What have you been reading?

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I saw that as well, quite good especially the actor who did Henry VIII if I remember right.
Mantel's books are very readable, the kind of thing you just pick up and find half an hour has passed.

Yeah, it was Damien Lewis playing Henry VIII. He's very good in general--he did a convincing Dick Winters in the Band of Brothers miniseries and was outstanding as Brodie in Homeland. As those performances show, he can do a pitch-perfect American accent, though of course he didn't need to when playing Henry. I also really liked Rylance as Cromwell, and I thought Claire Foy did a pretty good Anne Boleyn. Anton Lesser played a very different Sir Thomas More, compared to Paul Scofield in "A Man for All Seasons," which I still really like.

I think it's the mix of being a renaissance man and commoner. So when he is at court he is an underdog in one way (i.e. station of birth) but superior in another (experience of continental learning).

Going beyond him personally I notice Early Modern characters are more popular in general, not just for viewers/readers but even authors themselves. The period lies at the root of many contemporary talking points in politics, religion, sociology, etc and so has more appeal than the more alien Middle Ages let alone earlier times.

I think that's part of it. Henry VIII's reign seems to have a kind of massive gravitational attraction for fiction and movies. It was dramatic, of course, and we know a good deal about it. But there are other episodes or eras in Early Modern Britain that offer just as much potential drama, but get in comparison very little attention--say the twenty years between 1640 and 1660, for instance. Likewise, the Wars of the Roses, and especially Richard III, get a lot of attention in popular culture, but the reign of Edward II, which was even more filled with soap-opera material, gets little.

I read an interesting essay a couple of years back about the stage production of "Wolf Hall' that suggested that part of its appeal is that Henry VIII is the boss from hell. No matter how carefully Cromwell maneuvers through the court and tries to serve his master, there's always that threat that someday he will slip--and his head literally will roll. The author of the essay connected this with the plight of most people nowadays who work in the middle levels of big organizations--there is always the fear that the people at the top (who seem increasingly regal in their power and privilege) will someday eliminate your job, or decide it's time to replace you with someone else. It wasn't an entirely convincing analogy, but I thought it had a point.

Cromwell himself has been a lionized figure since G.R. Elton's Tudor Revolution in Government appeared in 1953. Elton made Cromwell the hero of what he presented as the largest change in English administration since the Norman Conquest, and until the 1800s. My vague impression is that scholarship has chipped away at this idea over the last half-century, showing that there was more continuity with Late Medieval modes of government in Henry VIII's reign than Elton allowed, and a bit more change under the Yorkists. But it's interesting to me that Cromwell has apparently survived that corrosion.
 
Lofgeornost Lofgeornost I need to find and watch this Henry VIII now. I like Damien Lewis a lot. He first came on my radar in "Band of Brothers". He really does American accents well. The first time I saw him in an interview and he spoke, you could have knocked me over with a feather I was so surprised. lol.

Also, I love his wife,her scene stealing acting in "Peaky Blinders" was awesome. She freaking died waaay too young. :/

Edit: IMDB to the rescue,"Wolf Hall" is the name of the mini series. Now to have my wife track it down. :smile:
 
I’ve been reading the 150th book in the main Destroyer series. Released several years ago when the series came back to publication, it was written by one of the two creators of the series, and it’s a hot mess.



Despite continuing the numbering of the series, the book is a reboot/retcon of the original series. I was aware from an interview that the author had the spin-off series created to appeal to a new and younger audience, but I had no idea he’d tried to update Remo and company for a new generation. The books updates vast swaths of Remo’s history, things a newbie would never notice but would make a long-time fan shake their head. Several character traits of Chiun’s that were phased out over the years are back.



There’s also oddities that should have been caught in editing that are just confusing. For a good portion of the book it seems that the training for Remo occurred several decades later than in previous books, due to the apparent age of someone from his past, even as things like computer tablets are being used. But then Remo’s tour in Vietnam is brought up, disputing that. There’s a plot revelation that makes no sense, and there’s a line that feels like the author knows it and is glossing over it. Also, Remo’s enhanced senses only work as the plot demands, which includes him not noticing a woman he has sex with has filed her teeth down to points until much later.



I’ve read a later book from this incarnation of The Destroyer, and I know it gets better, but it’s been a chore to finish reading this one.
 
Ralph Dula Ralph Dula Sounds like they should have left the series alone instead of doing a half assed update. :sad:
I read #153 about two years back, and it was pretty true to earlier books, with no mention of anything in #150. I’m hoping the other books just pretend it never happened.
 
I've been on a Stephen King kick lately and tonight I finished reading Salem's Lot.
Scary evil vampires... and they're assholes who I was happy to root against. No sparkles or sexy posturing.
I'd seen the old Tobe Hooper miniseries but this filled in a lot of blanks with sinister details about the house and the idea of un-hallowing the town so the vampire could come in, as well as, at one point, the 'superpowers' imbued into those fighting them. Good stuff!

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Finished "Trail of Lightning" (Native American focused, post-apocalypse not quite urban fantasy.) Quite good I enjoyed it plus the mythological elements are interesting and of course pretty accurate with an author named Rebecca Roanhorse, I kind of expected it to be in general but it reminds me I need to study Native American mythology (of more than one nation.)

Also read Eva Evergreen's "Semi-Magical Witch," which is a very simple book, not terrible though. Then again it's aimed at YA reader's part of the YA choices for the podcast my writer's group does. I was interested partly because of its comparison to Kiki's Delivery Services, and it has a bit darker tone in a few places. But still fun for an older child/tween book.

I also read the "Inheritance Games" (which is two books and way more complex YA, leaning older.) Edit: Corrected series name.


The latter is defiantly a nice twisty plot, that didn't take easy ways out. Sometimes, crazy old men who die, are just crazy in special ways.
Though I don't think the latter book's author understands how fast private jets fly, refuel, etc. One of my few complaints. Neither used the "you are a special child chosen by magic for...." trope. The Inheritance Cycle has no supernatural aspects. (Other than the usual one of a plot.) In my own YA novel, I'm beating that trope to death, if I can. Intentionally. But it's not on the slate to be worked on this year or next.
 
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I've not had much time for pleasure reading, but I did squeeze in a short comics series, Mayam, written by Stephen Desberg (who wrote the somewhat disappointing Cassio series). It was originally published in French by Dargaud and translated into English (and digitized) by Europe Comics.

I've only read the first 3 volumes, which constitute an 'arc.' The story focuses on one Lenny June, a minor Terran diplomat attached to a mission to the planet Mayam, a newly-discovered world which has a very rich religious tradition--or traditions--but relatively low technology. It also does not have much in the way of political institutions--instead, the various faiths act in that capacity.

June is a thorough-going scoundrel, trying to get rich by fair means or foul. He stumbles on a source of great wealth--and possibly great power--and then has to compete with his own boss (who works for some mysterious brotherhood) and a murderous agent of an interstellar criminal cartel to get the resource. The story lurches a bit between action and comedy--June often succeeds, or survives, only by luck or script immunity. Along the way, he becomes the savior figure for a new religion on the planet, which is played for laughs.

I was attracted to the series by its setting--an exotic desert planet--and the promise of an interesting mystery. The art captures the alien setting fairly well, but overall the story left me pretty cold, and the protagonist is just an uninteresting jerk. I'm glad I got it for free via Hoopla. There is a fourth volume out (though not on Hoopla yet) but I'm not sure I'll bother.

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I think the Mood GRR is waiting for is cold and stiff.
 
A year or two back I was given a copy of the Cradlegrave comic, but it wasn’t until last night I read it. I hadn’t realized it was a collection from 2000 AD, initially thinking it an indie comic, and was pleasantly surprised by the quality.



Set on a council estate in England, this modern tale has a young man returning home after his incarceration. He finds the same mundane problems infest his town as before his imprisonment, as well as a new, supernatural infestation that has affected someone he knows.



The story reads like an 80s Hellblazer comic, and I both mean that as a compliment and ironically, as only after I finished did I see the author’s name and realized they wrote a lone issue of that series. The author does a great job of leaving certain aspects of the story unexplained, giving you enough information to come to your own conclusion, of which there could be several. There’s also some bits that are never explained, which feels right for a horror story. Fans of 90s Call of Cthulhu releases will probably think they know exactly how the story will end, but the author goes another way with what he presents.



My only complaint about the story’s writing comes from an odd disconnect between the ending of a dramatic moment and the next page. As I type this I write this I realize it was probably meant to be a dramatic pause between its original, serialized installments. For the first time I can appreciate the concept of writing for the trades.



I’ve mixed feelings about the art. The artist does a good job, and is clearly able to draw distinct and unique characters. However, several of them look similar for story reasons, with all of them drawn nearly-identical to one another; at one point I could tell who the protagonist was only by the color of his top. At least one character has a major shift in appearance for no in-story reason between appearances, and either the same applies to another character or I’ve mistaken one of the near-identical characters for him because of the dialogue.



I recommend it.
 
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Picked this up from the library recently - I was surprised at how small it was. You'd think it would be this over sized coffee-table thing, but the above picture is just about life sized. :shock:

Anyway, for someone who knows basically nothing about M:tG, rules or fluff, I found it a pretty fun, if short, read. Lots of evocative artwork and bite-sized lore bits to inspire any cosmic fantasy game.
 
Just started this. I'm a fan of true crime histories but a lot of true crime writing, particularly about serial killers is too shitty and trashy for me.

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The author of this was featured on an episode of CBC's Ideas and was intelligent, thoughtful and entertaining so I thought I'd give him a shot.

He co-wrote a serial killer book with Colin Wilson that I read which was trashier but I suspect that was more reflective of Wilson and his often kooky sub-Nietzsche meets the Occult ideas, which can be fun for shits and giggles but is distasteful when applied to this kind of subject matter.

So far it is quite good.
 
I'm currently splitting my time between a compilation of material from Lovecraftiana Magazine from 2016 - 2017 and the Dark Hall Press Cosmic Horror Anthology. Both are a mix bag, with some good, and some so-so stories:

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In the light of the current Dune film (pretty good btw, go see it) I got an anthology of the first 3 Dune stories. I've only read the first one, although I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now I'll read the first 3.
 
In the light of the current Dune film (pretty good btw, go see it) I got an anthology of the first 3 Dune stories. I've only read the first one, although I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now I'll read the first 3.
A lot of people feel like the second book is a dip in quality, but the series picks up again after that.

If you haven't heard about the controversy surrounding Brian Herbert's continuation of the series after Frank Herbert's death... if you continue, stop reading when you finish the last of Frank Herbert's books, which I think is number 7. Of course, being a sensible and fair-minded fan, I don't wish any actual harm on Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, but wouldn't it be lovely if someone superglued their fingers together so they can't hold a pen.
 
A lot of people feel like the second book is a dip in quality, but the series picks up again after that.

If you haven't heard about the controversy surrounding Brian Herbert's continuation of the series after Frank Herbert's death... if you continue, stop reading when you finish the last of Frank Herbert's books, which I think is number 7. Of course, being a sensible and fair-minded fan, I don't wish any actual harm on Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, but wouldn't it be lovely if someone superglued their fingers together so they can't hold a pen.
Unpopular take- they weren't that bad.
 
If you haven't heard about the controversy surrounding Brian Herbert's continuation of the series after Frank Herbert's death... if you continue, stop reading when you finish the last of Frank Herbert's books, which I think is number 7.
Frank Herbert wrote 6 Dune books. Brian and Kevin completed number 7 as two novels using Frank's unfinished notes (which have not been published or released to the public).

Unpopular take- they weren't that bad.
Eh, they aren't that good either. They are quick reads with a lackluster writing style akin to middle-grade YA sci-fi. They lack the depth and meaning of Frank Herbert's work. Most of the books are filling in gaps that didn't need to be filled and most of their work would have been implied by Frank Herbert instead of written.
 
Just saying opinions vary. They weren't the same type of book, nor on the same level of writing, and definitely were not a philosophical exercise nor could they be called subtle.. But a lot of the vitriol is based on the same ideas that make fandom a morass of negativity.
 
They weren't the same type of book, nor on the same level of writing, and definitely were not a philosophical exercise nor could they be called subtle.. But a lot of the vitriol is based on the same ideas that make fandom a morass of negativity.
I get you and agree. Fans have directed harsh criticisms and even accusations towards Brian and Kevin that are way out of line for simply writing some mediocre books. "Low effort cash grab" is a particularly lazy and ignorant criticism I see thrown around a lot nowadays. Creating art or entertainment for public consumption is hard work and making that accusation betrays an ignorance of the process.
 
The consensus seems to be that the later Dune books by Herbert himself are no great shakes either.

At the same time I'm not personally a fan of series of books written by other than the original author, whether it is Sherlock, Bond or what have you.
 
The consensus seems to be that the later Dune books by Herbert himself are no great shakes either.
I've been slogging my way through Heretics and I would tend to agree. It kinda feels like it should have ended with God Emperor. There are some great bits in it like the rediscovery of Sietch Tabar; But then there are multiple chapters dedicated to 3 people hanging out in a panic room and the drama of one of them trying to bone another all while the third person uses his computer brain to try and calculate the reason why.
 
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One of the (many) holes in my S&S reading is that I'd never read any of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane books. Though I imagine I encountered some of the short stories back in the 1970s, I don't recall them. The anniversary of Wagner's death went by recently, so I thought I should remedy my ignorance. I picked the novel Darkness Weaves. I guess that, by the internal chronology of Kane's life, it may be one of the later tales--the SF Gateway makes it the 7th of their Kane collection. I chose it over the others because (1) it's actually the first written, in 1970, and (2) the SF Gateway e-book for it was very cheap, at $1.99 US.

I read most of the brief novel in mid-October, but then became quite busy and only got back to finishing it this morning over coffee. I enjoyed it--none of the elements in it were particularly new, but Wagner combined them well, and the plot and action move along rapidly. The ending was maybe a bit, well, grand opera, but that seemed fitting for the tale. Oddly--or not--I actually found some of the supporting characters more interesting and better-drawn than Kane himself, rather like a TV episode where the guest stars and their problems and inter-relationships are more compelling than the main cast. IIRC some of the Conan stories are like this as well.
 
Lofgeornost Lofgeornost I always enjoyed the few books that he did in the Kane books including "Darkness Weaves", I had them in my old library. I'm not sure if he did other books though now that I think about it. I guess I should go and look it up.

Edit: Yeah I might have read a couple of his short stories when they appeared in other books but I'm not sure. I do recall reading "The Road of Kings" and enjoying it at the time in high school.
 
I get you and agree. Fans have directed harsh criticisms and even accusations towards Brian and Kevin that are way out of line for simply writing some mediocre books. "Low effort cash grab" is a particularly lazy and ignorant criticism I see thrown around a lot nowadays. Creating art or entertainment for public consumption is hard work and making that accusation betrays an ignorance of the process.
Doesn't help their cause the KJA has claimed they are better writers than Frank Herbert because they have published more Dune novels than he did.

Or that they have rewritten events to make the claim that all of Frank Herbert's Dune writings are in universe propaganda by Irulan while claiming the material they created is "true canon."

A complete lack of understanding of the most basic themes, writing established characters in ways that completely violate the core tenets and behaviors of those characters, using Deus Ex Machina to resolve stories, Deus Ex Machina in Dune? WTF!

KJA's editing strongly mirrors whatever piece of shit "blockbuster" movie he watches while he works. Not to mention his dictahiking perfect prose because he ain't got time to write. Plus his writing is A coup,e of pages of material with the rest recapping what he just wrote! You could remove all the constant recaps and you would lose over 2/3 of each of their books.

As Dune novels, they are Dune only in name because of Brian Herbert. They are poor fan fic at their best, and not even worthy of being used as toilet paper at their worst.

Sigh, now I have the urge to dive back into the materials from Herbert's archives at Cal Fullerton I have copies of,
 
I read Roberta Williams' "Farewell to Tara". She's mostly known for the King's Quest game series, but this is her first novel and it's set during the famine here in Ireland. It's very historically accurate. The characters speak and act like people from the East in the 19th Century even down to turns of phrase that are hard to learn about and subtle stuff like being more religious but less superstitious than Westerners.

I'm too into the period to fairly assess if it's a good read otherwise, but it is very well researched.
 
I've continued reading Karl Edward Wagner's Kane series. I'd planned to read them in publication order, but the next in that case is the collection Death Angel's Shadow, which first appeared in 1973. So I duly purchased an e-book of it. The very first story in it, "Reflections for the Winter of My Soul," refers in some detail to the events of the novel Dark Crusade, which wasn't published until 1976. So I went back and bought that as well--for the princely sum of $.99--and read it instead. From now on, I may go with the order that SF Gateway imposes on the books.

I enjoyed Dark Crusade more than Darkness Weaves--the storytelling is tighter and the characters a bit better-drawn (and less over-the-top) than in the earlier book. In some ways the stories are rather similar, in that Kane joins the service of a would-be conqueror who has magical/eldritch allies, planning to betray the leader in time, but then fate intervenes. Like Darkness Weaves, Dark Crusade spends some time and chapters on minor characters and Kane's opponents, who sometimes best him--which is a nice touch. There is not a lot of magic in the book, but what there is proves both creepy and extremely effective--some of it may have inspired scenes from Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. The cursed tower named the 'Lair of Ysysl' is something of a Chekov's gun in the story, but the payoff for it at the end is well-drawn.

One interesting element of the book is its setting--in a tropical forest and then on a huge savanna, where various kingdoms vie for power with cavalry armies. I'm not sure if Wagner had real savannas in mind, or something closer to a grassland, since these areas seem to be entirely devoid of trees. I found myself wondering if a savanna environment could actually support human populations on the scale that the book requires--a number of kingdoms there league against Kane and raise a force of 200,000 soldiers. The environment seems too dry for that--there seem to be no above-ground rivers in the region--but of course the novel is not about agriculture.

I'll post some covers in the appropriate thread.
 
I need some recommendations in the fantasy genre. I'm burnt out on grim, dour Game of Thrones wannabe fantasy. Is anyone writing about worlds we'd want to live in? Any good Middle Earth wannabe fantasy?
 
I need some recommendations in the fantasy genre. I'm burnt out on grim, dour Game of Thrones wannabe fantasy. Is anyone writing about worlds we'd want to live in? Any good Middle Earth wannabe fantasy?

Have you read the great Earthsea books yet? Sheri S. Tepper's The True Game is also excellent. Or Alan Garner and Susan Cooper's classic fantasy series.

I just started this one.

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I need some recommendations in the fantasy genre. I'm burnt out on grim, dour Game of Thrones wannabe fantasy. Is anyone writing about worlds we'd want to live in? Any good Middle Earth wannabe fantasy?
Arthurian fantasy can be like this--at least until the later parts of the reign. This last year I've read the first two parts of Gillian Bradshaw's Arthurian trilogy, Hawk of May and Kingdom of Summer, which you might like. The first book was her first novel, and it shows a bit, but it was still enjoyable.

I thought Tad Williams' series Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn was one of the more successful Tolkienesque offerings. There certainly are evil forces and characters in the world, but there are good ones as well, and the main characters are likeable. If you've read the original set of books, he's currently doing another series set in the same world with many of the same characters--the first book is The Witchwood Crown. There was a 'bridge' novel between the two series, but it leans in the dark direction--The Heart of What Was Lost.
 
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I thought Tad Williams series Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn was one of the more successful Tolkienesque offerings. There certainly are evil forces and characters in the world, but there are good ones as well, and the main characters are likeable. If you've read the original set of books, he's currently doing another series set in the same world with many of the same characters--the first book is The Witchwood Crown. There was a 'bridge' novel between the two series, but it leans in the dark direction--The Heart of What Was Lost.
I've not read any Tad Williams, and the description sounds like exactly the sort of thing I'm in the mood for. Thanks.
 
I've not read any Tad Williams, and the description sounds like exactly the sort of thing I'm in the mood for. Thanks.
I enjoy all of Tad Williams books, highly recommend the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series that Lofgeornost mentioned. I don't think I've ever read a Williams book I didn't enjoy or didn't engage me. I'd also recommend Otherland series as well but it's not high fantasy like the other series.
 
I've not read any Tad Williams, and the description sounds like exactly the sort of thing I'm in the mood for. Thanks.
I'd recommend starting with The Dragonbone Chair, the first of the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series.

Some other authors that occur to me are Guy Gavriel Kay, J. Gregory Keyes, Sean Russell, and Michael Scott Rohan. Kay's works, especially once he started writing what are basically alt-history fantasies, typically have very sympathetic and interesting protagonists. Some of his works feature rather repellent villains, but often the antagonists are just people with different values or loyalties. The Lions of al-Rassan is a good example of that; in fact, it doesn't so much have a hero and villain as two protagonists at odd with each other. Keyes' debut fantasy, The Waterborn, likewise is relatively low on 'grit' or grimdark, and I enjoyed his Age of Unreason series, in which Newton discovered the laws of magic and a young Benjamin Franklin has to stand against him and his otherworldly allies. Russell's Moontide and Magic Rise series, which combines magic with a Hornblower-esque Age of Sail, and his fairy-tale-like trilogy The Swan's War are good, too. Michael Scott Rohan's Winter of the World series does turn a bit bleak in the final volume, but before that is an interesting take on typical fantasy tropes in ice-age North America. His Spiral series, about a jerk executive in London who finds himself drawn into various fantastic otherworlds, is a bit more light-hearted.
 
So, after a detour for The Dark Crusade, I returned to finish Wagner's Death Angel's Shadow. It's quite different from the two other Kane books I've read, which were novels; this is a collection of two novellas and a short story. The novels featured high politics and warfare, with numerous chapters where Kane himself is not the protagonist, but these stories were more intimate tales that focused more on him directly. So a bit more like typical sword-and-sorcery fiction. I enjoyed all three quite a bit. Wagner was good at taking well-worn fantasy monsters, like werewolves and vampires, and putting his own twist on them.

This would be a very gameable book, in the sense that it would be pretty easy to convert the stories into rpg scenarios. The first, "Reflections for the Winter of My Soul," in which Kane ends up at a snowbound hunting lodge whose inhabitants are being stalked by a werewolf (and his wolf allies), would make a good investigative/combat adventure--I think raniE raniE could easily port it into the Italian Alps for his Lamentations of the Pope game. Wagner does a good job of providing a variety of 'suspects' for the werewolf and clues and red herrings. The second, "Cold Light" almost reads like a typical scenario told from the n.p.c.'s point of view--a party of 'crusaders' who oppose evil hunt Kane down in a dying city and try to kill him. Much of the story involves their tactics in the cat-and-mouse struggle. At one point, the party's magician even casts something very like a sleep spell, though since the story first appeared before D&D was published there's no real connection, I think. The setting is interesting, too--a region that was struck by a deadly plague some decades ago, in which only a few tired survivors live on listlessly, waiting for the death that eluded them.The third story, "Mirage," might be less convertible, since Kane's survival in it depends on his own mythical status, but it's still an interesting take on vampires.

As before, I'll post some covers in the covers thread.
 
So, after a detour for The Dark Crusade, I returned to finish Wagner's Death Angel's Shadow. It's quite different from the two other Kane books I've read, which were novels; this is a collection of two novellas and a short story. The novels featured high politics and warfare, with numerous chapters where Kane himself is not the protagonist, but these stories were more intimate tales that focused more on him directly. So a bit more like typical sword-and-sorcery fiction. I enjoyed all three quite a bit. Wagner was good at taking well-worn fantasy monsters, like werewolves and vampires, and putting his own twist on them.

This would be a very gameable book, in the sense that it would be pretty easy to convert the stories into rpg scenarios. The first, "Reflections for the Winter of My Soul," in which Kane ends up at a snowbound hunting lodge whose inhabitants are being stalked by a werewolf (and his wolf allies), would make a good investigative/combat adventure--I think raniE raniE could easily port it into the Italian Alps for his Lamentations of the Pope game. Wagner does a good job of providing a variety of 'suspects' for the werewolf and clues and red herrings. The second, "Cold Light" almost reads like a typical scenario told from the n.p.c.'s point of view--a party of 'crusaders' who oppose evil hunt Kane down in a dying city and try to kill him. Much of the story involves their tactics in the cat-and-mouse struggle. At one point, the party's magician even casts something very like a sleep spell, though since the story first appeared before D&D was published there's no real connection, I think. The setting is interesting, too--a region that was struck by a deadly plague some decades ago, in which only a few tired survivors live on listlessly, waiting for the death that eluded them.The third story, "Mirage," might be less convertible, since Kane's survival in it depends on his own mythical status, but it's still an interesting take on vampires.

As before, I'll post some covers in the covers thread.
Missed the first novel, 1975's "Bloodstone". "Death Angel's Shadow" was a collection of short stories if I recall correctly. Though honestly the books can stand alone as I recall. Though I've had a few hefe weisse and I'm currently lost in memories and a documentary about 1971 music on Apple TV at the moment.
 
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