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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4881839" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 135: July 1988part 5/5The role of books: The light fantastic by Terry Pratchett is another thing that reminds us how far we've come. At this point in time, the discworld was still a relatively sketchy creation, and the humour far broader and less nuanced than it has since become.  It still manages to have some moments with genuine cleverness and pathos. Ya gotta have the talent before you can develop the finesse. Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia C Wrede and Caroline Stevermer is a fun story, told through the old victorian narrative method of exchanging letters between the characters. (which is how the story was built up IRL as well) This works very well, conveying the sense of a larger world out there, while maintaining subjectivity. The demon hand by Rose Estes is her third greyhawk novel. It gets a rather negative review. The characters are unsympathetic, the tone is too distant, and the villain is dumb, while outshining established characters by author fiat. Not a pleasing way to treat the first AD&D world. The crystal shard by R.A Salvadore is the first story in the drizzt series, although at the moment it's actually Wulfgar the barbarian who is the primary protagonist. As this is long before the effects of flanderisation and crank-em-out syndrome have come into force, this is probably actually a bit better than later books in the series. It's definitely a lot better than the greyhawk novel preceding it. The legacy of Lehr by Katherine Kurtz is an entertaining Sci-fi mystery. A series of murders are taking place on a luxury spaceliner, and obviously this racks up the tension between the various people and aliens on board. It manages to be a success in both of it's genres, and in creating interesting, well fleshed out characters that drive the plot along.  Of chiefs and champions by Robert Adams gets a considerably more negative review than most of his books have here. Neither the plotting or characterization make much sense to the reviewer, and the marketing seems out of sync with the contents. Has he lost his spark? We also get another interesting rebuttal to reader's letters, as he explains why he gives some books full reviews while others go in the short and sweet section, and gives the usual YMMV disclaimer. Definitely a well above average one here in terms of both books covered, and the finesse with which they are reviewed. The role of computers: Alternate reality: The city is an RPG where you generate a character, and the wander around a sandbox developing them. Get a job, join a guild, kill monsters. You get an unusually high amount of freedom here to determine your alignment by the actions you take, and not fight everyone. Weather & time of day are tracked and make real differences, and the whole thing has plenty of depth. The question then becomes what you actually do with this character. Alternate reality: The dungeon solves some of the problems of the last installment, but presents some of it's own. By far the most egregious is a badly designed interface that requires very frequent disk swapping. The characters are also rather weak for the challenges they face. This ruins the fun of a series with lots of potential. Airborne ranger is a game where you play a military commando behind enemy lines. You need to balance action with resource management, as you make supply drops before starting the mission, and finding and utilizing them is important to your success. Stealth is also crucial, so you definitely need to use your brain to finish this one. Power! is an arcade game in which you control a hovercraft, and have to negotiate your way through a load of obstacles to defeat the enemy. Seems fairly standard shoot em up fare. Decisive battles of the american civil war, volume 1, is not only a massive tactical wargame, it also includes programs that enable you to design your own scenarios. Not too hard to learn, considering it's complexity, it's also well researched and seems to emulate the battles represented decently. Tetris gets instantly hailed as a hopelessly addictive game. Woo. I'm sure you all know this one, and it's theme tune too, so I shall say no more, apart from reporting that it only gets 4 and a half stars, rather than the full 5. Oh well. They can't predict that it'd still be around long after other things from this era have faded into obscurity. I wonder how they'll react to the rise of handheld games as well. TNK III is an arcade game where you control a tank. The usual blasting and collecting of power-ups ensues. Not brilliant, but worth the price. The daily planet gaming supplement celebrates it's first anniversary, after putting adverts in here every month. How consistent of them. Just how big is this bomb?: DC Heroes gets explosive. How does a grenade translate to their exponential scale? How about a nuke? Supernova? What could superman survive? As with the Top Secret article, this is a simply explained little piece that makes the prospect of playing with cosmic sized powers that can devastate worlds seem fun and not mechanically onerous at all. Which means you have more time to get playing and worry about the story implications. Another pretty decent article. Dragonmirth turns expectations around in more ways than one. Snarfquest has made new friends after all. Now, if they could only get rid of them. Part 4 of the enemy within series, Behind the throne. This series continues to build nicely as well. Another pretty good issue, with a new development, and lots of high quality articles.  They seem to be gradually improving their overall quality again through this year. Is  this going to be reflected in sales, or are they still going down. Just how much will the magazine change when the new edition finally hits. Guess I'll find out in a few months.</blockquote>

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