Random musings on books, code, and tabletop games.
I got an order from IPR today, with Houses of the Blooded, The Dresden Files - Your Story, The Dresden Files - Our World, and a gift copy of Hero System Sidekick [1].
Your Story and Our World look very impressive after a first quick scan. I like all the annotations and marginal notes, although I'd have preferred that the post-it notes had been marginal notes as well.
The Mauritius Command, by Patrick O'Brian, copyright 1977; ISBN 0-393-30762-X.
The Cloud Roads, by Martha Wells, copyright 2011; ISBN 978-1-59780-216-1.
The start of a new series; the main character is Moon.
I liked it, although not as much as the Valiarde books. (One of the reasons I liked those books is their Victorian and Edwardian technologically-equivalent setting, which despite the airships didn't seem to be as genre-indulgent as much steampunk does.)
In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, by S. M. Stirling, copyright 2008; ISBN 978-0-7653-5377-1.
The sequel to The Sky People. I hope there is another in this series.
The Sky People, by S. M. Stirling, copyright 2006; ISBN 978-0-7653-5376-4.
H.M.S. Surprise, by Patrick O'Brian, copyright 1973; ISBN 0-393-30761-1.
Post Captain, by Patrick O'Brian.
Discord's Apple, by Carrie Vaughn, copyright 2010.
When I started playing D&D back in my mid teens and the early 1980s I did not particularly like the artwork of Erol Otus. I think at the time I preferred more realistic artwork.
When I got back into playing D&D regularly with 3.5E, I also started looking back at the older versions of D&D, and found that I now really liked Erol Otus's artwork. I think it is the fever dream aspect of it that I like.
So, my enjoyment of Otus's work has nothing to do with nostalgia.
Touched by an Alien, by Gini Koch, copyright 2010 by Jeanne Cook.
A bit silly. It's the science fiction equivalent of the paranormal romance books that have been so popular in recent years.
The main character is Katherine Katt.