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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4817518" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 123: July 1987 part 5/5The role of books: The king of satan's eyes by Geoffrey Marsh is a very pulpy tale of  a suit designer who winds up in all kinds of adventures around the world. With very tight, if somewhat formulaic plotting, it would make a good bit of inspiration for the more cinematic kind of Top Secret game. With a single spell by Lawrence Watt-Evans is a story of the adventures of a young wizard who does indeed, start off with only one spell, and has to make the most of it. Seems like a typical heroes journey, going from small to large in a neatly plotted manner. Now, what will he do next? Can't get too formulaic.Bimbos of the death sun by Sharyn McCrumb, on the other hand, isn't formulaic at all. Murder mystery? Character study of the nature of geek conventions? Fantasy? Very good question. In any case, it seems to work, despite the individual parts not being entirely satisfying on their own. It richly deserves it's memorability. Arrows of the queen by Mercedes Lackey is the start of another trilogy. Looks like it's gonna need it, as it hints at several big plot points, and then leaves them completely unexplored. The reviewer still enjoys it though, as it's another one which does it's formulas right. To the haunted mountains by Ru Emerson is a well described wilderness adventure, told in an interesting style that manages to be both distant and highly personal. It may not be to everyone's tastes, but as a regular reviewer, Mr Bunnel also enjoys his novelties.  Winter of magic's return by Pamela F Service is a tale of magic returning to a postapocalyptic world. Stealing liberally from arthurian myth, a reincarnated merlin must find his way to avalon, and release Arthur so he may be king again. While aimed at the young adult market, it has enough clever references that older people can appreciate as well. Unicorn and dragon by Lynn Abbey does not get a very good review. The plot is confusing and cluttered, and the characters don't seem to have understandable motivations beyond what the story demands, and the format of the book is a bit odd. An experiment that doesn't really work, but is still mineable for historical detail. Paranoia takes out a full colour three page spread advertising both the new edition, and all the old adventures. Orcbusters, Yellow clearance black box blues, send in the clones. This is a nice selection. Operation Zondraker: So we come to the end of this four part Top Secret epic just as the new edition comes out. Out with the old, in with the new. Not that it matters much here, as this installment is pretty system free, giving us a bunch of example missions using the alternate future history they've spent time building up. They really ought to have multiplied this stuff out, and made it into a full-blown sourcebook, because there is a lot more they could have said on this subject, and fleshing out the missions with maps, character stats and the like would have been an entirely reasonable thing to do. Guess like some of the forum entries which are almost articles, there's a nebulous ground where a piece doesn't quite fit into either format comfortably, and it's not quite worth it to pad it out to reach the next weight category. Still an interesting experiment, and much better reading than the attacks of rehash. Lets hope that they have a few more epic articles planned for the near future. Top secret SI is finally out. Buy it now. Yet more well co-ordinated advert positioning. Profiles: Warren Spector is our only, and final profilee, as they retire this regular column, presumably because they've been doing this nearly 2 years now and are running out of people to cover, plus they just introduced two new intended regulars and need to clear out space. Anyway, he's our newest editor, having been poached from Steve Jackson games, where he edited The Space Gamer, and played a big part in the creation of Toon. He takes a David Bowie influenced method of recounting his history, emphasizing the sheer randomness of how his life has turned out. An amusing framing device that makes this a pretty strong finisher to this series, covering someone who's actually better known for their non D&D work. Will it return? Good question. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing it brought back later on. But if you weren't there at the time, you'll have to wait until I get there to discover exactly when with me. TSR previews: Something goes very wrong here, as most of the things they said would be coming out next month last month are missing. The only things mentioned as coming out are the Forgotten Realms Boxed set, and Top Secret SI. I know both are pretty big deals, but that's no reason to forget everything else. Someone in editing seriously dropped the ball here. How very curious. Tut tut Roger. Larry has to take a break from snarfquest, but there is some rather amusing filler art. Dragonmirth gets cloned. Irving doesn't believe Wormy is in danger. One of those issue with quite high highs, and low lows. The editorial sloppiness continues, and there's quite a bit of rehash, but still several quite cool bits and genuine surprises. It's certainly not perfect, but still considerably better than the last issue. Still it's looking touch and go, as the continuing introduction of new columns and removal of old one mean it could improve rapidly, or decline again in the next issue. Can't really predict that at the moment, given the unpredictability of recent fluctuations. Guess I'll just have to look and see.</blockquote>

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