This week the reviews are very fantasy heavy without necessarily being RPG centric.
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Winter Witch by Elaine Cunningham

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Winter Witch was enjoyable, but it had a few issues that kept me from rating it higher. The setting felt fleshed out but that’s mostly a given because this novel takes place in an established RPG campaign setting. The main characters were well written and had mostly clear motivations that made sense but almost everyone else (including the main antagonist) just sort of felt like they were to there only to provide precisely enough motivation necessary to keep the main characters on track for the end of the book and nothing more.

The book is a travel story, and can’t really be described as an adventure. I would say that a good three fifths of the story were devoted to getting the main characters to their final destination, and while the setup didn’t feel rushed the ending really did. Once at their destination the events that compelled the main characters from the beginning are quickly and almost laughably easily resolved, leaving the main characters just enough pages to fall in love and wander into the sunset together.
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This was an OK book and I would recommend it if you want to get a good bit of flavor for a couple of regions in the Pathfinder Golarion campaign setting, but frankly the ending sucked. It felt like the author really wanted another 200 pages to finish the book. As it stands the ending feels like it was there to setup a followup novel with the two main characters but needed to end the story so it could stand on its own. There are also a few of the standerd fantasy plot holes that crop up but harping on them could get a bit nit-picky.

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The Falling Machine by Andrew Mayer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It was interesting to read a steampunk novel. Trying to translate what is (in my opinion) an entirely visual style into a written form must be quite a task for an author. I have to admit that, while this book is quite descriptive at times, I feel it still fails to really sell the steampunk.

Other than that I did enjoy this book. It was fun, had a fast pace (that did seem to slow a bit at times) and the main character was generally well developed.

What I disliked about the book (and what ultimately led me to giving it three stars instead of four) is that it ends rather abruptly on a clifhanger. I was hoping that when I picked up the book the “Society of Steam: Book 1″ meant that this was going to be part of a series and that it wasn’t just going to be half a story. Regardless, when I have the time to track down a copy I intend to read the second book.
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The other reason I gave this otherwise decently written book only three stars was because I felt that the author had a great idea that he refused to use. The story essentially takes place at the twilight of a sort of steampunk Justice League. There are hints of a lot of cool backstory and conflict in the team of aging heroes that could make for more interesting reading that what we ended up with in the book. I felt that there is a much more interesting story to be had set about twenty years previous to the one in this book and think that it could make a great idea for a supers campaign.
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In the Name of Honor by Dayton Ward

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first Star Trek book I’ve picked up in a long time, and I’m glad that I did, as this book is really good! Set between the fifth and sixth books looks at the drive for peace between the Federation and the Klingons while also exploring the way the Klingons changed between the original series and the Next Generation from a Federation viewpoint. I enjoyed the way he dealt with the stark differences in attitude between TOS and TNG Klingons and managed to make the transition between the two believable, and the book presents a good back story for the developments that occoured in The Undiscovered Country.

I’ll have to say that, in my opinion, the author really knows how to write Klingons. It never felt like he was forcing the issue, there was never a “Look, they’re doing Klingon things, look at how Klingon they are” moment, but he also wasn’t shy about using the trappings that have developed for the race when it was appropriate. I also enjoyed the pairing of Kirk and Sulu for the mission (that I won’t spoil in this review), it’s not a standard team up in most TOS crew Trek books and it was good to see.
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This serves as a nice transition between between the TOS era Klingons and the TNG era Klingons that I personally prefer. It touches on the tensions between the two styles of Klingons and that conflick could be great material for an all Klingon Star Trek campaign.

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Fable: The Balverine Order by Peter David

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ll admit, I’ve recently become weary of licensed novels, so under normal circumstances I would have left this book on the shelf at the local book store, but two things persuaded me to pick it up: 1)it was written by Peter David, one of my favorite authors and 2) it was 70% off.

I’m glad that I picked this book up. It had travel without feeling like a “travel adventure” book, it had great characters, an awesome build up, and a satasfying finish that has left me hoping that Peter David gets to write another one of these. It was also kind of nice to see that he managed to use references from the source games without really over using them.

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While the Winter Witch was a travel story that didn’t feel like an adventure, this is a travel story that I would have no trouble classifying as an adventure. It was fun, it had a great sense of scope, it felt like the different areas visited were distinct and plan to rip off a few of them (I mean “homage”) for an upcoming game.