What are you reading in 2023?

[overgeeked]

In my other weird quest to learn from video game design, I picked up two game design books, Level Up! and Rules of Play. They're both very well reviewed books on the topic. I'm reading Level Up! now and it's absolutely singing.

Just finished this. What a great book. Tabletop RPG designers and GMs should be required to read that. What a fantastic book. So many great insights and quotes, references and funny stories.

 

[Reynard]

I just finished "A Woman of No Importance" by Sonia Purnel, about Virginia Hall. It is an astounding story and inspires me to get that espionage game I have been planning off the ground.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Oh, I do think that Lev Grossman's reach exceeds his grasp, but I think he's giving it the old college try.

I haven't read Wayward Children, but well-done portal fantasy is a thing Neil Gaiman has tackled in a number of his books. And I'm currently reading Stephen King's most recent take on the subject, which is fine, but not amazing.

The Magicians is still a great series, absolutely.

So many of Neil Gaiman's works feel like portal fantasies, even when they're not - he draws the reader in so well that you feel like you're stepping through that door into another world.

Almost finished the collection Appendix N put together by Peter Berbergal. Excellent collection of stories. Some major standouts for me include Black God’s Kiss by CL Moore, Tale of Hauk by Poul Anderson, Empire of the Necromancers by Clark Ashton Smith, A Hero at the Gates by Tanith Lee (this story was amazing. I’m trying to find the Cyrion collection at an affordable price, but it just ain’t happening). The best story in the collection to me was by an author I had never heard of was Tower of Darkness by David Madison, whose work apparently nearly impossible to find now a days.

This collection is, to my eyes, fantastic, and has introduced a whole new world of authors to me. I wish some of them were easier to find in print today!

Berbergal's Appendix N is a fantastic collection.

I also thought David Madison's work in it was quite good, and it is a shame that he died so young.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm almost finished with Stephen King's Fairy Tale and I kind of want to ask him what he felt like he was doing. It's basically a triple-length Magic Kingdom for Sale -- with a similar amount or less happening in the book, despite it being 600 pages long. No one expects big things from Terry Brooks, but all the shortfalls in King's work are disappointing.

Not only does very little happen -- it takes 200 pages for the supernatural stuff to start, so I hope you enjoy reading about a boy and his dad wrestling with Dad's alcoholism -- but King seems to know there are problems with the text, sticks lampshades on the issues and then ... does them anyway.

Ugly people are evil, unless evil people have made them ugly, in which case it's the most evil thing that could be done to them. (This is a weird trope for King, not a male model on his best day, to lean heavily on.) The hero becomes more and more of a cliche White savior as time goes on, literally becoming blond and blue-eyed as a sign of his inherent nobility and right to rule in the fantasy kingdom. King acknowledges this is weird and gross, but it was his choice to put this in the story.

I had hoped this was all going somewhere, like this was all a Dark Tower tie-in or something, but it doesn't appear to be. This is just a very simple fantasy story -- it would make a very ordinary D&D campaign -- with problematic elements that King says "yep, they're not great" and leaves in there.

I'm not sad I read it, but it's just odd. It's a significantly lesser work than "The Talisman."

 

[Reynard]

I'm almost finished with Stephen King's Fairy Tale and I kind of want to ask him what he felt like he was doing. It's basically a triple-length Magic Kingdom for Sale -- with a similar amount or less happening in the book, despite it being 600 pages long. No one expects big things from Terry Brooks, but all the shortfalls in King's work are disappointing.

Not only does very little happen -- it takes 200 pages for the supernatural stuff to start, so I hope you enjoy reading about a boy and his dad wrestling with Dad's alcoholism -- but King seems to know there are problems with the text, sticks lampshades on the issues and then ... does them anyway.

Ugly people are evil, unless evil people have made them ugly, in which case it's the most evil thing that could be done to them. (This is a weird trope for King, not a male model on his best day, to lean heavily on.) The hero becomes more and more of a cliche White savior as time goes on, literally becoming blond and blue-eyed as a sign of his inherent nobility and right to rule in the fantasy kingdom. King acknowledges this is weird and gross, but it was his choice to put this in the story.

I had hoped this was all going somewhere, like this was all a Dark Tower tie-in or something, but it doesn't appear to be. This is just a very simple fantasy story -- it would make a very ordinary D&D campaign -- with problematic elements that King says "yep, they're not great" and leaves in there.

I'm not sad I read it, but it's just odd. It's a significantly lesser work than "The Talisman."

I listened to Fairy Tale and apparently liked it much more than you did. It isn't my favorite King story but it is definitely in the upper 80%.

Complaining that it took 200 pages to get to the fantasy because character stuff feels super weird regarding a King work. You've read him before, right? His main strength is character rather than plot.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is probably my fifth book of his. He could have fit Carrie and the Gunslinger both in this one, along with substantially more plot.

 

[trappedslider]

I'm almost finished with Stephen King's Fairy Tale and I kind of want to ask him what he felt like he was doing

Ask away https://twitter.com/StephenKing

 

[overgeeked]

Just finished Robert E. Howard’s Conan story The Servants of Bit-Yakin, aka The Jewels of Gwahlur. It’s a good yarn with a fair amount of action, adventure, and trickery. The plot revolves around a woman pretending to be a goddess. Needless to say, shenanigans do ensue. There’s not quite the normal level of racism you’d expect from Howard when the cast is mostly dark skinned.

 

[overgeeked]

This is probably my fifth book of his. He could have fit Carrie and the Gunslinger both in this one, along with substantially more plot.

King’s early stuff is so much better than his later stuff. At least he didn’t kill the dog.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Just finished Robert E. Howard’s Conan story The Servants of Bit-Yakin, aka The Jewels of Gwahlur. It’s a good yarn with a fair amount of action, adventure, and trickery. The plot revolves around a woman pretending to be a goddess. Needless to say, shenanigans do ensue. There’s not quite the normal level of racism you’d expect from Howard when the cast is mostly dark skinned.

Sometimes REH surprises the reader by not being quite as racist as expected. It doesn't happen frequently, but it does. Published in 1935, this would've been towards the end of his short life.