Dan Parkinson's The Covenant of the Forge

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 When one accepts free books in exchange for reviews, the expectation is that they will read only those books and review them. I mean, I got it for free, right? And people have a right to expect that I'll hold up my end of the bargain. It makes sense on a purely logical level, right?

The problem being that I'm a human being and human beings aren't necessarily "purely logical." I wish I could be sometimes, but real life doesn't work that way. 

So, having gotten an Amazon gift card for Christmas, I decided to buy some comfort food for my brain. I picked up all three of the books from the Dragonlance Dwarven Nations Trilogy. I started with The Covenant of the Forge by Dan Parkinson because, well, it's the first book in the series. And it's definitely comforting. I was thinking that I had originally read it thirty years ago, but a quick Google search shows that it's only been twenty-seven years since it was published. I guess it was less than that.

Still though, I love this book. 

I'll be honest in stating that part of the reason I picked up these novels is because I'm writing a novel with a dwarf main character that starts in a dwarven town and I've been thinking about these books a lot. I'll also be honest in admitting that a lot of the genesis of my book (and it needs a better title than Dwarf Story, but I'm not so good at titles.) comes from the Dwarven Nations Trilogy. The concept of a dwarven society fascinates me and, if the society I'm creating looks different than this one, at least I won't get sued.  

Parkinson does a really good job of making dwarves people that aren't human (because DUH, they're dwarves) but still have recognizable and understandable motivations. The humans in the book aren't necessarily portrayed in a super positive manner, but that makes sense. Humans, to a dwarf's eyes, are short-lived and therefore in too big a rush for everything and kind of flighty. When viewed from a dwarf's eyes, some positive traits (to humans) don't look so positive. And if you've never been told to "look to the left side of your tools" well, it's a concept we could all benefit from and one that's easy to understand. It's also a concept I'd like to incorporate in my own work, but uhh...

Yeah, not sure how I can manage to mention this one and not get sued. Seriously. I don't have the right kind of file to eliminate the serial numbers on this axiom, but it's so useful and so intelligent..

Yeah, it's dwarven and I'M WRITING ABOUT DWARVES!

AHHHH!!!!

But the thing is that these dwarves are not alien to the point where we can't identify with them. They love. They hate. They marry. They have children. They're people just like you and I only they're different. They're not monolithic though, and that makes sense as well. Handil the Drum is a musician. He plays the Call to Balladine, the opening of the autumn trade festival. He ends up as a major hero. Cale Greeneye reminds many dwarves of an elf. Colin Stonetooth leads the Calnar clan with honor and distinction.. for awhile.

 And I guess that's what interests me more than anything: These are characters I care about. When a child is born at a moment that is precisely perfect and terrible (read the book, you'll get it) you want to cheer for the new father as he runs pell mell to where his wife is giving birth. When your hero, and the guy you figured would end up running things dies heroically it hurts, but you're proud of him for doing the right thing even if it ends badly for him personally. He honestly kind of reminds me of a dude named Sturm Brightblade in the Dragonlance Chronicles and that's saying a lot. If you're not familiar with the Chronicles you need to be. You should read them right after you read the Dwarven Nations Trilogy. Of course, Sturm was human, but no one is perfect I suppose...

The Covenant of the Forge has a little bit of everything. There is some extremely light romance. There is some combat. There is politics and scheming. There are loyal followers and treacherous enemies. There are even treacherous allies. You won't find anything missing from your favorite fantasy works, with the possible exception of horror. The Covenant of the Forge is not Ravenloft, even if Ravenloft  does feature a death knight from Krynn, which is the planet Covenant takes place on.

It doesn't need to be though. And the Dwarven Nations Trilogy takes place before the Cataclysm and Soth's descent into Death Knighthood anyway...

Err.. Nevermind. Nerd moment. Those happen.

The point is that this is a damn fine book and an awesome series. Looking back over twenty-five years after I read Covenant for the first time, I find myself amazed that it starts off as quickly as it does. I guess I didn't think about it at the time, but trilogies, and longer series, often start off pretty slowly. Not so much here. Don't get me wrong. There is a lot of worldbuilding that takes place, but it's so well done that I didn't really notice that it was happening. I just kind of understood things and moved on. There's no navel gazing, and no long winded explanations of things. Parkinson somehow managed to get what needs to be there stuffed in without making it feel like a chore to wade through it. 

I... will... not...

Who am I kidding? Of course I will.

Remember that feeling you got when you were a kid and you saw Star Wars for the first time? Remember how cool it was? Do you know how frustrating it can be to watch the prequels and the sequels because they don't make you feel the same way?

Yeah, I hate it too.

The thing is that I got that feeling reading The Covenant of the Forge again. I love these books for a reason. Read them. You will too.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Vibrar Drums

The Covenant of the Forge
Dan Parkinson
Wizards of the Coast, 2012 (current edition)
TSR, 1993 (original edition)

The Covenant of the Forge is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

 

 

T.S. Ransdell's The Last Marine: Books One and Two

Listen, I'm a fan of Science Fiction and Fantasy. I've been an SF fan since my dad sat me down in front of a TV with Star Trek on it. Science Fiction literature had to wait a few years, because I hadn't learned to read by the age of three days.

*SIGH*

It's a failing on my part I know, but can't you cut your boy some slack?

 With fantasy, it started a little later when I first saw the animated version of The Hobbit in like first or second grade. Not my fault that time, I hadn't been exposed.

Anyway...

As a fan, there are some universes you'd love to live in. Star Trek comes to mind, although I would perhaps prefer a place not up against one of the Neutral Zones. There is no such thing as a Harry Potter fan who doesn't want to attend Hogwarts. I'm not convinced that Westeros would be my favorite place, but Valdemar just might. I don't trust Jayne, but I'd love to work for Captain Mal. And, let's face it, I'd run spice with Han and Chewie if I thought I'd make enough to make it worth my while.

But when it comes to the universe that T.S. Ransdell created for his series The Last Marine I think I'll stay home if given the choice. If. Given. The. Choice. The problem being that I may not be. See, the United States of The Last Marine is a wokesters paradise. In other words, it's a Communist Hell.

The society of The Last Marine is divided into Elites (people who have the right politics and express them in ways that benefit the Democrat Party) and everyone else. The Elites get the best food, the best drinks, the best seats on a plane...

You get the idea. It's remarkably close to the Marxist society of the Soviet Union, where the average worker got a tiny apartment and Josef Stalin got five dachas and a chauffeur driven limo because SOLIDARITY COMRADE!!!

Yeah, it's scary because it's so close to coming true.

Of course, we didn't just happen to get there by accident and Ransdell's world-building is amazing.

Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. I hate it when I do that...

The story starts out with a young reporter trying to make something of himself. His name is Joel Levine and he has a mission: He is to interview the last known living member of the United States Marine Corps, one Sean Harris, and show the citizens of the United States, indeed the entire human race, what a bunch of violent, misogynistic, homophobic, racist baby killers the Marines were. 

And yeah, I know I don't do spoilers but this all comes out in the first chapter so it's not reeeeeeallly a spoiler right?

*WINK*

Most of the two novels are told by use of the flashback technique, following Harris's real world experiences through a war and his return home, which was not all that he could have hoped for. There are reasons for that which I don't want to spoil, so let's just say that it ain't pretty if you're a returning GI. I feel bad for these dudes and I'm not really the empathetic type if you wanna know the truth.

 Ransdell's use of the flashback, and corresponding occasional return to the present, is amazingly effective. It's like watching someone's memories in the Pensieve, ala Harry Potter, and then being able to discuss what you've just seen with that same person. He makes you feel like you were there. Harris has been through a lot, having experienced war and all its horrors first hand on top of a rotten homecoming. It's seamless.There were times when I almost forgot that I was reading a book and felt like I was sitting there WITH Harris and Levine. Spellbinding sounds like a good term. I'll go with that. It was spellbinding.

I've taken a look at Ransdell's Amazon biography and it says that he teaches, or possibly taught, history. I'm guessing this guy has studied the time period around the Vietnam War because what he's got here rings true and is reminiscent of accounts I've read written by Vietnam vets. The Last Marine has spots that are enough to make me a bit uncomfortable, so if you lived that mess go in prepared. Oh, and while we're list bona fides, let me mention that Ransdell's Amazon page states that he is a Marine and a veteran of Desert Shield/Storm. This is some slimy civilian who doesn't know what he's talking about. He was infantry and it sounds like he's been there and done that. He gets it right. 

I'll admit that I find myself wondering if Ransdell wrote The Last Marine, at least partially, out of a desire to be the guy who got to interview the vet. Seriously, I have a degree in history myself (albeit only a BA) and I've always wanted to conduct this type of an interview with a vet: Just me and him and his stories about the war. No historian wouldn't recognize the impulse, although many would interview someone from a different occupation, but still: The people who were there are the greatest primary source and Levine gets access to the last one. I find myself a bit jealous of a person that doesn't exist. I suppose I'll get over it. 

I do have one complaint about the works and it's why I decided to review both books together instead of only reviewing one: The first book doesn't really have an ending. I don't mean it ends on a cliff hanger. I mean just cuts off. It was kind of like watching a VHS and having the VCR eat the tape halfway through the movie. It really threw me. In a way, I guess that's a good thing. I didn't know I was at the end of the book and I wanted more, but it really jarred me. That much having been said, it didn't jar me hard enough to make me not want to read the next book. As a matter of fact, thanks to the magic of the internet, I got the Book Two seconds after I had completed Book One. I couldn't wait. That's a good thing in and of itself. But seriously, when you download the first one, download the second one too. It'll be worth your time and you'll be glad you saved yourself the trouble of having to pause in between. Except that there's a sequel on the way and you'll have to pause for that, because it's not out yet.

Bottom Line:  4.75 out of 5 Scarred Faces

The Last Marine: Book One
T.S. Ransdell
Self Published, 2016

The Last Marine: Book Two
T.S. Ransdell
Self Published, 2019

Both books from The Last Marine can be purchased at the following links. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage of your purchase at no additional cost to you.

L.S. King's Sword's Edge

 

 I love Sciencie Fiction. I love Fantasy. I've seen Star Wars, with its setting that is primarily SF (Lightsabers, FTL Travel, Aliens, Giant Space Stations, etc) but partially Fantasy (The Force) but L.S. King has done the opposite in Sword's Edge (Sword's Edge Chronicles, Book One).  She's created a setting that is primarily Fantasy (Rangers, Psychic Powers, Nobility, etc.) and partially SF. (Nope, not saying why. Read the book.)  So I guess, in a way, it's reverse Star Wars, except that it takes place on one planet. Then again, that makes it even more reverse Star Wars, right?

So yes, the setting does a lot for the story. Sword's Edge is a book that works based on the world where it's at as much as it does on its characters. (More on that in a minute.) The politics of the world move the story, as does the science fiction aspect of it, which we really don't get all that good a glimpse of at first. We're kept guessing for quite awhile as to certain aspects and I like that about it. We get hints here and hints there, but nothing concrete for quite awhile. And, getting back to the politics, they're complicate, convoluted and corrupt. There are only two political figures in the entire work that read as not evil and treacherous but that's necessary to the plot and makes a lot of sense given the internal logic of the book. 

Our main character is a girl named Tamissa, Tam for short. Tam is a young girl who has been raised in seclusion by her father. She is a member of the Ranger clan, which is responsible for both police and military duties in the Lairdom, but was brought up believing that she had no family. She belongs to the Clan but knows nothing of it. In short, King seems to have used a technique very similar to one used by a certain Mrs. Rowling: Her character is accepted as a member of the society she is in, so we can see her functioning within it, but she views it the way an outsider would. Another apt comparison would probably be Data. Everyone seems to know how to fit in, but her.

This leads Tam to be a bit naive about some things, even for a girl in her early teens. This can cause a bit of consternation among those of us who were born into a more egalitarian age. Tam knows nothing of romantic love and less of sex. She has no real concept of marriage. She can't even recognize her society's version of a wedding ring for what it is. She has no idea why women fear men, since she had no fear of her father and no interactions with any other man. But the thing is, she is actually an extremely intelligent young lady. She learns quickly, but has had no context. 

That's not to say that Valdor didn't teach his daughter anything: She can read. She can write. She can grow a garden, hunt and cook the proceeds from both endeavors. She knows uses of spices and herbs both medicinal and nutritional. She can make a poultice to cure a wound and identify plants that are harmful.  There's got to be something else, too. I feel like I'm missing something...

Oh yeah. Tam can fight. Tam will kick your scrawny (or fat, well proportioned, heavily muscled, etc) ass barehanded and won't feel bad about it. In the Rangers, they call it matching and it's basically like Mixed Martial Arts (watch the backfist bro, trust me) except less formalized. She also seems to know quite a bit about swordplay and archery to go with a working knowledge of tracking. In short, she's every bit as tough as any man in the book, but it gets more complicated from there.

King has done her research well. Sword's Edge features a type of reality that everyone else misses: Tam suffers the mental consequences of succeeding in battle. Here in the real world, Planet Earth, circa the last probably hundred and ten years at least, the leading cause of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder among combat veterans is that they were forced to kill. Having studied history (and I got one of them fancy pieces of paper what has my name and the words "Bachelor of Arts in History" written on it) I can attest that everything I've read agrees to that fact, but most authors and play/screenwriters ignore that fact. It makes me a little batty sometimes watching a hero make his first kill and walk away like nothing happened. The act of killing effects people. Kudos to king for looking the real world in the eye and not backing down. Other authors would do well to follow her example.

That's not to call Sword's Edge overly maudlin. The plot moves quickly. Points of view bounce around at times and we see things when we need to. The fight scenes actually gave me a burst of adrenaline at points. There is no navel gazing. There's no time for it. Tam is hard-core and even when she is relaxing it seems that there's always a prankster around to keep it interesting. Somehow, she makes it through the novel without developing a love interest even though I had two separate dudes picked out at her at different points in the novel.

The only weird part of Sword's Edge was that it didn't end when I thought it would. I was reading it on an app called FB Reader. Page numbers appear in the lower right corner of the screen and often don't match up with Kindle or print page numbers. When I got to what I thought was the end is still had fiftiesh (I think) pages left. What followed was both fun and interesting and ended up with me being very frustrated with my dispatcher at work (Seriously, if the whole day sucks and I'm not making anything don't interrupt me just when the weird stuff starts. It makes me cranky.) but in some ways it felt like it was more set up for the rest of the series than it was part of the story I was reading. Then again, it must have been a good ending because I've already snagged a copy of the omnibus edition containing not only Sword's Edge but also the sequels Children of the Enaisi and Laws and Prophecies. Maybe if you're lucky, I'll let you know what I think about those too.

Bottom Line: 4.75 out of 5 Bells and Stars

Sword's Edge 
L.S.King
2014, Self Published

Sword's Edge and the Sword's Edge Chronicles Omnibus are available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and then buy literally anything from Amazon I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

RIP Alex Trebek

“I'll take Nerd Knowledge for $200 please” 

“The long time host of Jeopardy, he was adored by millions before losing his battle to cancer on November 8, 2020.” 

“Who was Alex Trebek?” 

Was there ever an easier question? Ya know, it's weird. When I talk about entertainment and the influences I've had I always think of Trek, Wars, Harry Turtledove, many Baen authors, etc. If I really stop and think about it (and I try not to. My mama always said that thinkin' gets you in trouble.) the three entertainers I've watched the most over the years are Pat Sajak, Vanna White, and Alex Trebec. 

As a kid growing up, if I wasn't out of the house working (I got my first job at fourteen) or at band rehearsals/performances or chasing some young lady around, etc. I was in front of my TV at seven PM and wouldn't move for an hour, because it was Wheel of and Jeopardy time. Once I wasted all of my money buying vowels, it was time to win them all back questioning answers. Some nights I owned. Some nights, I'd have been better off reading a book in my bedroom. I always had fun though. 

Jeopardy was always an awesome show, but it was also kind of weird. There have been soap operas since before there was a Jimbo. Sports have been extremely popular on both TV and radio for decades as well. Game shows have been popular basically forever as well, but... Well... The Dating Game (or the 90's equivalent Studs) and the Newlywed Game covered romance, which a lot of geekish types aren't all that comfortable with or good at. Producers of The Price is Right have admitted publicly for decades that that pick people for their enthusiasm standing in line. Screaming “Big money, no Whammies, STOP!” doesn't exactly require a nerdish IQ, although there were some very intelligent players. Even solving words on Wheel of Fortune was never really all that hard. 

But Jeopardy...  

Ah, Jeopardy. 

For Jeopardy, you have to pass a test just to get an audition. Then you have to pass the audition by proving that you can answer the questions under pressure. You can't fake your way through something like that. Anyone who has been on Jeopardy as a contestant (other than some of the celebrities) is one of ours. They're geeks, They're nerds. They're tribe. And listen, I love Pat Sajak. I had one of my earliest celebrity crushes on Vanna White. I used to go to my buddies house during my lunch hour at school to watch Bob Barker. I love Drew Carey. (I even read Dirty Jokes and Beer) Chuck Woolery is welcome to stop by any time he wants. Steve Harvey is my guy. But Alex Trebek... Alex Trebec was one of us. He was the guy who had the questions that only we could answer. 

Anyone can look at “E-T MY S - - -R T S” and know that the answer is “Eat my shorts” but how many people can give you five different “Q Foods”? Most of the guys on The Dating Game couldn't answer the question “What would we do on a date?” when they knew it was coming. Yes, your eighteen year old kid can listen to a bunch of other people bid big numbers and decide to bid a dollar, but can they regurgitate the principles of fiction in question form before the other competitors can? (And yes, I've seen questions that stumped the competitors. I always get a chuckle and remember that I'm not alone in not having all the answers.) 

I was at a con once (CONfusion in Dearborn, Michigan) and one of the panelists -I want to say it was Brandon Sanderson – made a statement to the effect that “We're nerds. We like to be experts on things.” He was right. If you can run five straight in a Jeopardy category you are an expert in that subject. Sports fans like to point to statistics to argue over who the best athlete in a given sport/at a given position were. I am here to tell you that, short of an amazing academic CV or appearing on a documentary there is no way to get better nerd cred than to say “I won an episode of Jeopardy.” We don't really care so much about total money, just the fact that you've done it. Honestly. Especially since in my case I've met more NBA Championship winners (Rick Mahorn and Tayshaun Prince) than I have Jeopardy winners (none). 

If there is a nerd heaven – and Dear Lord, I hope there is – it's going to be Alex Trebec standing at the gate. There is going to be a trivia question to get in. Don't worry, he'll know your areas of expertise, but he's still not going to let you in until you get it right and answer in question form. And when he lets you in, he'll be smiling while you hum the Jeopardy theme song. Or whistle it. I'll probably whistle the thing, but whatever works, right? The important part is just to enjoy the ride. That's what Jeopardy was really all about. People enjoying watching other people compete in an arena that many of us felt more comfortable in than we ever could on an athletic field. Prime time television will never be the same. Even though Jeopardy will continue, we've lost an icon. People my age, especially nerdish types like myself, my age have lost yet another piece of our childhood. Life will go on as it always does, but we'll still remember him. So Rest in Peace Mr. Trebek. Your fans will miss you. At least know that you were one of my two favorite Canadians. (The other one being the shooter bar girl at Jokers back in the day. I wonder if she's single...) I'll catch you on the flip side. Save a spot for me. I'll be the guy making dad jokes and sporting an Honorverse cosplay with Spock ears. I know where you'll be. A: It's former Jeopardy host Alex Trebec's natural habitat. Q: What is behind the podium? See you there, brother. 

G. Scott Huggins's All Things Huge and Hideous

 

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Sometimes you need a break from the norm.

Sometimes it can be fun to laugh when you would ordinarily be enthralled.

Sometimes you can be enthralled WHILE you're laughing.

Sometimes an author can knock it out of the park with their first novel.

Sometimes you wanna go...

Err...

Never mind that last one.

Listen folks, I just finished All Things Huge and Hideous by G. Scott Hutchins and I loved it. It's not the worlds serious fiction, but that's okay. I liked that about it. I have to admit that I never came up with the idea to ____ __ a ______ from the ______ (spoilers redacted) but that someone else did it flat out made my day. If it got him into a bit of trouble, well, better him than me and like he fixed the problem afterward...

Sort of.

Anyway, it was funny. Oh, speaking of funny...

WARNING WARNING WARNING

I love humorous novels. I love music by Weird Al Yankovic. However...

DO NOT MIX ALL THINGS HUGE AND HIDEOUS WITH WEIRD AL.

I damn near sprained a rib. Someone needs to inform Mr. Huggins that in the United States we have a prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and that forcing another human being to dislocate a bone simply because he read your book is a serious violation of it! I'm gonna...

Uhh...

I'm gonna...

Well...

I'm gonna read your next one when it comes out now and it's all your fault. That somehow seems an inadequate punishment but he's earned it so, uh...

Yeah, I dunno either. I guess I'll live.

Seriously, this a book for people who don't take their fantasy too seriously. I mean, there are some of the usual tropes here to be sure, but not everything fits into a typical fantasy setting but that's what makes it fun. Really. You know what's funnier than having a pet basilisk? Trying to keep it healthy on a blood only diet. Yup, totally happens. Of course, finding an alternate use for a medusa is fun too...

Listen, this is some good stuff. I've needed a laugh lately and this provided it. Don't get me wrong though. There's plenty of good stuff here. The political intrigue is as entertaining as anything I've seen elsewhere and more immediate in its consequences. Yeah, when the leader of the world is the Dark Lord and he has this weird case of caps lock disease and a bad attitude to go with the power of life and death over pretty much everybody...

Yeah, it's intense. 

But there is just something about a veterinarian in a fantasy setting that kills me. What makes it better is that Huggins has found a way to take full advantage of the situation and make everything that much better. I don't want to spoil too much (and I've give up a few already) but watch for the situation with the Ring of Invisibility. James, the main character and also my namesake, finds an interesting way out of it, even if it's not one I'd have thought of. And it's REALLY funny. Come to think of it, the dragon thing? Yeah, awesome.

Of course, only in All Things Huge and Hideous could you have a school of Witchcraft (but no wizardry) that discriminates against humans and kicks students out because they're not pretty enough. I mean, scarred and ugly USED to be the thing, but sorry chick you're not in fashion anymore. We need statuesque witches and you're expelled, but you already know everything, but it hasn't been tested and you can just go wait tables in a tavern that caters to orcs and goblins for all we care. 

Yup, totally happens. Then Harriet the almost-witch ends up as an assistant to a veterinarian that deals in monsters. It can't get much worse than that right? Well, yeah. Kind of. I mean, what if the veterinarian gets eaten by something? Or petrified by something? Or something else weird? Or what if...

Nevermind that's a spoiler. But trust me, I wouldn't want it to happen to me. I'm pretty sure you'd think it would be well below average if it happened to you as well. But yeah, it happened and it sucks and it took skill, pluck and fire to fix it. Of course, fans of Larry Correia's Monster Hunter International know that the best solution to killing pretty much anything is to kill it with fire. Although, I have to admit that I wouldn't have thought about kill THAT with fire...

But what do you I know? I'm just a guy with too much time on his hands, a loud mouth and a keyboard. Oh, and a bit of a headache, but that's go nothing to do with anything.

Well, probably.

So yeah, the Dark Lord is not a very nice guy, his council members are stinkin' meanies, his Beast Master seriously needs an attitude adjustment, there is never enough money, the average person hates humans and well, that's where our very human hero and heroine find themselves. It's not a fun place for the characters but the shenanigans they get into are fun for us to watch.

The villains in the book are not Saturday morning cartoon types, but they're not supervillains either. James has to use every bit of his wit and cunning to, well...

Not defeat them exactly but at least keep them one step ahead. Maybe it's more like not falling too far behind. At any rate, All Things Huge and Hideous is, as much as anything a story of survival, and I think that's what makes it work more than anything. Yes, goofy things happen and weirdness abounds, but at the end of the day we can't help but root for the plucky little hero James who is really just trying to keep the bills paid and not get himself tortured to death slowly. Maybe that's what makes All Things Huge and Hideous work. I'm all for a good Chosen One story if it's out there. Lord knows I love Harry Potter. But sometimes it's can be awesome to read about a guy like me, who is just trying to survive and keep moving.

Bottom Line: 4.75 out of 5 Ten Centimeter Dragon Scalpels

All Things Huge and Hideous
H. Scott Huggins
Self Published, 2019

All Things Huge and Hideous is available for purchase at the following link. If you click it and buy literally anything from Amazon, I will get a small percentage at no cost to you.

RIP Terry Goodkind

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Once upon a time I went to visit my Aunt Janice and Uncle Bob, accompanied by my ex-wife,who may have still been my girlfriend at the time as I'm a bit hazy on the exact date of the trip. We talked. We ate. Aunt Janice's main courses and desserts were awesome. I was always a bit more cautious about her side dishes. And, as it usually did when I got together with Aunt Jancie, the subject of reading and books came up. She jumped up talking about a library book sale she had been to. She had some books that weren't for her (she was mainly a romance reader) and wanted to know if I wanted them. I pulled them out of the bag they were in and looked at them. On the spines the words "Terry Goodkind" were written. At the time, I had never heard of the guy, but I figured "Why not?" The blurbs had a fantasy feel to them, so I thought I'd check them out. 

That was a good decision. Goodkind's fantasy world was well realized. His characters lived and breathed. I was carried away to a world where magic was real and so were its practitioners. It was a world where not everything was as it seemed. D'hara was a world that looked to the ancients as a source of power and to the future and what could be.

Some of my friends would refer to Terry's writing as "competency porn." Richard Cypher (later Rahl) the woodsman and main character knew how to do a lot for himself. He never threw his hands up and walked away from a project if he could find a way to make things work, and he usually could. Kahlan Amnell was a woman of extreme talent and iron will who did what needed to be done regardless of what it cost her. She was the kind of woman every man wanted for the most part. I mean that whole thing where she could straight up destroy your mind and make you accept her most horrible command as your deepest wish was a little bit terrifying, but hey, what woman doesn't have some kind of drawback somehow?

 And the villains, were evilly evil persons who were evil. Or at least they seemed that way, up until they didn't anymore. It turns out that sometimes someone is something other than what we don't like about them. That's a lesson that today's society would do well to learn. Of course there are, and always will be, legitimately horrible people and Goodkind made it clear to all of us that there were some people in his world that were flat out beyond redemption. He showed us what to do with those people and how to do it.

 As a matter of fact, the first book in the Sword of Truth series was Wizard's First Rule," and it's an important one to remember. "People are stupid. They will believe anything they want to be true or fear to be true." That's another one to hold on to in today's society. I won't go into specifics, but there is a lot of this going around.

Goodkind was a modern day philosopher. His Wizards Rules (of which there are ten if you count "The Unwritten Rule. I'm not such a fan of that one, myself) are good rules for life. They're not hard and fast rules about how to conduct oneself as much as they are a framework for critical thinking. Goodkind portrayed the world not in terms of moral absolutes but as a place where one must think for himself. He portrayed his characters as individuals struggling to make the world a better place. He clearly makes a case for individual rights in his books without being preachy about it.

It was a few years and a divorce later when the girl I was dating at the time introduced me to Legend of the Seeker. I loved the show but it just wasn't the same. I'm guessing that Mr. Goodkind was the only one who could deliver his world the way he envisioned it. That's not meant as a knock to the show runners. They did a fine job, they just weren't Terry Goodkind.

The world lost Terry Goodkind today. We lost a man who could write things that were not only entertaining but also had a purpose. A man who believed that one person can make a difference and who held his beliefs up for all the world to see. A man who created a world we could all get lost in. A man who held many of us enthralled. A man who sold twenty-five million novels not because of who he was but because of how well he could write.

It's a sad day, but I'm sure if Terry were here he'd view it as what it is: An inevitability. Being alive is, after all, a fatal condition. It was actually a heart condition that did him in, but the empirical data all points to the fact that no one lives forever. He didn't. My Aunt Janice, who introduced me to the series, passed on over a decade ago. That's hard to believe, but it's true. But Goodkind was, at his heart, a man who showed us all how to evaluate facts for ourselves and the facts are in: We've lost him.

 So Rest in Peace, Terry Goodkind. May your sleep be slow and unencumber by ties to the world that you have left. May your family take comfort in the fact that you managed to touch the loves of so many others while you were here. There are few who can say as much. May your family, and your fans, also take comfort that you have earned the Author's Immortality: Although your body has failed you, your words remain and you can continue to touch the lives of others.

There is a story that goes around in my family about an answering machine tape. When one of my great-aunts passed another of my great aunts (and there are approximately a million of them) called her answering machine to hear her voice so many times that someone eventually recorded the voicemail message and gave it to her. What we're looking at here is an analaguous situation. Terry is gone, but his voice can still be heard in his books. He won't be forgotten.

The first book in the Sword of Truth series is available for purchase at the link below:

M. Helbig's Team Newb: Sun and Shadow Online

Word to Mr. Helbig: Far be it from me to correct an awesome author such as yourself, and believe me your novel Team Newb, Sun and Shadow Online, makes me believe that you're an awesome author or, since this is the first of your works that I've read, at the very least an author who wrote an awesome book, but BRO...

 It's not Newb, it's N00b, and those aren't the letter "O" they're zeroes to show the whole wide world just how much value a n00b has.

 *SIGH*

 Ah well. I guess I'll get over it, because this was a REALLY good book. 

So what's got me so excited?

Usually when I read a LitRPG, the main character starts out with at least an idea of what the problem is and an idea of how the game works. Not so much this time. Our hero, Lucas, isn't even planning on entering a game. He starts out the book trying to get away from a game that his father designed (the titular Sun and Shadow Online) and then things take a turn for the dark side and he has no choice.

I like this main character though. He's got a high degree of mental toughness and enough brains to think himself through a problem. He doesn't give up even when all seems to be lost. He learns the game quickly (for a n00b) and levels somewhat quickly-ish. I mean, I feel like I probably could have out-leveled him playing WoW, but I've been playing for close to a decade and I know the game. I've played both sides and I know the starting areas and quests really well. He doesn't have that and if he kills more bunnies than he REALLY needs to, well he got a couple levels out of it.

Of course, one does not adventure alone if it is possible to avoid doing so. For the vast majority of hardcore vets out there (that didn't start a game during the beta or on launch day) there was someone who helped them figure things out. I did my first raid in WoW after a woman named Edie (in the guise of her toon Persifinee) helped me figure out where to go and what to do to level my character. In Lucas's (COUGH, I mean Horus, his in-game avatar) case, that happens to be a small group of friends named Alizia, Decronas and Olaf. 

They're all n00bs too, and he helps them as much as they help him (since he does have experience with other games) but as with any Massively Multiplayer Role Playing game (let alone one that's conducted in Virtual Reality) there is an awful lot to learn and Decronas in particular seems to have friends who know things. This is big because it enables the team to venture out into the world sooner and to be better equipped when they do it. 

I don't do spoilers, so I'll just say that there is a very good reason that all of the characters, but in particular Horus, need to make gold quickly. I find their "kill everything you can and loot everything you kill," type strategy to be the one that every single n00b ever has used to increase their bank balance. Seriously, even most Dungeons and Dragons campaigns start out with "Go over there and get rich" as the incentive to start adventuring. Gold and gear are the motivation to have a good time, but there is something I wonder about.

It would seem to me that Horus, at least, has played other games and would have a working knowledge of how craft skills work in general. And yes, I know that you won't get rich with beginning craft skills in any game that's more than a few months old, but I'd be starting out learning something. That's how I became a WoW millionaire (well that, and way too many solo runs of old raids to get cash quick) and you'd think he'd try it, but not so far. Then again, there is a sequel so maybe there? I dunno, I'd just like to see my boy doing something to help himself when he desperately needs it. You'd think Decrona would get it too, since she has all of those contacts feeding her information. That's just me whining though and sitting around crafting doesn't add a whole lot of action to a novel, so maybe that was a better way to go? Maybe?

Speaking of action, I love the way fights work. Team Newb is set in the future so the tech is a lot more advanced than what we have now. I love the thought of targeting specific vulnerable areas (tabletop RPG players would recognize this as a "called shot.") to maximize damage in an MMORPG. I love the creativity of the players as they figure out how to defeat some of the enemies they face. I've never seen an online setting where some of these strategies would be possible, but they work great and they make sense. The reader just has to keep in mind that Sun and Shadow Online is a game of the future. There are features that have been added over the last century.

Speaking of World of Warcraft, I have to wonder if Mr. Helbig hasn't had a max level character or sixty-three himself. I get the sneaking suspicition that he's seen the Horde trash Goldshire before moving on to an all out assault on Stormwind once or twice, or maybe died a couple of times defending it. And the way he uses quests as a primary way of leveling is very similar to that in WoW.

Then again, the way his bind points work looks more like Everquest as does the amount of downtime (he skips over it unless there is something going on during downtime) he includes. No EQ player will ever forget the frustration of FINALLY beating that freaking Goblin Whelp and then taking five minutes to get his HP back so he could fight a giant rat. Mark my words, it happened. A lot. Two words: Newbie Log. Everyone who ever played an Dark Elf in EQ just laughed. The rest of the EQ players are remembering seeing the words. "You are hungry. You are thirsty." pop up in their chat box while their HP wouldn't recover and wondering why. Yup, happens here.

And I guess that's really what makes Team Newb (N00b!) work: There's enough differences here to make it feel like a game you haven't played and just enough similarities to make it feel like a game you could play. I love that aspect of it.

I'm leaving out much of the meta-story and that's really the important part of Team Newb but I don't want to spoil too much and there's a lot there. Trust me though, anyone who has played an MMO knows that Real Life Comes First. There's always the guy who can't make raid because his wife is making him mow the lawn that night, or the woman who didn't manage to make the potions this week because she had to babysit, or the ranger who didn't have time to craft the good arrows and is stuck using the cheap vendor junk...

*SIGH*

Real life MMO playing is often about avoiding the meta-story, but trust me it's there. And it's in Team Newb too. Try it. You'll like it.

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Jerkins of Please Don't Kill me

Team Newb: Sun and Shadow Online
M.Helbig
Self Published, 2019

Team Newb: Sun and Shadow Online is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no cost to you.