Throne of the Crescent Moon: A Different Kind of Fantasy Adventure

I love fantasy adventures: brave heroes wielding magic and skill to face evil monsters and protect the land. I have read, watched, and played in countless such stories, but somehow it never really occurred to me how similar they tended to be. The heroes were almost always white men. The setting was almost always some variant of medieval Europe.

Throne of the Cresent Moon is different. In this novel, Saladin Ahmed creates a story set in a fantasy world inspired more by the Middle East than Europe. Instead of having a young man as the hero, the main character is a portly, older man who fights more with his knowledge than with brawn.

But don't worry. it has all of the excitement and adventure that you would want from a fantasy novel!

Let's talk about Discworld

Great A'Tuin, by Paul Kidby

Sir Terry Pratchett's birthday was a few days ago, so I think now is a great time to talk about his most famous creation, the Discworld and the series of excellent novels set on it! Discworld, as fans know, is a flat, circular world, born on the backs of four enormous elephants, who in turn stand on the back of Great A'Tuin, a giant turtle who swims through space. The disc is home to people, trolls, dwarves, gnomes, and dragons, though the dragons tend to be small, snivelly creatures who explode when they get excited. It's a fantasy world, but it's also surprisingly familiar. And I love it!

Uncaged: Faces of Sigil is exactly the kind of RPG rulebook I love to read

While most of the art in Uncaged is incorporated with the text, there are some full-page illustrations

Wizards of the Coast recently launched www.dndclassics.com, a site that allows players to purchase PDF versions of classic D&D rulebooks. I immediately fell in love with Uncaged: Faces of Sigil, and bought it for ten dollars. Though I have no chance of actually playing in a D&D campaign in the Planescape setting, I don't regret that purchase for a moment. The book is packed with colorful descriptions of a host of interesting characters, topped off with some great illustrations by Tony DiTerlizzi.

Book Review: Old Man's War

In order to write a review of John Scalzi's Old Man's War, I must first make a confession: I've never read anything by Robert A. Heinlein. Just about any time you see a mention of Old Man's War, you'll see it compared to Heinlein's work. I've seen the Starship Troopers movie, but I don't know if that makes it better or worse. So, while I can't compare Old Man's War to what's come before, I can say this: it's an excellent sci-fi novel that blends humor, action, and science into a hugely readable whole. I highly recommend it, whether you've read Heinlein or not!

The Other Change of Hobbit Needs Your Help!

Feb 4, 2013 UPDATE: The Other Change of Hobbit has been served an eviction notice. Thank you to everyone who bought books to try to stave off closure, and to the staff of TOCOH, thanks for all the books and the memories.

The Other Change of Hobbit is an independent SF & F bookstore located in Berkeley, California. They have been around since 1977, and according to Wikipedia, they opened on the same weekend that Star Wars came out.

TOCOH has been struggling financially, and now they're in dire straits: if they can't make enough to pay the rent this weekend, they may have to close their doors for good.

Book Review: Goliath; and, Don't forget your Manual of Aeronautics, "Mister" Sharp!

As you may recall, I loved the first two books of Scott Westerfeld's "Leviathan" trilogy, and the third book wraps up the trilogy admirably. Goliath, like Leviathan and Behemoth before it, is illustrated throughout by Keith Thompson. His gorgeous black-and-white images throughout the book give it a great sense of lively adventure, and his beautiful, full-color illustration for the inside covers (above) is just as vibrant and evocative as the ones he did for the first two novels. As you might expect from the third novel of a trilogy, the stakes have never been higher for Alek and Deryn, as they race on board the Leviathan on a mission that may be the last chance for peace before the war gets out of control.

The Hole Behind Midnight: Clinton J. Boomer is a twisted individual

The Hole Behind Midnight, by RPG enthusiast/author Clinton J. Boomer, reads like it was written specifically for review blurbs. Watch: "The Hole Behind Midnight features gun-happy teenage goat-men, a homeless prophet, a maniacal demon clown, insatiable 'shemale' spirits, and a supernatural power play that might destroy America as we know it. Caught up in the middle is Royden Poole, a Hindu dwarf who dearly wishes that he could go back to letting people think he's dead..." See? It's like Boomer wrung out his twisted imagination and wrote a list of the first dozen things he could think of and then wrote the novel around them. As a result, one thing is for sure: The Hole Behind Midnight is unlike any other novel you've ever read.

The Sisters Brothers is just as good as you may-or may not-have heard

Is that not a totally rad cover?

A while ago, Wil Wheaton posted about a tournament-style book competition where he was one of the judges. He had to read two books and choose which one he preferred. I had never heard of The Sisters Brothers, but his review of the book was so enthusiastic that I had to give it a shot. You can read his post about the contest here, which has a link to the actual review.

I don't normally read books based on reviews, even reviews from actors and/or writers I admire, but I just happened to be between two novels with no definite plans for what to read next, and Wil Wheaton's review was so intriguing that I decided to put a request in for it at my local library. A week or two later, I had it in my hands and I started giving it a read.

The Graveyard Book

When I first left college, I went on a reading spree through Neil Gaiman's major novels, including American Gods, Anansi Boys, and Neverwhere (which I loved so much that I read it in a day), along with some collections of short stories and most of his Sandman graphic novels. Then, with my hunger for Gaiman sated, I stopped for a long time. In that time, The Graveyard Book came out and won just about every award a YA book can win. I had always meant to read it, and as Halloween approached, I decided it was time I finally cracked it open and looked inside.

From the Dust Returned

I have had a hard time getting into Bradbury. His work is very poetic and his stories show astounding imagination, but I have trouble investing in the stories in the same way I get invested in something by Gaiman or Pratchett. From the Dust Returned is the story of a singular house, inhabited by a unique family. Once a year, the distant relatives arrive, flown in on the wind or running on wolf's legs or flapping on bats' wings. The story begins with one such family reunion and deals with the changing times and their effect on this family.

A Night in the Lonesome October

In my mind, there is a sliding scale of Halloween. At one end there children dressed as Spider-Man and princess fairies. On the other end, there are gory heads on spikes with blood oozing down. If you ask me, Halloween is at its best when it's in between. Halloween is the time for Draculas and Frankensteins, when bats go eek-eek and ghosts go woo-oo-oo! And no book captures that spirit quite so well as Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October.

The Dune Sequels - Safe to Skip

***This review has spoilers for Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune.***

When I was in high school, I read two of the great works of SF: The Lord of the Rings and Dune. I recently re-read The Lord of the Rings and Dune, so I decided to continue on with the sequels to Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. I loved Dune: the characters, the setting, the mix of technology and superstition. I had heard that the sequels were not as good as the original, and that the books after the first three got really weird. Plus, there were books written by Frank Herbert's son Brian and coauthored by Kevin J. Anderson. Based on their reputation, it sounds like Brian Herbert totally pulled a Christopher Tolkien, if you know what I mean.

Book Review: Bitter Seeds, by Ian Tregillis

Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis is a novel that takes place during the Second World War and features the struggle of the British Secret Service against a new threat: a Nazi experiment to give a group of teenagers superpowers. Faced with a power they cannot hope to oppose, the Secret Service calls in a group of British warlocks for assistance.

Book Review: Leviathan and Behemoth

First, I should note that my wife deserves all the credit. She's the one who first read Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan and Behemoth, and she insisted that I read them, too. It took very little persuasion, as I love the illustrator, Keith Thompson, who not only draws the inside covers (sadly not some of the actual covers) but also has gorgeous full-page black-and-white illustrations throughout both books.

The premise of the books is that the First World War is about to break out, but instead of using trucks, planes, and tanks, the Central Powers use walking war machines, whereas the Allied forces use specially-bred war monsters. The war is thus between the "Clankers" and the "Darwinists," and it's as much a contest between the machine-minded Clanker outlook versus the unnatural ecosystems of the Darwinists as it is about the imperialism and nationalism that led to the historical Great War.