City of Sorcery by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Rare is the time when I’ve read a book with more titles and subtitles. I think this is just ‘City of Sorcery’, written by Marion Zimmer Bradely, but it’s also got the Darkover trade dress and under that The Renunciates (Free Amazons).

This copy is from 1984 and comes in at $5.99. I’m sure most paperbacks these days easily hit the $9.99 mark. I bought it from Half-Priced books, off of the dollar spinner racks. It was well worth the dollar. Looking over Amazon, it’s only available from third party sellers at this time, with no Kindle version. Now that’s a shame as one of the things I’d love to see e-books used for, is the restoration of so much of the ‘lost’ fantasy books that fail to stay in print.             

If you’re looking for a fantasy book with some science fiction elements, the Darkover book should hold your attention. If you’re looking for a fantasy book with a lot of strong female characters, City ofSorcery again has you covered.

I haven’t read any of the Darkover books in easily twenty years. I was never a huge fan to begin with but do remember reading a few of them and just never getting into it or keeping up with it. For its time I assume it was successful due to the sheer number of books in the series.

The majority of the novel tackles exploration of the ‘Hellers’, an unexplored region of Darkover. This exploration takes the form of fighting the elements, fighting against fatigue, fighting against altitude, fighting against a village where strangers are welcomed, and then drugged to make the murder of them easier.

Depending on the game system you’re playing, this could be a fun thing or a terrible thing. One of the things I loved about 3^rd edition, and the OLG, is that it allowed settings like Midnight from FFG, to flourish. There were a lot of fantastic elements in the dark fantasy game, and fighting against the elements just for survival was high on the list.

But that was my least favorite aspect of the game. I didn’t want to take subdual damage or have to keep track of it or have to keep making saving throws or customize my character just to survive the wilds.

On the other hand, games like The One Ring, do a fantastic job of providing some penalties for failure to make a ‘travel’ skill check. It uses a few roles that have to be filled and these checks can be complicated by failure or rolling the ‘eye’ on the d12. The results of failure vary but can include losing health to encountering monsters to added travel time.

This matches well with the movies where the journey is often one of the more dangerous aspects of the characters trails. In City of Sorcery, there is a ‘big bad’ at the end, but her powers and abilities rely on having those around her to carry out her will in addition to her own knowledge base and powers. While she’s a danger to the characters, she’s not necessarily as terrible as the trials that got the characters to the location to begin with.

I find that 4^th edition Dungeons and Dragons, with its skill check system, also allows a great deal of ability to customize the travel times as well as the meetings between characters and leaders of towns.  This is another strength of The One Ring where important meetings between the characters and NPCs to gather information is easy to play out.

 City of Sorcery is not heavy on action, is not heavy on sword and sorcery, but is heavy on character and exploration.

Falcons of Narabedla by Marion Zimmer Bradley

The dollar spinner at Half Priced books is filled with many items of antiquity and modern masterpieces as well as assorted garbage. I'm not the type to shy away from reading a genre or an author because they've had one dog. I recognize Marion Zimmer Bradley's name from the old school of doing things. An author who put out a few single books that were not thousands of pages long. So when I saw the Falcons of Narabedla for a dollar, I snagged it.

Interestingly enough, it's available as an e-book for $2.99. I read the book and enjoyed it so I spent another $2.99 on it. Why? Because I want to support that price point and I want to show case that even older material is worth bringing to this format.  My cover notes that the price was $1.75 from 1979. Not bad that it managed to get a total of $3.99 from me, some of that even going to the author.

The book has more in common with John Carpenter of Mars than a standard sword and sorcery tale. The main hero, Mike, has an accident and that accident takes him from our world of Earth to Narabedla where he winds up in the body of a former tyrant. In many ways, the initial set up reminds me of the old manga Cobra or the movie Total Recall in that Mike is a stranger in this foreign body but has some of the memories, including the muscle skills, to not only be a capable swordsman, but also a master of horse and the unique weapons of this setting.

One interesting though for seeding a campaign, is that almost all of the original inhabitants were drawn from our modern times. I can't be the only person who gets tired of seeing this dark and gritty settings that have ultra-modern and politically correct attitudes strewn throughout them. Why not give them an actual reason to exist? Sure, those equal rights for everyone may fade in the wake of might makes right, but if the ideas and teachings are wide spread enough, it can at least provide the germ of the rational as to why slavery isn't completely wide spread and why people have one common tongue.

It also acts as a good way to bring in a temporary character for someone stopping by for a one shot. Much like Erekose the Eternal Champion, for some reason he is summoned and must do his duty and afterwards, may return to his home. This allows you to pop characters in and out in an unsteady group without having too much worry about the internal consistency or the why of it all.

In addition, where most old sword and sorcery style magic tends to be ritualistic, depending on illusions, necromancy, or summoning with little flash, the 'magic' here is that of the mind caused by mutations in individuals known as Dreamers.

The setting that Mike finds himself in also has another bit. Much like Planet of the Apes, it's actually the Earth but one that Thundar the Barbarian would be comfortable in. A few people live in near absolute power while the rest suffer horribly. In this two-sun world, the tyrant that Mike has taken over was trying to change that but perhaps had other plans within plans as he did so?

The name of the book does come into play because the falcons are artificial creatures. In the book they have blood are are organic, but the concept of bio-technology was probably a little ahead of when the book was written. This semi-science lends the book a slightly different feel that a standard fantasy but it works well.

In terms of these falcons though, one of the things I thought interesting as a side, was that the use of the falcons to hunt is something done in ancient Japan as well as in other societies. The act of hunting is done even by chimps and other animals as a group activity to build alliances and bonds. In the manga Berserk, in the 'Golden Age' arc, Griffen is a member of the knights who is on the hunt with the king and the other nobility, a great honor in and of itself.

These social activities are necessary in an era where there's no interent, no television, no phones and no instant gratification through instant communication. Hunting serves as both a social activity and a means of showing skill either through social interaction or through actual hunting ability.

When looking at your own game, don't forget the little things like hunting. While the players may not be seeing through the eyes of bio-engineered falcons that hunt men, they can still show off their abilities, especially when something unexpected crops up either the dreaded assassination attempt or the wandering encounter. Such events allow the players to really showcase how adventurers do it.

Falcons of Narabedla is more sword and sandal than sorcery but is a done in one that is well worth the $2.99 Amazon is asking for it.