Freedman

Rating - 2: not worth reading (skip it)

The next time you fly, skim the in-flight magazine. You will see ads selling summaries of popular business books for busy executives. These work because the standard business book is an idea or two, up to five pages of useful explanation, then enough anecdotes, tables, padding, etc. to get it to "book length." This is one of those books.

Being more organized might be less efficient. There are non-obvious benefits to messes, and we usually ignore the costs of creating and maintaining order.

Those two sentences are most of what you will get from the book. The efficient level of messiness is rarely zero. Ordering things takes time, and it can take more time than dealing with mess. Meanwhile, many forms of disorder have benefits like serendipitous information, reflecting an intuitive sense of how things related, or keeping your most frequently used documents on top of your desk stacks.

The bulk of the book is examples and anecdotes. You will find mention of Einstein, Google, and Al Qaeda. Topics include urban planning, housekeeping, filing, nuclear terrorism, High Fidelity, hospitals, legal research, and ultimate fighting. You will see sclerotic corporations choking on their own bureaucracy, international comparisons of how to deal with legal and cultural rules, and people who really do have dysfunctional disorder.

If you are trying to insert some disorder into an overly rigid business structure, this jumps to a 3.5 "buy it" recommendation. The book repeatedly notes that messiness has a bad reputation, and you will have an uphill climb convincing people. Having two dozen anecdotes and many examples of "disorder leads to better results in some cases" can help.

The book spends some time attacking order, but mostly it promotes disorder. It might have been better served to note that the wrong system of order is often worse than disorder. It does note that ordering in one way means disorder in another (alphabetize by title, author, or publisher?). So we just had a financial crisis encouraged by a poorly conceived set of regulations that somehow was called deregulation. So the book cites Sarbanes-Oxley, a corporate reporting law that costs billions of dollars a year to implement with no clear advantages to anyone outside large accounting firms. So secretaries develop filing systems that no one else can understand, consultants recommend business structures that mostly serve to create a continued need for consultants, and large computer systems are obsolete or unaligned with your needs by the time development is done. An organized system is probably optimized for something, but if that something is not what you need the system for, the order can work against you.

Leave an extra pile on your desk tonight.

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Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear

Rating - 2: not worth reading (skip it)

There are some interesting ideas, but unfortunate pacing and story development render it unsatisfying. I might have given it a 2.5 if the parts were more severable.

SHEVA is here, a virus contained within the human genetic code. It causes miscarriages that create their own immaculate re-conceptions. The new children are something different.

Part One has the best character development but poor pacing and questionable science. Part Two has the most interesting story work, mixing politics and science to show people playing different games on the same field. Part Three throws all that away for a more limited frame with some questionable character development. They are three rather different windows on parts of the story, and the transitions are gradual and natural rather than A Canticle for Leibowitz's tripartite division.

I was reminded of three books as I read this, so I am going to structure my comments around those.

I just read The Magic of Recluce, which has a similar pacing to Part One. Darwin's Radio starts very slow, but in a less positive way than Recluce. As the attention to detail there recapitulated Order's devotion to perfection in the smallest thing, the pace here seems to represent the flow of investigation and research. It feels like a compromise between how quickly research really goes (of which I have only a weak sense) and how quickly the plot needs things to move. It seems to have the negatives of both plodding storytelling and unrealistic quickness. The book both highlights this problem, noting that the death of mice could cause a six-month setback in someone's research, and tries to avoid it by asserting a parallel research already underway when the problem came to light.

A great problem with the slow investigation is that you know the outcome if you have read as far as the cover. A picture and a sentence should tell you where all this is going. This removes a sense of revelation as the pieces come together, as well as any suspense about what is going on or whether the protagonists are on the wrong track. It seems unfair to blame the author, but it is a problem for the book.

If you can somehow get a copy without reading the cover, by the bye, my summary above should not spoil things.

I am not sure how much is showing the research and what the risk of being Dan Brown'd is. My undergraduate course in reproductive and evolutionary biology was exactly the right prep for this book, but that means I know enough to be fooled more easily. (Perhaps this all seemed more plausible a decade ago, as Greg Bear notes an expected revolution in biology by now, but evolution does not seem to work that way. Perhaps it will seem more plausible a decade from now.) There is some cabbageheading, explaining things for the audience's benefit that the scientists would not explain to each other. For the uninitiated, there is a biology primer in the back, but there is no table of contents or such to let you know that until you are done with the book.

The second book evoked was Childhood's End, for reasons that are more of a spoiler for that book than this one. I will avoid details to avoid the problem, just noting. If you can work out a good line about Darwin's Radio/alarm clocking waking us at Childhood's End, or some such, comments are open.

Third, we have Gödel, Escher, Bach. GEB had SHRDLU, toy of man's designing. Here we have SHERVA, toy of designing man. (The government shortens it to SHEVA for publicity reasons.) On a greater parallel, the characters have a great discussion about emergence and neural nets, speaking of humanity the way GEB's anteater speaks of Aunt Hillary, the conscious ant colony. Humans are collections of cells, none of which comprehend the function of the total organism; the same relationship might apply to humans and humanity as a whole.

The argument is well-presented after a few false starts. I am not sure how much I buy it, because emergence and neural nets can be hidden ways of saying, "I have no idea how this works," that look like explanations. Bonus points are awarded for noting that you can have non-sentient systems of selection, organization, and optimization. Points are deducted for positing an unlikely theory of a trans-generational genetic computer that operates planet- and society-wide and reacts in real time. Points are awarded and then taken away for the mix of randomness then intention and information-gathering attributed to SHEVA.

I note that this here gets put through the wringer because it falls under hard science fiction. If you try to explain things, you must have a decent explanation. If you are Star Wars and have magical energy swords because lightsaber fights are cool, I do not expect a good explanation for why almost all the aliens are humanoids. If you claim that there is a coherent system of magic in your fantasy novel, you get the higher standards. We accept the impossible but not the improbable.

And on that note, the characters' emotional lives take an odd turn by Part Three. They might just exceed my range of experience, but the mix of coherent and aberrant reactions seems weird. By this time, the story is weaker for having shed most of the early cast. To hit one last reference to other authors, I am reminded of Ayn Rand in that I feel like I have learned too much about Greg Bear's sexual interests (here, in the sense of smell).

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Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You by Peter Cameron

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

If Holden Caulfield were an INTP and Catcher in the Rye were a good book, it would be this book.

James Sveck is an anti-social introvert, eighteen years old and not interested in spending the next four years in a bubble with a bunch of other eighteen-year-olds. People just aren't interesting. He works in his mother's art gallery, loves his grandmother, and has a few panic attacks.

The story has few events, and most of them in flashback. It mixes the story models of and adolescent walking around New York City and someone re-hashing events in therapy. The primary driver is the protagonist's introspection. He is thinking all the time.

James is not especially good at acting. The plot events are largely cases where he acted without thinking. He is introspective in retrospect, without much forward-looking thought.

When speaking, he thinks at great length about what he wants to say, but he does not think about the implications. This gives his conversations have the same impulsive quality as his actions, combative and working against himself. James repeatedly refers to the inadequacy of speech of express everything he is thinking. It takes all his attention to put his thoughts into words, leaving nothing for thinking about how others might interpret him or where a conversation is going.

There is a limited amount to comment on because most of the book is James's inner life. It is a very rich inner life, an excellent picture of being extremely introverted, but you will enjoy the book only if you can enjoy wandering around in his skull for two hundred pages. If you rarely want to be alone with your thoughts, James may be too alien for you to empathize with.

Which makes me wonder if I am selling Catcher in the Rye short. I have not read it in a decade, and maybe I just could not empathize with that personality type at the time. Or maybe that is a minority position, like fondness for Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Luckily for the book, young adults who are heavy readers tend to be introverts. This book addresses the core audience. If you hate(d) high school because it is (was) full of high schoolers, this is for you. If the transitions of adolescence are (were) traumatizing because things were not good and you can (could) not see them getting any better, this is for you. For James, there are so few things he likes that he cannot see why he should run headlong into more. Why can't things just stop?

As such, there is some romanticism of death. It appears at scattered points, seeing beauty in certain lives and the end thereof. James understands that this is dark and socially unacceptable, if not unhealthy, but loves the aesthetics. He wants a life away from all these people, and nearby solutions to not living amongst them have their appeal.

At other times, he is disturbed by the same prospects. He first sees beauty in disappearing without leaving a mark, but later sadness. He has the many contradictions of someone who is ambivalent in transition. He is fully capable of out-thinking himself.

I wondered at the start if the language were not too high for a teen. Do eighteen-year-olds, even smart ones, really think in these words? Yes, I think the book entirely justifies that in the character. James is deeply introspective, a heavy reader, and someone who takes pains to put his thoughts into the proper words when he must. The voice is odd to start, but it is not affected.

(And if I may self-referentially comment on using the subjunctive in this, it feels really awkward, especially in a compound.)

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Villains United by Gail Simone, Dale Eaglesham, and Val Semeiks

Rating - 2: not worth reading (skip it)

I know, I know, I am way late to the party on modern comic books. Wait until I review The Iliad and tell me how behind times I am.

In the wake of Identity Crisis, Lex Luthor has formed The Society, a union of supervillains ostensibly formed to prevent the heroes from doing it again. (If you do not know the it of Identity Crisis, I won't spoil it here.) Of course, this being a legion of supervillains, there are other plans in motion. This story, however, is about the rebels against The Society. A Mockingbird has formed The Secret Six, a small group of villains acting against the latest legion evil, since they seem so determined to bring all the villains under one yoke before taking on the heroes.

This is pretty weak. That is not just in terms of the characters in play, although advertising Luthor and Deathstroke and delivering the B-team is also a poor show. No, it is the failure to take the B-team and make them into something interesting. At their best moments, a few members of The Secret Six are somewhat compelling. Mostly, we see the B-team and the C-teams smacking each other around while the brains of the assorted factions are either being foolish or putting together plans that bear no fruit in this volume.

I would like to say that this is part of a larger project that leads to a great payoff. You might expect that, given the "Countdown to Infinite Crisis" sub-title. But again, no, Infinite Crisis has a poor reputation, and this build-up is consistent with that.

Taking our Secret Six, we have a Catman who seems to be trying to re-invent himself as a Batman knock-off; a new character who has potential but little payoff in this volume; a clown and mook pair that try to be tragic but at no point become sympathetic or compelling; sadistic catwoman-poisoner, who is the most interesting character largely because of her ambiguity; and Deadshot, the gruff assassin who is the most simple, consistent, and enjoyable member of the team. It is a small part, but he goes for it.

Parademon and Deadshot can be funny. Cheshire is suitably enigmatic and evil. Crime Doctor's monologues are wonderful, everything you would want in a villain vs. villain book. On the downside, we have a lot of murderers pulling punches here, several masterminds who do not seem to be looking far ahead, and a bunch of villains so far down the C-list (and with no further development) that no one cares if they live or die.

The art is mostly good. The book does not say which illustrators worked on what, but the first half is better. You can see the quality and complexity of the art drop when the new member of the Royal Flush Gang appears.

Best pieces: Issue 1: the twelve boxes showing villains joining The Society; Catman and his pride; the last page. Issue 2: Weather Wizard's appearance and the large group on the next pages; the last page. Issue 4: Scandal's in-costume reveal; the reveal on the power source; the last frame. Issue 5: the first page of The Society's strike-force.

The story depends on text, with the art taking up very little of the weight. That under-utilizes the medium. The color work is poor: far too many people have orange skin, and someone apparently thought Catman was Batman for an entire issue.

The story itself is of small merit. Its contribution to the larger plotline is limited and only in half-measures presumably intended to get you to buy more comic books where they address the various points tossed out. Not worth the time.

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Martial Power by Rob Heinsoo, David Noonan, Robert J. Schwalb, and Chris Sims

Dungeons and Dragons, 4th edition role-playing book

Rating - 4: useful for any (4th edition D&D) campaign (buy it)

Sweet mother of crunch! This is not fluffy. Almost half the book is new powers for the four martial classes. The menus expand.

This supplement adds more options for the four martial classes from the Player's Handbook: fighters, rangers, rogues, and warlords.

Each class gets thirty to thirty-five pages. The standard package is two new builds/class features, fifteen pages of new powers, and a dozen new paragon paths. The ranger has only one new build/feature, but the beast companions get an extended presentation, along with half to one-third of the other new ranger content. These are followed by twenty pages of feats and ten epic destinies.

So I repeat, sweet mother of crunch. The PHB had four paragon paths for each class and four epic destinies for all the classes to share. Each class has a higher page count in this book than in the PHB. I characterized the PHB as stable but light on content, needing fleshing out. This adds much flesh, enough to significantly change the game for half the classes.

This creates the odd case that most of the content for the martial classes is in this book rather than the PHB. I wonder how they will deal with that in future books. Do NPCs get powers from these books or stick to the PHB, or do you adopt a standard practice of reprinting the entire power for each character?

It also implies that the other classes are significantly incomplete. You might have guessed that when, say, the cleric had only two options at level 29. This would mean that the initial release of eight classes will not really be complete until Arcane Power and Divine Power are published. I know that 4th edition borrowed a lot back from MMORPGs, but completing the initial game a year after release is a bit much. On the other hand, Player's Handbook 2 should be able to have much more complete classes, since it does not need to include all the rules for the game. Or they could cut the page count and include the rest in Primal Power, Martial Power 2 and so on. Pardon my cynicism about development plans and revenue.

How is the new content? It opens up several options for character concepts. We have tougher or two-weapon fighters, the beastmaster ranger, more mobile or thuggish rogues, and differently inspiring warlords. Fighters get the best of it with the most new options. Rangers get the most dramatically different option, becoming the first pet class. If your character did not fit into the four paragon paths offered, you now have another twelve per class. You now have epic destiny options other than demigod.

Where the PHB had four options per level for abilities, this book adds at least four to almost everything. I am still stuck on this point: the majority of the content for the martial classes is in this book rather than the PHB. It has half the build options, the majority of the powers, three-quarters of the paragon paths, and ten epic destinies for four classes rather than four for eight. It has all the feats that make it relevant what your race-class combination is. The core books might as well be the cripppleware version of the game.

The race-class feats are a useful addition, creating differences early on that were added late in 3rd edition. The Forgotten Realms races get to play too. Other feats encourage specialization paths, which is good for all those players who say, "I want a guy who can..." I am not sure how effective a breath weapon-focused dragonborn warrior will be, but it is a fun concept.

I like the fun concepts encouraged. The dwarven defender is back, along with three other (new and old) racial fighter types. There are paragon paths for knights, polearm-wielders, shield masters, blitzkriegs, and bulldozers. Classic rogues appear like the sniper, acrobat, and guildmaster.

For balance considerations, I turn to the Character Optimization board. I trust the experts to recognize what is over- and under-powered. The fighter seems to be the clear winner here, with new options that are stronger than the PHB options. Battleragers have great survivability, and tempests make it much easier to reach Striker damage on a Defender. The most broken thing is the Marked Scourge feat, which has people re-designing warriors to optimize Wisdom. The most interestingly broken bit comes at level 30, when a ranger/warlord/horizon walker/warmaster can, each round, move an unlimited distance while granting any number of allies an unlimited number of actions; that may need errata. Or perhaps balance is meant to be tossed out the window at level 30, because two classes have "infinite self-resurrection" abilities and another lets all allies within 100 feet keep fighting at -10,000 hit points.

Most balance issues arise largely because of the increased volume of material with which to work. And because this is the majority of the martial material, the question is whether the original stuff was underpowered, not whether the majority is overpowered. That said, some options are so good, or clearly so good in combination, that multi-classing seems to be a standard character optimization plan.

I speak of crunch, but the fluff is snuck in while you are so distracted. There are 12 side-boxes in the fighter power descriptions, talking about fighters of various races and attitudes. Half the description for a paragon path or epic destiny is description. There are many illustrations.

Adam Gillespie seems to have the best of the art. I was taken with Ron Lemen's Death Dealer, and Jeremy Jarvis has a great opening to chapter five in a style that I would not normally favor. As with the Monster Manual, this book recycles some previous edition images productively. The illustration quality on the whole is not as good as the core books. I like Brian Hagan's lines, and Lucio Parrillo has some good pieces.

I am skipping the chapter-by-chapter analysis this time. You have one for each class plus one with feats and epic destinies. Done. Instead, I must admit that my product line prediction has not held up. Future releases may be closer to that, but this book did not use the standard 3rd edition scattershot of a bit of everything in every book. No new race, class, skills, magic items, or monsters. This is very focused, and you get what you paid for, without any dilution.

Granted, reading this, you may have wanted the initial PHB to be a bit more complete in laying out the classes, or not take a year to get to all of them. Oh well. I am now curious about Divine Power, because there are only two divine classes at present. Either several more are going to be introduced, or there are going to be a great many divine options. Amazon says that Arcane Power includes support for the two PHB classes, one added in the Forgotten Realms, and two added in the to-be-published PHB2. So maybe PHB2 is planning to take that second path and rely on the next publication to complete the classes.

My apologies for the excess of meta-game thoughts. I find the business plan as interesting as the game itself in this release. D&D has always had a narrow profit margin, and perhaps the latest line of releases has figured out how to get more money through inter-locking releases. Or maybe people will start using more PDFs. I am not sure how D&D Insider ties into this, except for bringing the magazine publication back in-house with a different revenue model. I reserve the right to downgrade the entire product line by a rating point if it turns out that the books really are crippleware unless you spend a few hundred dollars to get the full interlocking set.

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The Magic of Recluce by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

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

Slow but thorough.

There are two forces in the world, order and chaos. Anything less than perfection is a flaw in order, a gateway to chaos that threatens the peace and prosperity of Recluce. Lerris is a young man, bored with perfection, who is being sent beyond Recluce to learn how he fits into the world.

If only anyone would explain anything to him. It is explicitly all about the journey, and no one will teach you anything because you must learn it for yourself for it to be really true. Or some such: the early chapters refuse to explain fully why they will not fully explain things. At least the book is neither gloating about how the protagonist/reader could not figure it all out without half the information nor rambling about how mysterious it all is. They seem to have some purpose in not explaining, so the author has convinced me to accept what is usually my pet hate in books. That is a good sign.

The storytelling is luxuriantly detailed. In a 500-page book, there might be 200 pages of story, probably less, mixed with at least 300 pages of world. This is not compact. You will have paragraphs of weather, the name of every building entered along with architectural details, and a description of how a gate (that appears once and is never closed) would slide into a groove to make it more difficult to open if it needed to be locked. This is the big book of unnecessary detail. Accept it or find another book.

In a way, that demonstrates a major point of the book. Order demands perfection in every detail, and Lerris notices detail. He is of Recluce, even if he is in exile. On Recluce, they put great emphasis on making baked goods properly and getting the grain of the wood on a table to match. On the mainland, they do a lousy job with the walls and serve food in chipped mugs.

It is extensive indirect characterization of society. We learn about the lands in a thousand details, and you see the effects of chaos and order. It reminds me of old novels that would describe the nobility's outfits or what they packed for a trip to make points about their characters. I have no idea what a blue feather in a Victorian hat might signify, but we can all get the point about which inn fails to sweep the floors enough. The only problem is a failure to be subtle about it at all: we do not need great detail to tell that one place is finely constructed and well-maintained while another is a hovel. It would be something else if the fine details were there to highlight a facade that hid the neglected foundation, but any time the details might have made a difference one way or another, the object/person/building in question will have a palpable order of chaos and destruction that leaps to direct characterization.

On a third view of detail, our protagonist was an apprentice woodworker. It is verisimilitude for him to notice the wood around him. This gives us a reason why we are focusing on how well a table is built to tell us something about a town that will never see again.

The extensive detail diminishes over time, but we still have description of things that would be summarized elsewhere. Instead of "we traveled for two days, seeing only a few small towns," we have two pages that describe the food available each night and discussing the lack of etymology for the name of Upper River.

Returning to the story, when I said it was all about the journey, I meant it. His quest really is to travel a thousand kilometers through chaos-controlled lands with no apparent objective. Once there, he can decide if he wants to go back. No one gives him further explanation except that bored people with high potential can cause trouble back home.

You would think that someone might explain things to him. Lerris gave up on getting answers and stopped asking very early on, which does not help. No one finds it worth discussing when he can see invisible objects or when people can read minds. He is announced as a blackstaff, and context implies that it has a connection to wizardry (also, he has a black staff). He does not ask and no one explains what this means, although it seems to attach a Wanted poster to his back.

I can understand not giving information to someone who could be subverted against you, but warning him might have been worthwhile given that, within 24 hours of landing, he brushed against someone who could have taken control of his body because of its magical potential. Luckily, someone on the mainland thought it was a bad idea to send young Jedi apprentices wandering in Sith lands without even bothering to wish them good luck.

Once you have accepted that nothing will happen for entire chapters, however, delays in explanation are fine. Detail, detail, detail, and if we can get to some plot or exposition along the way, great.

It is not wearying or bruising detail. It is done very well. It does not feel like the story is dragging, especially since there is no indication that it is going anywhere at all. You may notice when you get to the end of a chapter and mentally summarize it as, "I rode along a trail. It was cold and rainy. I avoided a border guard." If you like very detailed writing, here is a lot of it. Sit back and enjoy the journey.

I am debating how feminist the text is. The best fighters and most likable characters are all women. Maybe I have had too much Joss Whedon in my diet, but I love that it is practically a running joke: the 6'6" man draws his sword on the 5'6" woman, says something scornful, then dies in three sound effects. Krystal is awesome. The best wizards and crafters are male, however, and Lerris's path focuses more on those, but that puts men in the defensive, nuturing role. Or the role of insane, destructive forces.

I note in passing that I have again read a book without realizing that it is part of a series, a rather large series in this case. I just happened to have a copy. L.E. Modesitt, Jr. is prolific. He has published more than forty books since this one. Two novels a year? That might explain the length of the book. Editing them down can take longer than the initial writing.

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