Over the course of our current summer, or at least what we commonly refer to as summer (June through October), I've read a handful of books. Most of those books I read while Conklederp and I were out galavanting around the fjords, and the majority of most of that was actually done while we were in various airports. But the locations don't actually matter. I just wanted to share a couple of the books that I've read these last two-and-a-half months.
Azure Bonds by Kate Novak & Jeff Grubb
Published October 1988 by TSR, Inc.
This book took me a while to get into and I can't quite explain why. I liked the character of Alias and how her character started out one way and took a hard left turn when both the reader and character are given important background information on her that literally explains her spotty amnesia. It makes you question whether the information she's given is from a reliable source, but at the same time explains a lot of the interactions she's had up until that point. I also thought that that would be a great way to start a campaign, by having all of the PCs start out with the HP of a level 5 character, but the skillset of a level 2 character and at certain story beats, they might regain some of their memories and remember some of their lost abilities. I don't know, I haven't worked it out yet, and I should probably read The Curse of the Azure Bonds module first to see how it was done when the module was made from the book, and also play the game.
Don't get me started on Clyde Caldwell's artistic direction that he took Alias' armor. I don't think her armor was ever described as having a gaping hole down her sternum while showing an ample amount of side boob. It might've talked about her chain shirt and leather breaches, but at least her equipment is all there and she's got the tattoo right there on her forearm. I do have the next book in this series, The Wyvern's Spur, but that story takes place in 1358 DR and I need/want to read Ed Greenwood's Spellfire trilogy first since they all take place in 1357 DR (more on my hypocrisy later).
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Published June 2012 by Macmillan Publishers
I watched the first three episodes of the Netflix series back in April while I was donating platelets and wanted something that I hadn't seen before that could just play for the 2.5+ hours I was going to have both my arms simultaneously hooked up to a machine. I remember liking the trailer when the show was first announced and really liked the world and characters, so I figured I'd read the book as it became available when we were in the airport in Amsterdam. The show seemed to follow the events in the book fairly closely, or at least the story for Alina Starkov and Mal and the Grisha. Everything having to do with the B story, with Kaz, Inej, and Jesper was absent from the story, which makes me think that all of that must be either in the follow-up book, Seige and Storm, or one of the other books that apparently populate the GrishaVerse.
I was telling Conklederp, that at least through the third episode, the show does a good job of adapting the book, although there are several scenes that I felt were handled a lot better than in the book. There were some scenes that were extended that helped to build characters, but that could be additional material from later books, or something that the screenwriters came up with on their own. And I guess I could be upset in the future after reading Seige and Storm, but until then, I really liked this first book. I liked the magic system and how there is the encroaching industrialization of war with guns threatening to overthrow the usage of magic in the world. It'll be interesting to see where the rest of the story goes.
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Published July 2005 by Alfred A. Knopf
I decided to read this immediately after finishing Shadow and Bone because Conklederp and I watched the Coen Brothers movie one of the nights we were on the cruise. I was actually pretty surprised at how closely the movie followed everything in the book up until a point. There were a couple of times I felt the book was a little difficult to read, not because Cormac McCarthy doesn't use quotation marks or specifically says who is talking with "Lewellyn said" or "said Chigurh" but because, for the first couple of chapters, I felt like I wasn't getting anything new from reading the book. Yeah, Sherrif Bell's monologues were longer than they were in the movie, and there was more back-and-forth between Lewellyn and Carla Jean, which was always entertaining, but nothing that felt like I was getting a deeper glimpse into anyone's lives. I was surprised to later find out that Carla Jean was only 19 in the book and that she and Lewellyn had been together since she was 16 when he had recently gotten back from Vietnam. I liked that there was a bit more with the Mexican drug cartels having a slightly larger part in the book, which made me feel that Lewellyn was more trapped and cornered than he was in the movie.
I had previously read The Road some years back, and I did listen to the audiobook for Blood Meridian: or The Evening Redness in the West and this book just made me want to read more Cormac McCarthy; and it also made me want to read more Joyce Carol Oates. Increasing the book queue is never a bad thing.
The Road to Neverwinter by Jaleigh Johnson
Published February 2023 by Random House Worlds
I'm not sure how I feel about this book. Yes, it takes place so much later than 1357 DR, what with the Time of Troubles, the Sundering, the Spellplage, the Second Sundering, and everything that happens during 5th Edition, but there weren't any other books that were immediately available to check out that were on my waiting list, so I figured why not see what was in Chris Pine, sorry, Edgin Darvis' past that wasn't already covered in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. What I find strange, is that Jaleigh Johnson has done a great job in making the in-book characters sound a lot like their in-movie characters. Book Edgin does sound a lot like Chris Pine's delivery when he quips with other characters. Holga does sound a lot like Michelle Rodriguez's cadence and meter for that character. The story though, I'm not sure. It doesn't really feel like this story is taking place in Faerûn in the Forgotten Realms setting. Sure the Sword Coast and Neverwinter get name-dropped here and there, but it doesn't feel like the Faerûn that I've gotten to know over the last 24 novels.
Granted I am only 20% of the way through the book so it's only been Edgin, Holga, a nine-year-old (I think) Kira post the scene where she's given the necklace of invisibility, and just recently Forge Fitzwilliam. I am finishing up this particular story, because the narrative is told from the perspective of Edgin telling Kira bedtime stories of his past adventures as a framing device, where a raiding party of Gnolls attacks their village; which is something that they couldn't've done in the movie without costing another couple million in special and practical effects. Maybe things will get better after Simon joins the group and the flow improves?
Right now I'm hoping that there is more tension built up between Kira and Edgin to help justify her treating Forge Fitzwilliam as more of a father figure for the two years that he and Holga were imprisoned at Revel's End. Anyway, that's a criticism for another time/article.
So that's what I've been reading for the last couple of months and I just thought I'd share with y'all, because why else is this website in existence?
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Aika on pysähtynyt
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