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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5569868" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 234: October 1996part 6/8The role of books is back. Or are the two different book columns competing? I guess I'll have to keep reading and see what happens. More drama, I guess. I suppose it keeps things interesting even if the individual reviews aren't. A breach in the watershed by Douglas Niles is an attempt by our well-established TSR pulp guy to do his own world (published by another company.) This doesn't get a particularly positive review. The fantastical creatures are renamed, but not given anything to really distinguish them otherwise, and there's some awkward plot holes. I guess that's the trouble with his sources. They don't hold up to close examination, and if that's what you learn from……… Palace by Katherine Kerr & Martin Kreighbaum removes the punk from cyber and adds a healthy dose of space opera instead. The two work together to build a complicated plot and setting that takes work to untangle, but is worth it if you do. There's always something about being able to bounce ideas off people that lets you build things up more quickly, as long as both sides are engaged and enjoying what they do. Glenraven by Marion Zimmer Bradley & Holly Lisle is another collaboration that uses both writer's strengths to full advantage. Set in an imaginary country on the border between France and Italy, it takes it's protagonists out of the comfort zones, and in the process of dealing with supernatural stuff, they also manage to get over their romantic troubles. Who says fantasy doesn't appeal to women. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> No-one these days, that's for sure, with paranormal romance overtaking other fantasy no trouble. Reign of shadows by Deborah Chester sees John primarily complaining about sequelitus in modern novel writing. They're so blatantly writing this as a doorstopper. Not that that is inherently bad, but when the book cuts of midway through the plot, without even a decent cliffhanger to get your appetite up, he gets tetchy. The way it splits up focus between the characters in different chapters also isn't great. If you'd split things apart, and given each perspective it's own book, each plot could have got farther and been resolved more satisfactorily. But no, gotta drip-feed the damn stuff until we decide it's not worth wasting our money on. Good thing he probably gets comp copies anyway. Murder in Tarsis by John Maddox Roberts gets ripped apart for being completely inconsistent with Krynn's established setting, history and society. It's not terrible in it's own right, but it reads like the author was paying no attention to continuity, and just shoehorned in an already written story where it doesn't really fit and did a search and replace on the names. The TSR editors should never have let this one get published. Ouch and ouch again. See, this is why I prefer proper reviews, You get gems of vitriol like this to add variety to proceedings. Don't go away too soon. Dragon Dice: After a brief break, it's time for the 5th new race to be introduced in a kicker pack. Swamp Stalkers! Combining the elements of water and death, they'll drag you to a watery grave and then mutate your body into another one of them. They're sold here as possibly the best all-round units yet, which is a bit worrying. Either they're introducing power creep, or they're lying and saying they are to get more sales. Either way, I don't particularly approve, despite the number of cool tricks they try to sell them to us with. Still, it does seem they're also paying attention to the setting behind the game. That's interesting and worthy of note. And it's not as if they're totally devoid of weak spots. Kill their leaders, they can't replace them nearly as easily as other sides. And they have to stay on the offensive, which means you may be able to bait them into a trap. Whether that balances them out though? Anyone want to share actual play experiences?</blockquote>

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