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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5121364" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 175: November 1991part 6/6The role of books: Life on the border, edited by Terri Windling takes us back to the dungeonpunk town where folk rock is king. It obviously feels less innovative now a whole bunch of other writers have got in on the act, but it does have plenty of cool stories. Very nice to see this series continue. Palaces & prisons by Ron Miller does not get a very good review. The plot and settig are rather shallow and don't hang together well. Looks like he should stick to being an artist for other people then. Elfshadow by Elaine Cunningham is one of our very own Forgotten Realms novels.  It's one of those small scale ones which help to make the Realms into the biggest, most filled in and flexible gaming worlds out there. Everyone can contribute, including you. Just don't expect total internal consistency. Halo by Tom Maddox is a story of a computerised satellite developing intelligence, and the ethical and practical problems that presents. This allows them to tackle serious sci-fi issues in the plot and make them accessable, which is rarely a bad thing in my book.  Vampire of the mists by Christie Golden is of course a Ravenloft novel. Like the original module, it doesn't quite work as a horror story, but it does indeed have plenty of AAAAAngst!!! and a good mix of sympatheticness and monstrousness in the characters. Guess it's not too terrible for Masquerade lovers either then. Batman: Captured by the engines by Joe R Lansdale does pretty well, bringing the worlds greatest detective back down to street level with a strange little mystery story. It has stuff both from his perspective, and that of others, and manages to build an actual creepy atmosphere. Not often you see that in the actual comics. Dragonmirth fails to grasp basic tactics. There is a certain amount of tabloid doctoring in Yamara. We confirm what was pretty obvious anyway. Dimensional travel is responsible for the heroes memory loss in Twilight empire. Through the looking glass: Let's get military! Or not, as once again the real war talk only occupies a tiny amount of the column before they return to the regular reviews. We also have another amusing case of impersonation at the conventions, with people selling shoddy imitations of other companies minis. Seems like a lot of work for the money you actually get from it to me. But then again, what did that guy who impersonated Roger in 86 get from it? I suspect that they really do it for the thrill, and the money is just a justification. But then, if we were all perfectly logical, D&D would never have been created, and I wouldn't be doing this ridiculous amount of work for free. I guess I shall have to mark it down as another of the sillier little footnotes in this magazine's history. Back to the reviews then. The HMS Intrepid gets converted to Space: 1889. A little dragon outgrows it's doghouse in adorable fashion. A good and bad guy struggle epically, frozen together forever. A team of snipers set things up for a quick kill. A nice little loghouse and barn. A japanese village for all your samurai and ninja figures to fight amongst. A large dragon that you'll have to assemble yourself. And a vampire & his ghoul minions, nominally for Shadowrun, but easily adapted, by the increasingly ubiquitous Julie Guthrie. As usual, it seems like they're going for variety in reviews to maximise the chances you'll want to buy them. D&D rules cyclopedia! Finally, all 36 levels in a single book. Atsa gooda revisione. If only they'd put the immortals rules in there as well. An issue where they not only show clearly how things are changing in the hobby at large, but some of the ways they've been different in the past. And the magazine seems to be making an effort to change with the times, even if some of the changes are a bit silly and not altogether desirable. Hopefully the changes will be sufficient to stave off boredom a little more. Let's finish this year, as we have the one before.</blockquote>

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