The Kindle Strikes Again

Not that long ago, Amazon.com had a nice sale on their kindle books. It includes some books on history and computer programming that I was quite to buy. If funds were permissible, I would have bought more.

Turns out Amazon.com must have enjoyed the sale as well because they're doing it again. I was disappointed thought that the pickings didn't seem quite so good this time, although I did find a few books that weren't in the sale that were also inexpensive so I'm throwing some links to them as well.

The Last Kingdom Bernard Cornwell : I enjoy a lot of Bernard Cornwell's historical materials. This is one of his 'Saxon' tales and it's running for $2.99 on the kindle format.

The Burning Land Bernard Cornwell: Another book in the Saxon tales, and this one for only $1.99. That's a good deal.

The Winter King Bernard Cornwell: This is Bernard covering King Arthur in a historical style and context. I blogged about it and enjoyed the trilogy.  $2.99 in kindle format.

The Books of Blood - Volume 1 Clive Barker wrote some great short stories here and I've owned a few versions in paperback. I skipped out on this one though because I have a Kindle and you can borrow it. Otherwise, in kindle format it's $2.99.

The Greek Myths Robin Waterfield looks to be another solid book on Greek mythology. I haven't read this one yet. Listed at $1.99.

After Tamerlane John Darwin a book focusing on empire building after 1405. I keep meaning to get back to it as I've had it 'forever' it seems. Currently going for $1.99

There are several other books that look interesting, but I'm afraid I haven't gotten halfway through the books from Amazon.com last sale.

Did anyone pick up anything from either sale particularly worth reading? Good stuff? Overpriced even at $2.99?

Night of Wolves by David Dalgish

A free book in a series called the Paladins available from Amazon at this link? Yes please.

Night of Wolves is the first book I've read by David Dalgish and it was good enough that I went back to Amazon and bought the other two books in the series. The second one is an easy sell as its only .99 cents while the third book soars in price to $2.99. Still, three books for under four bucks? Good deal.

The person who is going to like this book is one who likes a small cast that is always engaged in action. This isn't to say there isn't any character development or that the world isn't larger than what we see in the novel. However the focus is on action and on survival of man versus monster and of course some of that man versus man bits there. Its a relatively short novel and moves at a good clip and is a good way to see if you'd be interested in further books by David Dalgish.

Below I'll start hitting some of the spoilers of the book so if you don't like those, read no further!

1. Starting Small. One of the things that many early D&D adventurers have in common is that its up to the characters to save the small town or to explore the small town. Here that remains true as well. Events move up a little in the chain of importance but for the main characters in this book, saving the town and surviving the uprising of the wolves is the primary goal.

2. Paladins are more than just warriors. Several times during the novel the paladins provide encouragement and prayer to those under their care. They are there for more than just being knights and valiant warriors.

3. Players and their Orders: There are two paladins in the book, a 'light' one and a 'black' one. The former is more like the healing and beneficial style cleric we all know and love while the later is heavily militant based and focused on bringing order to the world. The two in this novel get along well to the point where when ordered to attack the 'white' paladin, the black one does not. This should be a model for player characters. While it can be fun to have betrayal and other backstabbing elements in the game, its often better to keep the player characters together and have the NPCs doing the dirty work. It's okay if the PCs are mad at the GM and not quite so good when they are against each other.

4. Paladins are fun. Dragon magazine once had an article along the lines of a plethora of paladins. Paladins often have unique mounts ranging from their horse to nightmares to pegasi to other beasts. Paladins often, regardless of their level, have unique weapons and armor suited for their mission. In older editions of the game, due to their high stat requirements, paladins were often some of the most powerful characters in the game.  When looking at the role of paladins in your own game, do they follow the Deeds of Paksenarrion? Are they well known? Do they have organizations? Do they war with one another along the lines of their gods?

5. Enemy with a Cause. While no one wants the wolf men of the novel to win, David does a good job of providing some rationale as to why they are acting the way they do. Why they are such fierce creatures. When looking at the main foe of your campaign, pepper them up a little so that they are more than just statistics for the players to burn through.

Night of Wolves is well worth a read at its price point and its page turning action should encourage some great werewolf battles in your campaign.

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.

Winter Witch by Elaine Cunningham

Winter Witch is a fantasy novel by Elaine Cunningham set in the Pathfinder setting. It's a done in one that introduces new characters and provides some brief exploration of the setting. I'm going to hit real quick on a few things.

First, damn am I old. A paperback that runs $9.99 eh? A fantasy paperback that runs $9.99 eh? Ah well, at Amazon it's part of their 3 for 4 bit so that's not too bad. No kindle version eh? Let me get this straight, a relatively new line of fiction that is not taking advantage of every possible revenue stream and on the Paizo site, charging $6.99? Sure, it's available in PDF and you get an ePub version with it. I'm using a 3rd party app on my Toshiba Tablet to read it in ePub version. I bought my e-copy as part of a 2 for 3 deal so once again, I'm not feeling too bad but at this point, I would never pay that much for a ebook. Cheap? Stupid? Whatever. I'm the customer. I could've bought it at Half-Price for $2.50 not that long ago but I'm getting more and more into e-books.

Two, when the main character joins a caravan. He doesn't do so as a guard, but rather as a passenger. That was slightly different. What make the scene stand out to me though, was the caravan master asking him if he was worried about being killed and all his possessions taken. The caravan 'people' are the stand ins for the Gypsies of the setting so yeah, that's possible, but it struck me as something I personally haven't worked into any of my own games and something that could easily be a quick encounter.

Such a scenario could occur in a few ways. There is the unassuming method where the party is just hiring on as guards for the caravan and then once away from civilization, they get ambushed by the people they've been paid to protect.

Another scenario could occur if a relative of a former guard comes by the characters and hires them to investigate the caravan. Now the players have a reason and a potential payoff at the end of it. The players could even have a relative who is also an adventurer whose disappeared the last time this caravan went off and now have to find out what actually happened.

Another option may be that the caravan isn't actually doing the dirty work themselves. They are hiring adventurers and taking them down a path that leads to a very dangerous encounter and the caravan master sends scouts ahead that inform the monsters of what the players can do and where they're at and recommends some strategy to them based on how the players act and what they do up to that point.

The last thing (for this post!) that I thought was interesting was the Nolanders. Different tribes of barbarians get rid of the undesirables by banishing them to dark and dangerous places. So what happens when these murderers, betrayers, and most vile of the vile get together? It's like a Warhammer Marauder tribe with cannibalism and raiding becoming the norm. I thought for a second it was a weird spelling on Northlander because of where one of the characters comes from, but nope, it's No Lander and wherever they go, it makes it a no-man's land. A great bit when you want to throw real savages at the players.

Winter Witch has some good stuff to it and gives some nice details to the Pathfinder setting. Worth a read if it's in your comfortable purchase price zone.

The Last Mythal by Richard Baker

So over here Amazon has the Last Mythal omnibus edition in Kindle format for $9.99. It's not as great as 99 cents or $1.99 but it is exactly the type of behavior I want to see Wizards of the Coast taking so I'm supporting it by buying it again, even though I have the original trilogy in the box set.

By offering the books individually, it allows the user to 'sample' the series. I've seen some initiatives where the first book is either free or at a greatly reduced price. The thing with Wizards of the Coast though, and I'm not saying this for one hundred percent truth, is that they generally do not offer their ebooks in collected editions.

By offering their collected editions in ebooks at an affordable price, if they at least have an author you like, such as Richard Baker or Mel Odom or Richard Lee Bryers, you can get some great deals. But only if they continue to offer these types of collection.

If you want to see this type of behavior continue, make a purchase and then let WotC know that you purchased it because the price and format was right.

No Quarter: A Roake Hesit by John Wick

I have not read any pure fiction from John Wick. I have read a lot of his gaming material though and it rarely fails to entertain or provide value for those funds. No Quarter reads a little like a Sin City novella at a premium price.

When I say premium, I mean for myself in comparison to other products of a similar nature. For example, those who've been reading my blog note that I often point out free ebooks, Amazon's little monthly $3.99 or less list and of course, the various books that go on sale on a daily basis, as well as other bits. Even throwing those out though, this isn't a full novel, but a novella. The PDF weights in a 82 well spaced pages. But electronic editions are tricky. I read mine on my Toshiba Thrive as an e-book on the Aldiko software and it was a little over fifty pages.

I recently made some notes on Elaine Cunningham's novellas featuring the elf Honor and the new setting she's working on with clock work and alchemy. Those novellas were $1.99. Here John's charging $5.00 even for a book that while it comes in either epub or PDF, is too short, in my opinion, to justify that price. The good news is that this isn't some book on a shelf. John can mess with the pricing or keep it exactly where it is if the sales meet his forecast and needs.

But how's the work itself? John uses a little bit of unique language to give the setting some feeling. This is important and can be overplayed if used too much. I've sat in games of Planescape where the GM was overdoing it with almost every word part of the setting speak. I've also seen some people use elements from say, Gary Gygax's Canting Crew to sprinkle their language with 'thug life style phrases.

John's description of the setting itself through the character's eyes is good in providing the reader with how things work in the city and how the characters should work in it. Magic is a known thing and is purchasable and can be used as a 'get out of jail' free card, but that's not something unusual in this type of story where some one knows someone who can do something or has some tech toy that the reader couldn't be expected to know ahead of time.

Now I'll be getting into spoilers in terms. If you don't want any spoilers, read no further. I'll be discussing what I think a Game Master might want to take away from the book and, like my rambling on Breaking Bad, it concerns the characters in the book and how Game Masters can take the characters in this book as cues.

In my blathering of the novel, Prince of Thorns, I mentioned how you treat the NPC's can have an impact on how the setting is perceived. One of those methods is making the setting dangerous. In this case, the main character is the only survivor of a job that has gone wrong. His partners are all dead. By the time the novel ends, his new partners are also already dead. This is a fairly good indicator that life is cheap and that people will come and go. Now the novel is too short and ends before we can see if there are any long term effects of the main character going through two crews so rapidly, but as you plot and pilot the world with characters for the players to interact with, don't get too attached to them.

If there is a reason for those characters to die, and this can range from the players being given a warning by another character in the setting, to that character not being prepared to take on the challenges they did, to that character getting killed because the player screwed up, then let those characters die.

NPC death can have a lot of consequences but in all ways, shapes, and forms, NPCs are very easily replaced and sometimes, it allows the GM to push the NPCs in a different direction. If other people GM anything like I do, when a new source book comes out, you might get that gamer ADD and want to use it right away. A shake up of NPC deaths' may allow you to showcase some of that material. For example, if you get a new source book on a Viking style land but the players are pretty comfortable where they're at, imagine if the village/town/etc... they're at comes under raid from some of these vikings who retreat back to their home. In their wake the vikings leave a lot of dead people and capture a lot of slaves. If the players are of the heroic sort, they'll probably go after those vikings and bam, you're rolling on the random encounter table for far north adventurers.

But GMs also make characters. If you get a book on rogues and it has all sorts of options and other interesting tweaks for rogue characters, you can have the current thieves guild crushed by some new upstarts. Of course this only becomes an issue if the players are allied with or know of the thieves guild. Perhaps they've used some of the thieves guild men for information, trading ill gotten wealth or other minor services like escort service through a maze like neighborhood. Using such tactics serves to put the players on alert.



In this short story, Roake has an ally who does everything on the up and up. Fair trade in magic and other bits is this individuals game and if you don't have the funds for it, you're not getting anything. If you do have the funds and more, you'll get treated well and more importantly, fairly. This type of character is often valued by all sides because no matter who you are, if you do right by such a character, they'll do right by you.

Outside of the character types, there are a lot of nods to the noir genre here. The characters are continually finding themselves thrust into new situations caused by other characters deciding to take things into their own hands. These double crosses happen frequently enough that it can be part of the genre and is another reason why having a 'steady' ally or patron or merchant to buy from can be so important.
No Quarter sets the stage for a fantasy Sin City and I'll be curious to see if the novellas will be collected, put into some type of RPG format or are going to only exist as a fiction line on ye old Drivethrurpg and RPGnow .

Honor Bound by Elaine Cunningham

Book Two in the Tales of Sevrin series by Elaine Cunningham provides more action and revelations in the setting of Sevrin. For those who don't know, this is a novella sized book in a new setting that has some of the traditional elements of fantasy through dwarves, elves and magic, but puts the authors own spin on them through the use of different racial abilities for the dwarves, a deeper link for the elves to nature, and the mastery of magic on the downside but not gone, more like substituted for clock work and alchemy.

Book two is faster paced than the first one. I finished it rather quickly and it has a heavy feel of being 'the middle' part of the story. I suspect that when its all said and done it'll make a nice full sized novel but might not be for those who enjoy the massive super epics of Robert Jordan or others so keep that in mind. At the cost though, I was willing to make the reading for an author whose work I enjoy.

In terms of gaming though... let's take a look.

One of the things I failed to mention last time around about Elaine's previous book in the series, is the Thorn. This is an artifact level item in the shape of a dagger. Its power would be hard to put into game statistics and this is what makes it an interesting item. I've mentioned before that I think in its efforts to achieve 'game balance', that Dungeons and Dragons has wandered so far from the cool that magic items have been reduced to merely shopping components set about to min-max characters or worse yet, to keep characters only equal to the appropriate challenges they'll face for their level.

When running your own games, when possible and opportunity strikes, think about throwing in your own artifacts. These don't necessary have to be world breakers and their nature should be mutable to allow them to leave the players care and control when necessary, but as things to shake up a campaign, they can be quite useful. At some point, the players might even be afraid of the power these items wield. For example, Elric hangs Stormbringer up several times not because he doesn't like the power and freedom the black blade grants him, but because he knows that the blade has its own agenda and isn't afraid to kill any and everyone in order to achieve it. In the Wheel of Time series, Rand even puts away his own crystal sword because he's afraid of the vast power that it contains. These are good role playing elements and should be treated as such when you have players who can appreciate them.

Another thing in terms of world building, is the elves and their communion with nature. Here, their hair and eyes change color with the seasons. It's a minor thing and certainly not worth any 'disadvantage' points in most games, but in some like Hero or GURPS, it might be ranked into with say Distinctive Features. When you can tie the characters into the game in ways that don't necessarily result in higher bonuses to hit and damage or spells of attack and destruction, you have more opportunities to immerse characters and more importantly, the players, into the setting.

Elaine Cunningham sets up the story for a great finished in the next volume and I'll be curious to see where it goes.

ebooks: Freebies and Good Deals

Every month Amazon has a 100 books under $3.99 deal.

Rides a Dread Legion by Raymond Feist. I'm a sucker for his writing because I've been reading it for years and years.  $1.99

 

Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb. Enjoyed the original trilogy and some of the other books written by Hobb. $1.99

 

The Last Apprentice: I mention it not because I've read it, but because its for young readers. $1.99

 

Monsters and Manuals, a blog I follow, has a great post talking about a Project Guttenburg Appendix N. Public Domain for the win!

 

Orbit Books http://www.orbitebooks.com/offer/ has four ebooks for $2.99. Even though I've mentioned I wasn't blown away by Karren Miller's book http://modernappendixn.blogspot.com/2010/06/changing-nature-of-characters.html for $2.99 I bought it again to show my support. And Brent? I did enjoy the Night Angel trilogy so that was a no-brainer. And my mother is a huge fan of vampire and supernatural things so that was another book bought.

 

And I've mentioned it before, but Baen has a whole slew of free books over here: http://www.baenebooks.com/c-1-free-library.aspx

 

If you're not reading because paperbacks are $9.99 and hardcovers $30, these are some cheap reads for you.

1st e-book failure of 2012

I just finished the omnibus edition of Threat from the Sea by Mel Odom. One of the things I do after I finish a book, is look to the ebook edition to see what the pricing is. I do this for a few reasons.

One, I'm just curious.

Two, if it's a good book and the ebook price isn't cheap, I'll buy it. I have too many physical books that I've owned for years due to garage sales, Half-Priced books, auctions, and book markets.

Three, it acts as a good measure of where that company is with their ebooks.

Now I could be completely failing, but when I go to Amazon and look for Rising Tide, the first book in the series, there is no ebook version. The omnibus edition is there for just under $11. But an ebook version? Or the omnibus or the individual books?

WoTC, welcome to 2012 and my first opinion of your ebook catalog is fail.

The Problem With Brunner

As I'm getting ready to finish off Brunner, a collection of short stories set in the Warhammer Fantasy setting that features Brunner, a bounty hunter of no small prowess, I decided to do a quick snoop around the Black Library site to see if this was offered as an ebook.

No such luck.

I did however, look around at another series by the same author, the one about the Witch Hunter. Now when I read the series, I read it in a collected format that I bought either at Amazon.com for something like $11 or at Half-Price for something like $7.50 plus tax. So how does the Black Library decide to sell the series?

In individual book form only for $7.99.

So... buy all three books and pay more than you would if you bought the print collection at a brand new price with zero discount, or, well don't.

I think publishers still have a long way to go in terms of figuring out where they want to be, what they think the customer will pay, and how the customers behavior will influence them.

For myself, I would never buy an ebook for more than the price of the printed book, and this includes collected editions. If as a publisher you've already made enough money from the series that you decide to get another round of dollars from it by collecting the books into a collection and don't sell that in the same format as an ebook, you, as a publisher, are effectively telling your fans to buy the print version.

There is nothing wrong with that, but considering unless its a direct sale that most of the profits from sales of print books go to the various middlemen there as opposed to the ebook, that might not be the best way to make the money.

Ah well, let me finish off Brunner here and post some actual inspiration material as opposed to yet another ebook price rant.

Dai-San: Missing in Action?

One of the things I generally fail to understand about ebooks, is how authors with a larger backlog of books don't put their books to work for them. In some cases, the book might be so old that there is no electronic file of it to modify and upload. When doing research on various bits though, I see that you can have this done with $1 a page.

The catalog of an author can do many important things for the reader. If you find an author you enjoy, especially later in the author's writing career, or through some media coverage on the author, such as the author writing a licensed book in a genre you enjoy (Star Wars, Star Trek, Forgotten Realms, etc...), then it is handy when you can puruse and purchase at your leisure.

I suspect part of the lack of Dai-San and other books by Eric Van Lustbader, is that the new properties he is working on, from what I See, the Bourne material, takes presidence. Or it could be that like many things in the past, the rights of the electronic material are in shaky waters. Will it be a priority for Fawcette to make an ebook or do they have their own new properties that they have to promote?

From things I'm reading about ebooks, when the author needs to take control of such a situation, as putting their catalog online, they can't rely on the publisher to make that a priority. In addition, doing so for the author makes the author into a jack of all trades. The author now has to increase his skill set and knowledge pool to learn how to handle the various aspects of which digital rights he owns, what is the most efficient way to publish his backcatalog, and how can he get word out once that is done, that books released 25 years ago now have new life?

Some may feel that it's not the authors place to take control of their work like that. That they don't have to know or shouldn't need to know these things. In general labor terms, people whose skill sets aren't expanded, especially in modern America where cheap labor is found through illegal use of migrant works, minimum wage payment of migrant workers, or just offshored to another country, everyone has to step their game up.

It's like its okay for a computer to be four times as powerful and new technologies to continue to emerge, but to have people whose finances depend on those take charge of those technologies and move forward on their own? The days of the writer who only writes, if they haven't already done so, are coming dangerously close to the end.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

National Buy A Book Day? Okay, I'm In!

Philip Athans declared today National Buy A Book Day last year over here on one of the blogs he writes for. Reading that blog entry we see a pretty accurate prediction for Borders and the way things are going for Barnes and Noble... well, perhaps in the future they'll be more like Amazon, a place where you buy things through some type of interface and get your Star Bucks coffee at the actual coffee shop.

Anyway, I bugged him about downloading free books. In case you were unaware for example, if you look for Tarzan on Amazon in Kindle format, there are a ton of such books for free over here. While he seemed overjoyed to download such classics at no cost, I felt the stern eye and explanation that no, a purchase must be made.

Me? I've made no secret that I think most ebooks are priced way too high. I've seen some authors come out and say they have no control over that. Eh? This isn't the Exorcist. You can't sit back while someone goes, "The Power of Christ Compels You." and writhe on the ground. If you're not willing to stand up for your own digital rights then say nothing or say, "I gave up all ability to control pricing," not "I'm powerless."

But that's another story.

Instead, I'm here to talk about somethings I did buy. In a rare move for me because I've already read all these books in particular. But... I'm a big fan of voting with your wallet. If you vote that it's okay to pay $14.99 for an ebook, that's your vote. I vote that $2.99, and over here, on Tor, apparently someone thinks that perhaps as the first book, as an introduction thing, that The Eye Of The World, Gardens of the Moon, and Mistborn, are all priced at $2.99.

So with my e-wallet, $2.99 for each and I'm there. Will I ever read any of them again? Maybe. While I read the first trilogy of Mistborn, I decided to wait until both Wheel of Time and Malazan were finished so haven't finished reading them. Will I pay anything more than $2.99 for the other books in the e format? Nope. The dollar rack is spinning with tons of these series books and I don't think I'll have to suffer for 'em.

But if they come along at $2.99? Mother may I have another.

A Day Dark As Night by Carl Bowen

I bought A Day Dark As Night at Half-Priced books on Touhy for $1.00 off of the spinner rack. The low price that the store has, and the huge number of books, continues to tell me that epublications have a long way to come till I'm reading them in anything resembling a normal pattern.

Part of this just strikes me as odd though because if these various media industries haven't seen what's happening with the music industry, to start off with, and they think charging people the same thing for a trade paperback as for an ebook by a first time out author... well, truly the drugs are in need of passing.

Anyway, off that stand onto the Exalted stand.

I know some people who don't like anime. I'm not one of them. I find there there are a lot of interesting bits out there and that much of it doesn't try to fold itself into the standards as many block buster movies do in terms of being so formulaic. Now on one hand, that means we get some great series but on the other, it means we get some thing that could've been great series but ended up in some strange location where even the original author is shrugging his shoulders in trying to explain what happened. I try not to judge the whole of anime by what I've seen of it, because much like Hollywood is finding out with CGI and other methods over here, movie making magic doesn't necessarily have to be just one type of story.

But back to Exalted. The high energy and action vibe I get from some of my favorite anime is something I 'get' from Exalted. It's a role playing game where you're coming back from the dead, from a past life, from betrayals that are deep and hidden. It's one where upon your return, you are blessed with vast powers, the powers of a demi-god, or perhaps even greater. The setting, monsters, foes, allies, sourcebooks, region books, and other bits, all point towards an awesome experience.

Unless someone else is running it, even more so than 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons, I tend to stay away and must ask for assistance when it is my turn to make a character. See, I've always found it a bit too over the top in terms of how the system runs. and whenever I look at say RPG.net, despite several fans of the system, many admit that its highly crunch and that it takes a certain... willingness to run as is. Add on that its probably got as much errata as 4th ed... well, you can see why I might want to read the fiction line but avoid the game itself.

But why read the book, even for $1.00? Part of the epic scope of the setting, is in the naming. Take one of the villains of the setting, Adorjan, the Silent Wind. I dig that. How about the Witness of Lingering Shadows? How about one of the main characters, Harmonious Jade? Her love interest, Disciple of the Seven Forbidden Wisdoms? Very inspiring, especially if you're going for over the top names. Perfect for D&D Death Knights who've given up their old titles, ancient monks who no longer have standard names, or the arrogant player character's who feel that to name oneself in such a fashion is the top of the list.

It's also got a pretty standard storyline that can easily be snagged. While out for revenge, the characters learn that their enemies have made allies of powerful undead who are seeking to unleash a demonic entity into the world and unless they can stop them, more villages and towns will be wiped from the face of the world. This requires them to dig into the ancient vaults of their home city, pit themselves against the corrupt politicians and police, and try to determine where the entity that works the cities will stands and exactly ow powerful is he. And what exactly is stored in those old vaults anyway? Why were they constructed as they were? Were all the rituals performed correctly? Are there any secrets buried down there?  Along the way they must deal with old friends and rivals who have their own stake in the happenings of the city.

A Day Dark as Night has a lot of high action going on and while it has a few heavy handed bits and a few cop out sections, as an introduction to the bones of the setting, it provides enough details to showcase how powerful the Exalted are as well as how much they're needed and indeed, how much they don't know about the world in which they've risen.