Piers Anthony's Sos the Rope (Planet Stories # 25)

Rather ridiculous!  The premise here is that in a post-apocalyptic (nuclear blast) society, three groups of people exist: the "crazies" who live in settlements and distribute food, health care, and weapons; the hidden "Heliconians" who live in highly-advanced, secret refuges and produce everything that the crazies distribute; and the "nomads", wandering warriors who challenge each other to fights in a "battle circle" in order to win the right to have a particular name or status.  Sos, the main character, is a nomad with the intelligence of a crazy, and he gets involved in setting up another nomad, Sol, as the leader of a tribe of warriors that is growing so strong it threatens to upset the balance between the three groups of people.  So Sos is extorted by the Heliconians to depose Sol, and blah blah blah.  It feels a bit inane even to type it out.  The politics are unconvincing, the gender issues are highly problematic, and one comes away feeling like it's all just . . . dumb!  The action scenes are well-drawn, and to be fair the main character goes through several moral dilemmas about what to do; but his inner psychology is ultimately unconvincing.  Apparently, this was the first of a "Battle Circle" trilogy.  The introduction to the Planet Stories edition makes it sound like this was Shakespeare--trust me, it's not.

The Prince [NORTON]

Everyone's heard of The Prince, and the adjective "Machiavellian" has become a regular part of the English language.  It was illuminating to re-read the text and the critical essays contained in the Norton Critical Edition.  The essays helped place the text  within the context of the discourse up to the time of Machiavelli's writing, in which long treatments of statesmanship were centred around abstract and unrealistic exhortations to virtue.  The reason The Prince became so (in)famous was because it broke with that tradition and explicitly set morality aside in order to act as a practical primer on how a ruler could stay in power given the ever-changing currents of war, diplomacy, and popular unrest around him or her.  Perhaps the most interesting thing I learned was that, despite the assistance he may have provided to would-be tyrants and dictators, Machiavelli lived in the republican city-state of Florence and was a strong believer in the benefits of the republican form of government over monarchies and other types of government that he had first-hand experience with as a professional diplomat.  On the other side, the great admiration that Machiavelli had for the diabolical Cesare Borgia is a testament that he really believed in what he wrote.  I wished the edition had a better essay summarizing Machiavelli's life and detailing what led to his torture and retirement from public life.

[Note that the second edition is pictured here, but I have the first edition]

Magnimar, City of Monuments [PATHFINDER CAMPAIGN SETTING]

Magnimar, City of Monuments is the first book I've picked up in Paizo's line of campaign setting books for the Pathfinder role-playing game (I'm running an adventure path in which the PCs are likely to visit).  The book is out of print now, so I secured my copy from a used-book seller (PDFs can be bought from paizo.com).  The first thing that stands out is the cover--fantastic!  One of my favorite pieces of art from the game, and something that would make a cool poster.  On the interior front cover is a map of the city, showing its division into nine different districts.  The book is then divided into three main parts.

The first main part consists of sections on each of the districts and has a smaller map of just that district (which is why the main map on the inside front cover is done at a very high level of abstraction).  The district sections include a separate stat block which is a nice touch and then includes capsule descriptions of a handful of prominent locations.  Occasional sidebars are throughout the book, such as "Nine Famous Magnimarians" or "Thieves and Thugs of Magnimar".  I frankly found the district sections a bit boring to read straight through, but I think as a reference and game preparation aid they would be quite useful.  Most importantly, they detail one of the things that sets Magnimar apart from other cities in Golarion: the presence of ancient monuments (dating to the time of Thassilon) which, if the correct rituals are performed by the PCs, give them temporary mechanical bonuses.  It's a great way to tie the city's history into something that your players will care about because the flavour is matched with bonus crunch.  Before I get to the last two parts of the book, I'll again praise the artwork: the interior pictures of NPCs and important buildings are gorgeous.  Just look at the Forever Man on p. 46 and try to suppress adventure ideas!

The second part is titled "Plots and Perils".  It includes brief overviews on the hinterlands around Magnimar, the city's sewers, a villainous organization called the Midnight Dawn, and, most importantly, the Irespan--the ancient, enormous bridge whose remnants conceal secrets from thousands of years ago.  For a campaign set in Magnimar, the Irespan would be a natural site of adventure and has enough to interest PCs for some time.

The third part, "Denizens", includes something I appreciate: random encounter tables, separated by day and night, for different parts of Magnimar.  I do wish there'd be a guide on how often one should roll on the tables, but I guess that's left to GM discretion.  Next, there are descriptions and stat blocks for monsters and NPC types: Angelic Guardians, Aspis Agents, City Guards and Captains, Mystery Cultists, Night Scale Assassins, Sczarni Thugs, Shifty Nobles, and Shoanti Gladiators, Shriezyx (the spider monsters featured on the cover), Swamp Barracudas (again, great artwork), the Vyrdrach (a gargantuan creature that can capsize large ships), and, last, a celestial called a Yamah.

Discussion by commenters on the Paizo site correctly notes that the table of contents for the book could be much improved (it only has three entries, one for each of the big parts of the book) and that the book is lacking an index.  These things can be an editorial chore when deadlines loom, but they make a big difference in how useful a product is in the middle of a gaming session--no one wants to sit and wait for the GM to flip through to find that one inn they wanted to describe for the PCs.

All in all though, I was quite happy with the book.  Magnimar seems like a fairly "safe" place for PCs to visit, but has enough adventure lurking right outside (or underneath, or overhead) that it could serve well as the centre of a campaign.  It'll certainly help me with the adventure path as well.  I'm looking forward to reading the other books detailing cities in Varisia.

Blood of the City [PATHFINDER TALES]

Blood of the City was the first Pathfinder novel I've read.  I picked it up because the setting of the story, the Varisian city of Magnimar, is relevant to the Rise of the Runelords adventure path I'm running.  The story follows the cool concept of an "urban druid" (though never called that by name) who is part of a family of semi-aristocratic trouble-shooters.  There's an amazing twist about a third of the way into the book that I couldn't believe at first.  Overall, the novel was fast-paced and interesting, with good character development.  It also served its purpose as a good introduction to Magnimar, including its Chellish inhabitants, how Shoanti are perceived, the role of the Mayor, etc..  I would definitely read more by the author.

Prince of Wolves [PATHFINDER TALES]

Prince of Wolves is the first in a line of novel-length fiction set in the world of Golarion, home of the Pathfinder role-playing game.  Written by Dave Gross, the book consists of alternating chapters told from two points of views: an aristocratic Pathfinder (professional explorer and knowledge-hunter) named Varian Jeggare and his bodyguard, a rough-and-tumble streetsmart Hell-touched bodyguard named Radovan.  The pair are on a mission in Ustalav (a land of mists, moors, and the undead reminiscent of Ravenloft) in order to find out the fate of another missing Pathfinder.  Both of the main characters are interesting, as neither fits squarely into an "adventuring class" and they have distinct but likable personalities.  The plotting seems a bit rough in spots, but was solid overall.  Gross wasn't shy about littering the book with references to Golarion, so fans of the campaign setting should be happy.  After reading the book, I learned there were some short stories published on the Paizo website that gave a great deal of backstory to the characters--I wish the novel would have mentioned them!

Frankenstein [NORTON]

I've read Frankenstein a couple of times before, but it was still enjoyable to read it again.  One of the things that stands out is how the most iconic scenes from pop culture and movies (the moment of creation, the creature chased by a mob, etc.) are completely different in the novel, and how the creature is quite smart and well-spoken.  To me, the most evocative scenes are set in the desolate,  frozen wastelands as Frankenstein chases the creature.  There's also a few bits that stand out to me as unnecessary, such as the over-long backstory of the Turkish visitor to the blind-man's hut.  The essays in the Norton Critical Edition are good, but they start to get repetitive as almost every one focusses on various feminist readings of the text.  My favourite essay is the last one, "Frankenstein, the True Story; or, Rousseau Judges Jean-Jacques" as it cleverly critiques critical scholarship on the novel as being constituted primarily of interpretations that rarely engage with each other.  I know I'm rambling a bit, but overall this is a good edition of the novel and, from the essays, it seems like the version included here (the original 1818) is much better than Mary Shelley's later revision.

Piers Anthony's Steppe (Planet Stories # 23)

Steppe is a Piers Anthony science-fiction/fantasy novel from the mid-1970s that anticipates, in a surprisingly accurate way, some concepts that have become commonplace today.  The story involves a 9th century Uigur warrior from the steppes of central Asia being abducted into the future in order to play a role in a vast game.  The game, run by a powerful central computer, allows people to take on roles in a historical simulation and tracks their progress (and rewards) by how well they succeed.  If a character "dies", the player exits the game but can pay to come back in with a role that could be better or worse depending on how well the player did with the previous role.  In short, it's the idea of a massively-multiplayer online RPG about twenty years ahead of its time!  Anthony's story has a clever way that the computer anthropomorphizes entires countries as individual people in order to teach players history before they enter the game.  The story drags a little in the latter half and could have a more interesting conclusion, but the basic concept is really cool.  A good add to the Planet Stories line.