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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5228481" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 189: January 1993part 4/6The role of books: The spirit ring by Lois McMaster Bujold gets one of those mixed reviews that results from their being lots of good elements, but not enough tying them together into a coherent whole. Stick to one or two main characters and plots! Someone get that woman a stricter editor. Mage's blood and old bones, edited by Elizabeth Danford & Mickael A Stackpole is a collection of Tunnels & Trolls short fiction. It retain the playful trope subversion that AD&D has mostly lost by this point, and has some nice background notes and essays along with the fiction. Tales of Talislanta, edited by Stephan Michael Sechi doesn't get such a good review. It's a mixed bag, many of which aren't very good, and no overall picture of the game world really emerges. Meh. The price of the stars, by Debra Doyle & James D Macdonald gets a very positive review indeed. High speed sci-fi, full of action sequences that would require a huge budget to represent on screen, and characters that still have distinct likeable personalities, it sounds like a star wars beater. Oh, if only commercial success followed quality.  Someone remind george lucas he needs other people to write decent dialogue. Out of nippon by Nigel Findley embraces the genre switching nature of the TORG setting. Unfortunately, this involves him sticking too closely to the genre formulas of the various sections, and the whole thing feels like it was written on autopilot. Which is a shame, since his short fiction work here was so good. I guess it becomes just a job for everyone eventually. Best destiny by Diane Carey is a star trek novel that does surprisingly well. Kirk as a young man is as rebellious and impetuous as you'd expect, and the plot manages to be much less shiny than the series while not betraying the details. It is of course probably completely invalidated by the reboot. Quantum leap, the novel by Ashley McConnell is another one that actually benefits from it's new format, with the ability to get inside the heads of the characters in their odd situations and challenges working quite well. It's also very handy for providing extra details that would be useful if you wanted to make an RPG around the quantum leap premise. In an amusing footnote, we also find out that Laurel K. Hamilton has done a Star trek: TNG book. Didn't know that before. Oh, the slashfic crossover images that one raises. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devil.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":devil:" title="Devil    :devil:" data-shortname=":devil:" /> Oh Data! I never knew you were that modular and extendable! Bazaar of the Bizarre: A bunch of primitive focussed items here. Just because they live out in the jungle in mud huts, doesn't mean they can't make stuff. In fact, chances are they can do it cheaper, by hunting down the ingredients they need directly. Underestimate them at your peril. Headdress of peaceful conflict are another way to smooth out your encounters with faerie folk. Unlike our last two items with that theme, if you play in bad faith it stops working. Oh come on. Since when do fae play fair? Turnabout is only what they deserve. Spirit skulls warn the shaman of non-natives and have a load of other divinatory powers. You can fill in the rest of the visuals pretty easily. Ointment of mage-smelling lets you know how powerful other spell-casters around you are. Sniffing around people may raise suspicion, of course, but you can probably play that down as part of your savage nature, especially if you're meeting them on home turf. Drums of menace spread ominous rhythms through the jungle well away from you. This gives a fairly substantial advantage to the home team in hit and-run combat, for the paranoia does not make you any better at spotting real threats. It doesn't have a save either, so it's pretty powerful. Powder of images is another basic divinatory effect refluffed for cultural appropriateness. Do we really need this kind of basic handholding? A Rattle of Exorcism is the shamanic variant on sprinkling holy water around the place and reciting from the bible. It takes aaages to work though, in which any demon worth their salt'll do something nasty to them. What works on tv doesn't work in D&D dear. Masks of stealth let you pick locks, and make people think you fit in anywhere, even if all you're wearing is a loincloth and the mask. It's only useful if you're engaging in actions suitable to a nature connected primitive though. You get corrupted by materialism, and you're out the club. Captain planet, he's our hero! Yeah, this collection seems to have rubbed me the wrong way rather. It can go back in the pile.</blockquote>

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