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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5532501" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 230: June 1996part 4/8The role of books: The fantasy role-playing gamers bible by Sean Patrick Fanon delves into gaming history. Like the real bible, it's particularly interesting for the stuff on the creation of the hobby, but then gets more selective and incomplete as history goes on. Still, it's highly readable and doesn't take itself too seriously. You could lose yourself for a good few hours flipping back and forth getting a better picture of the history of gaming. Remnant population by Elizabeth Moon puts a single woman in an alien culture, trying to figure them out and survive without being well equipped for the job. It does a good job of showing, not telling, and while the underlying message is pretty clear, it isn't rammed down our throats. That's the advantage of conveying personal experiences instead of empty words from books, which is a very ironic message to have in the novel format. Eye of the Daemon by Camile Bacon-Smith has an interesting cosmology, but the plotting is a mess, going from one character to another in a mess of convoluted machinations that only becomes vaguely explained at the end. John thinks her talents may be better served in the RPG writing department. Vision Quests, edited by Dawn Albright & Sandra J Hutchinson, is a fantasy anthology focussing on just that. There's relatively few stories, and 2 of them have been previously published in other sources. Not that the stuff we're given is bad, and the smaller size means it doesn't have room to get repetitive. But you may find yourself still hungry at the end of it. Ladylord by Sasha Miller is a tale of overcoming sexism in a somewhat oriental flavoured fantasy world. With obstacles of both intrigue and action, there's plenty to keep her busy, and with generally good writing, it's another positive review rounding this out. Network News: This month's RPGA article is another promotion of Polyhedron. There really is quite a lot of cool stuff in it, honest! Well, given the insane rate Ed Greenwood writes and submits articles that's not surprising. They also make the point that they still cover non D&D games as well, which I find very interesting given  Dragon has cut that out this year. Unlike the previous times I've come across this topic, I have finally managed to get my hands on some Polyhedron issues, and though my collection is nowhere near complete, it does please me that even after I complete this thread, there'll be several thousand pages more similar stuff still to surf through once I recover my appetite. But still, more than 10 years to go before I have to worry about that. I should put it out of mind for now, not get too distracted. Tales of the fifth age: Mirta's <s>Boo</s> (yuck, that is a horrible font) God by Mark Anthony. Here we confront a big part of why they had to make a new system for the 5th age. No gods? AD&D just can't handle that mechanically. Athas got rid of the gods, but kept the clerics. Krynn is trying to go all the way, with no divine magic at all. (which they'll fail at too, with the discovery of mysticism bringing it back pretty soon. What can you do. :c ) Ironically, this allows them to tackle questions of genuine faith in a way you can't when the gods are definitely there and communicating with their priests regularly. So it proves here, in the first bit of fiction this year that's actually pretty good. A dragon pretending to be a god and duping people into feeding it. Score! A doubting thomas who gets eaten? An unlikely deus ex machina ending. A sappy life lesson that its what's in the heart that matters, not the figureheads you worship. Actually, in hindsight, this is pretty cliched and cheesy. But it was well written and characterised enough that I didn't notice on the way through. Well, that's a good deal more pleasant than intros that go nowhere or the irritating kender double bill. I'll say 6/10.</blockquote>

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