Sabledrake Magazine

February, 2004

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Book Reviews

Odd Thomas

Odd Thomas is both the title and the name of the protagonist of the latest suspense thriller from Dean Koontz. Odd is a young man with a troubled family background and even more troubling gift. In a weird cross between The Sixth Sense and his own earlier work, Twilight Eyes, Mr. Koontz has created a character with the ability to see the spirits of the restless dead as well as the shadowy and intangible bodachs, specters which seem drawn to scenes of impending violence and death.

The story takes place in a Southern California high desert town, which brought back memories of my own childhood growing up in the blistering Mojave heat. Odd's friends and relatives are a quirky mix, from the landlady who daily fears her own disappearance to the literature-quoting Ozzie and his shoe-peeing cat, to parents who are among of the nastiest fictional pieces of work I've seen in a while.

And if the living weren't strange enough, Odd finds himself the frequent host of ghosts, including Elvis Presley and a local who plays jokes with his own ghastly severed arm.

Odd is further troubled by a recurring dream of murder and bloodshed. Though he doesn't want to consider the fact that his gift might also extend to precognition, when a neighbor woman recounts a chilling nightmare of her own brutal murder, Odd is reluctantly forces to admit that the coincidences are too big to ignore. He's further disturbed by his encounters with the Fungus Man, around whom the death-hungry bodachs congregate in hitherto unseen numbers.

A catastrophe is brewing in Pico Mundo, California, and it's up to Odd to try and stop it despite the forces working against him. He's joined by the tough-but-vulnerable Stormy Llewellyn (a typical Koontzian heroine), and the story provides a fast and intriguing ride with ups, downs, loops, and a not-entirely-unexpected twist at the end.

The writing is up to Koontz's usual standards, every word carefully chosen, but as I've noticed before and mentioned in other reviews of his books, it comes across too strongly. Every description is so brilliantly polished that it's like a silver dish that gleams so brightly you can't see what's in it. The scenes in the diner are heavy-handed with the short-order-cook lingo, just as surfer lingo is overdone in the Christopher Snow books.

The style of the book, from Odd's first-person point of view as a narrative written after the fact, is interesting. There's humor and despair and hope, often packed in layers like an Oreo. The characters, unfortunately, continue in Koontz's trend of making just about every single one as weird as they can possibly be, as if he feels like he's exhausted all the possibilities of writing about relatively normal people by now. The lady with the Elvis fixation hearkens to Connie Gulliver from Dragon Tears, there's an appearance by the ubiquitous golden retriever, and of course the charmingly precocious kid.

Overall, Odd Thomas is a good read and fans of Koontz will probably not be disappointed. It isn't as uplifting and optimistic as some of his recent works (but then, given that I complained about that trend, I was happy for the change). His storytelling strengths and command of language are in fine form, and the ending of each chapter demands the reader to keep going, making it a hard book to put down.

The Book of Erotic Fantasy

Introduction –

There are two very good reasons why I am unqualified to present a completely fair, informed, and educated review of this book.

1. I have played in a D20 game exactly once, for less than six hours. I also have no prior experience reading or running any other D20 material.
2. Hey, they're the competition! As the author of "Naughty and Dice" (and the infamous online article GURPS Sex before that), I can't help but be a bit more favorable toward my own project.

Still and all, I did read over the Book of Erotic Fantasy. I was quite curious to see what it was like. To see how it differed from Naughty and Dice, and more, to see how it was similar.

And I like to think that this town is big enough for the two of us. After all, there are multiple systems and game books for almost every other possible subject and genre.

I still maintain that sexual situations can be as much a part of gaming as can combative or magical situations. It all depends on the players and the specific game, and the tastes and comfort level of all involved.

But I'll hop off that particular soapbox for now. Obviously, I must feel that way, or I wouldn't have been running my game the way I have for the past fifteen years.

On to the specifics! I've broken down my comments into categories:

1. Overall appearance and layout
2. Interior art
3. Writing style
4. Content
5. Rules
6. Chapter by chapter

Overall appearance –

This is a very slick, pretty book. The cover is classy and made to look like it'd fit right in among the expensive hardcovers on the shelf.

Now, as someone who's played GURPS pretty much exclusively since the mid-1980's (nearly all of which are soft-covers) and who only routinely buys the novels of two authors (King and Koontz) in hardback, I can certainly understand being off-put by the hefty price tag. If not for the combined facts of my intense curiosity and my husband's status as a game-store manager, I couldn't possibly justify that kind of price for something I wouldn't use.

The glossy full-color interior, with its accents of golds and purples, does make for eye-catching pages. The physical look of the text is good, very readable (except for the chapter sub-headers, which are done in a font so curlicued that it's a little hard to make out). The borders and corner page numbers are gorgeous. The book did have that new-book inky headache-inducing smell, but that will pass.

Interior Art –

Ooh, boy, now I see what all the fuss was about. The pictures range from eerily beautiful to downright creepy. The quality of them from a photographic standpoint is good, the technique is fairly well-handled, but the subject matter overall was a little too kinky for my tastes. That may sound like a hell of a thing coming from someone who's been informally known as the "bad girl of GURPS" for ten years now, someone notorious for her erotic stories … I like to think I'm fairly worldly in my general views, but much more squeamish on a personal level. Thus, I found the overall "squick factor" to rate at least a 7 on a scale of 1-10.

Writing and Editing –

One of the more vexing side-effects of trying to write for a living is that I've found myself more sensitive than ever to typos and other such little errors. They happen to everybody, it's inevitable, I know … but they still glare out at me. I spotted several while reading the Book of Erotic Fantasy, some of which are common (it's/its, the bane of many a writer) and others that should have been nabbed by the spellchecker. But that's just a nit-picky peeve of mine.

So is the gender thing. I understand it, I know how hard it is to write his/her and she/he all the time, and I agree that it's limiting and sexist to use the global "he," but I really don't like to see the hopping back and forth between the two.

My overall impression of the writing style was that it flowed nicely, and was both informative and clear.

Content –

Some of their fic-bits are a lot more graphic than I was expecting to see. I've been known in my own writing to have a tendency to avoid vulgarities … they do not appeal to me, while on the other hand I find the clinical terms too, well, clinical … and I couldn't help being a little startled each time I ran across certain words.

As I read, I often found myself flinching, blushing, or blinking in disbelief. After all these years of saying that there isn't enough sexual content in RPGs, I suddenly found myself saying "whoa … way too much information!" My impression was that if even I was uncomfortable, what would the rest of the gamers out there think? The ones who've been dubious or downright opposed to a book like this in the first place?

The tables were, for the most part, very good. If there's anything in this book I would consider using in my own campaign, it would be the tables. Especially the quick-100 adventure ideas on pages 173-176.

Rules –

This is where I raise my hands and shake my head and leave it to others to know how well the rules are designed, and how well they actually work. I am entirely unfamiliar with the D20 system.

Chapter by Chapter –

Chapter One: Love, Sex & Roleplaying. I liked this chapter very much, mostly because it expressed many of the same opinions and beliefs that I share about when, how, and if such rules should be introduced to a game. I skimmed over the parts on alignments (alignment is one element of D&D that I have never liked, even way back when). I liked the look at the role of sex, commitment, and childbirth among the various races, though it did seem like overkill to cover so many, especially ones that might not be available as player characters (again, haven't played, don't know).

Chapter Two: Rules, Skills & Feats. Lots of useful info. I was glad to see STDs get a severely warning mention, but thought that the diseases themselves were often excessively silly in name (Azure Balls?) or bizarre and either not fully thought out or else poorly expressed (paralytic poison? if the genitals excrete this, wouldn't the sufferer as well as anyone having sex with the sufferer therefore be paralyzed?). I thought that the pregnancy rules were on the skimpy side, not taking many physical and emotional changes into account – then again, the aspect of character mental and emotional advantages and disadvantages was one reason I so gladly jumped ship from AD&D to GURPS.

Chapter Three: Base & Prestige Classes. I mostly just read the fic-bits here, since the rules meant nothing to me. And the sidebar on Piercing … again, more information than I really felt I needed.

Chapter Four: Magic. It's in the best D&D tradition for spells to have clunky or goofy names, and in that, this book fits just fine. I just can't seem to wrap my head around the idea of hearing someone say, "I'm going to cast Wet Dream!" The stress in Chapter One on how this book is not intended to condone any non-consensual sexual activity is reinforced here with a thought-provoking sidebar on the laws and moralities of the use of magic for nefarious sexual purposes. Though it never happened to me personally, I have known plenty of players – mostly female – who have been told, without so much as a yea, nay, or saving throw, that their characters have been seduced and/or impregnated against their will. Some might argue that the presence of sex rules will only encourage and allow this kind of behavior (“well, see, you couldn’t resist because he was Zeus, yeah, Zeus”); I argue that the presence of sex rules will protect characters from this kind of behavior.

Chapter Five: Items. Some good and useful stuff in this chapter. Sex toys, birth control devices, aphrodisiac potions, fetish gear, and sexual services are all described, and have convenient price tables. The magic items suffer the same traditional drawback as the spells in terms of names – and the fact that the Phallus of the Engorged Satyr is apparently a weapon, well, that's more than a little disturbing. This chapter ends on a particularly humorous note, with the listing of the Book of Erotic Fantasy itself as an artifact sure to cause controversy.

Chapter Six: Gods & Monsters. An assortment of sex-related deities are presented here, with their symbols, alignments, domains, and so forth outlined for easy reference. These seem to be made up for the purpose of the book, and evil ones are represented as well as good. A variety of faeries, angels, demons, catgirls, and other critters rounds out the section.

Chapter Seven: Adventures & Organizations. As I said before, I really like the 100 quick idea adventures presented here. Some of them are quite creative and could throw a little spice into the campaign. The "organizations" consist of a sex club for magic-users, a brothel complete with the only map in the book, and a cult dedicated to the good life.

Appendices: The first of these is a 4-page alphabetical listing of Appearance scores for just about any and every creature (including animals) that adventurers might encounter. The second lists the Challenge Ratings of the new creatures and personalities set forth in the book.

End: After the Index and the OGL … like having your veggies before you get your dessert … is a full page Phil & Dixie!

Conclusion –

This is a book aimed specifically at the traditional fantasy D20 campaign. As such, it serves its purpose as well as could be expected. If that's what you're running, and that's what you're playing, and you want to add sexual situations to your campaign, this book will have all (if not more) of the information you'll probably need.

But it doesn't leave much for the rest of us. Those who play other systems, or focus on other genres, are likely to find the Book of Erotic Fantasy lacking. Basically, this is a book for one specific (albeit very popular) system. It adheres strictly to those rules and that format and that structure, and does not allow for much in the way of versatility or adaptability.

I stated in my introduction to this review that I went looking for similarities and differences between this and my own project, Naughty and Dice. I found both, but far more differences than similarities. Naughty and Dice is, if anything, too much without specific structure, and is meant much more as a sourcebook than a particular set of rules.

But I think we can certainly co-exist peacefully. The Book of Erotic Fantasy will better serve one type of gamer (the D&D-type player), while Naughty and Dice will better serve another (the GURPS-type player). And, as the types can get along in the greater sphere of gaming, I am sure that the books can as well.

Actually, I am grateful to the Valar Project for what they've done.

For years, any and all sex rules for RPGs could be found only in online articles and netbooks – I've examined a few of these, and for the most part was disgusted by the tone, the language, and the attitudes toward women found in them. Gamers have a bad enough romantic reputation anyway, and I shudder to think of them learning about romantic relationships from some of those online articles. It’s like learning about how to please a woman by watching the average porn video. Yeesh. Scary.

Books like these have brought this long-neglected topic into the forefront of the gaming community. Sex can be as valid an element of a game as can magic, or combat. Not every gamer will need or want these rules, but I am glad beyond measure that those who do will be able to add them to their shelves.

I’m grateful for another reason, too. If I hadn’t heard, earlier this year, of the Valar Project’s intentions to actually publish such a book, we might not have gotten around to it either. I’ve been telling myself for the better part of a decade that I should do my own book. I needed to have the fire of a little serious competition lit under me ;)

So, thanks, Valar Project, and good luck!

The Harvest

Life is good in the town of Windshake. But then, life, well, that's such a subjective term. There's a new kind of life growing and thriving in the mountains around this quaint Appalachian community. A monstrous, alien life bent on taking over everything that it touches.

Only psychologist Tamara Leon has an inkling of what's about to happen. She's been bothered most of her life by dreams, premonitions, and visions. She calls these feelings "Gloomies," and her biggest problem is that, like Cassandra of old, nobody wants to believe them. Tamara would rather not believe them herself. The Gloomies have turned her marriage shaky and made her life a waking nightmare, and now they are getting worse. She fears that something terrible is about to happen, and she's right.

Personally, I wished that the "Gloomies" were called something else. My mind persisted in reading it as "Goonies," as in the movie with Sean Astin and Corey Feldman as kids, which threw me off my mental stride. It might have been fitting for Tamara's character, who first experienced her "Gloomies" in childhood, but a childish name like that hanging on into adulthood, well, no wonder people had trouble taking her seriously. I found it hard to like and sympathize with her as a character, primarily for this reason.

But the rest of the characters, wow! The Harvest is at its best when dealing with the many, varied, and colorful folks who make up the population of Windshake. Their interactions are great fun to read, and as events start snowballing out of control, family members turn against each other, neighbors stalk neighbors, and everyone is in danger of being taken over by the spreading alien plague.

The Harvest struck me as very reminiscent of a short story, "Miss Attila the Hun," from Strange Highways by Dean R. Koontz. In both, people are infected and taken over as hosts for the alien consciousness. Even the dedication, which refers to someone named Brian as "a good seed," when Koontz's creature calls itself "Seed," seems to strengthen this similarity.

But the parasitic being in The Harvest is bent on extending itself over the entire ecosystem, turning water and plant life and the eyes of its victims an abnormal green. Its hosts become sort of swampy eco-zombies, pod people in a quite different sense than Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

As the town hurtles toward squishy green doom, it's up to Tamara and a small group of others who've realized what's happening to stop it before time runs out.

This book is a solid, entertaining read, though perhaps not something you'd want to take with you on a hiking or camping trip into the remote wilderness where anything green might start to look a little suspicious …

The Rising

I'd been hearing about this book for a while, and eagerly awaiting it. When it arrived – one of the selections in the Leisure Horror Book Club – I read it straight through that very same night. And I was not at all disappointed!

I've long been a fan of zombie fiction, but there isn't much of it out there, and most of that is in the short-story form, as done so well in the Books of the Dead (edited by Skipp and Spector) and the Flesh anthologies (from Eden Studios in support of their RPG, All Flesh Must Be Eaten). The Rising is an entire zombie novel … but these aren't your traditional zombies.

For one thing, they don't eat brains. Brian Keene chucked this staple of post-Romero zombie lore out the window. Though still on the slow and shambling side, his zombies are smart, devious, and truly evil. They are crafty. They can plan, and set ambushes for their living prey.

For another, the zombie plague doesn't just infect humans. Animals, birds, and even fish are subject to rise. And they come back possessed of the same evil, devious, cunning intelligence as the higher life forms.

The Rising is set in the very near future, a familiar and plausible world in which people have become so inured to the threat-du-jour (nuclear war, Y2K, terrorist attacks) that they're not prepared for the end when it does come. Civilization is shattered and the few survivors face overwhelming odds as the zombie population steadily increases.

And as if human and animal zombies aren't peril enough, there's also danger from the living. From hillbilly cannibals to tyrannical military units to roving gangs, no place is safe. The only sure way out is a bullet to the head.

The book begins in a fallout shelter, where Jim Thurmond has spent months in hiding. He has lost his family, his friends, and his hope. He's on the verge of suicide when he receives a pleading phone call from his son, Danny, who lives hundreds of miles away with Jim's ex-wife. Jim decides to risk it all in a desperate journey to find his son.

The Rising is what I wanted 28 Days Later to be. It paints a very believable picture of a country overrun with the living dead, and the struggle of the survivors. I love apocalyptic yarns, and this one rates right up there with The Stand and Swan Song. Bits of it reminded me of both.

My only complaint is that this book was much too short, and the ending snuck up too fast and left me craving more, with all the hunger of one of the zombie-kind. It's no wonder that Brian Keene is a winner of the Bram Stoker Award. I will certainly be on the lookout for more of his work.

Wild Animus

While at Seattle's Northwest Bookfest, I was given an advance reading copy of the debut novel by Rich Shapero – hey, a free book! I'm not sure when the official release date is, or what the price will be, but thought that I'd review it here nonetheless. As the Bookfest was in October, I imagine that it must be out by now.

The cover is striking, with a pair of red designs to represent the symbols of the ram and the wolf in dripping red paint (or blood!) superimposed on a dark background etched with handwritten script, and the title a yellow ocher scrawl. The entire effect is primitive but powerful. The back cover boasts a pair of mismatched, eerie yellow eyes.

Wild Animus begins amid the campus protests and riots that characterized Berkeley in the late 1960's. It is the story of a man named Sam, whose life is changed forever by a magazine cover with a phone number scrawled on a photograph of a ram.

The phone number belongs to Lindy, but it is the ram that captures them both. Sam, who takes to calling himself "Ransom," feels spiritually drawn toward the majestic ram and identifies with it so strongly that he embarks on a quest that takes him ever further north toward the Alaskan wilderness. He goes out alone to immerse himself in the essence of this totem animal, even dressing up in wooly leggings and horned headdress to get the full ram experience, and finds that his transformation becomes a little too real.

Ransom's search for enlightenment becomes a dangerous obsession that threatens his life and his sanity. He realizes that Lindy is the wolfpack to his ram, a deadly and dangerous but strangely compelling and necessary thing.

It's all an interesting idea, and so I am sorry to say that I just could not get into this book. Maybe it was because the characters initially spent so much time on LSD (maybe it was because I couldn't help thinking that a person might need to be on LSD to understand the story). Maybe it's because I am not very spiritual and lack a basic "get-back-to-nature" urge. I'm not much of a one for voyages of self-discovery or pitting oneself against the elements, either.

The book is capably written, but the characters aren't very believable and the language feels often hokey and overblown. Sentences like "Fear tried to freeze her, but she was heedless, charging toward him, imagining the molten god rising from the wound to meet her" just leave me cold (and yes, it's written "molten god," not "molten gold"). The story shifts between third-person past-tense to first-person present-tense as Sam/Ransom is taken over by his "Animus," and it just all seems like too much.

Infernal Angel

Last year, when I read Edward Lee’s City Infernal, the gamer in me was every bit as delighted as the horror-reader in me. The book presented the Mephistopolis, a wonderfully-imagined version of Hell as a teeming city with its own economy, social strata, crime, corruption, prostitution, drug problems, law enforcement … all of it skewed toward damnation and eternal punishment.

Humans who end up in Hell find that their bodies are subject to torture and dismemberment, and when those bodies finally die, their souls are brought back as some other lower, nasty, inhuman denizen of the Mephistopolis so that the torment can go on, and on, and on. A hierarchy of demons and fallen angels rule the city, and hosts of other creatures from gryphons to trolls to gargoyles populate its dank, steaming streets.

What I want to know is – when is the RPG sourcebook coming out? This vision of Hell that puts Dante in the shade would lend itself perfectly to any sort of In Nomine or other light-vs.-darkness campaign … as long as it was one with a twist toward seriously bent, dark humor.

The style of Edward Lee’s storytelling is of the ghoulishly gleeful variety. He clearly has much fun describing, in lovingly gross detail, the atrocities that pack nearly every page of his books. They are a gore-splashing laugh-fest, kinky and sickening and hilarious all at the same time.

The main character of the Infernal books is Cassie, who, because she was born on an occult holiday, lost her twin to suicide, attempted suicide herself, and is a virgin (talk about your complicated pre-conditions) discovers that she is an Etheress. This is a sort of super-kicked-up sorceress who can enter Hell through portals called Deadpasses, and once there, can use her powers to whup demonic butt.

Cassie’s main wish is to find the soul of her sister, Lissa, and apologize for the part she inadvertently played in Lissa’s death. But her rare power makes her sought after as a prize, as well as hunted as a threat, by the upper echelons of Hell.

In Infernal Angel, Cassie returns to the Mephistopolis in the company of an angelic commando to try and uncover a plot that will bring Hell to the living world and even threaten the entire history of humanity. Cassie also learns of her male counterpart, an Etherean, who has been tricked into working for the other side.

Walter, the Etherean, has the same powers and limitations as Cassie but lacks the confidence to use them. He has come to Hell in search of the woman he loves, and ends up touring the worst neighborhoods of the Mephistopolis with the talking, disembodied head of a seer.

Both of these books are just sheer delight. The plot twists are fiendishly clever (but literally!), the story takes turns that the reader will never expect, and there are shocks and chuckles galore. I heartily recommend them to horror fans and gamers alike!

Path of the Just

Superheroes! I do love superhero fiction. Not comic books, so much … for some reason my comic book phase began with the “new” X-Men, and ended with the New Mutants.

But I love superhero fiction, and I was delighted to learn that the people at Silver Age Sentinels were planning a few anthologies to support their cool and spiffy new RPG (I love superhero games, too, though I never get to run them).

Path of the Just is the first of at least two projected anthologies. The second, Path of the Bold, is scheduled for a March 2004 release. They both include stories set within the world as presented in Silver Age Sentinels, which is a world very much like our own except that superheroes have been a known factor for decades – and therefore, some events in history have taken alternate routes.

The RPG presents a plethora of existing characters both good and evil, a timeline, and of course the rules and guidelines for creating your own. Empire City is the place to be, though the entire globe is open for adventure.

An introduction by Dennis O’Niel takes a brief look at the history of superheroes, which officially might begin with Superman but have roots stretching back 4,000 years through the epics of demi-gods and heroes such as Gilgamesh, Hercules, and Samson.

The lineup of authors is impressive indeed, and the stories they turn in do not disappoint:

“Ghosts of London” by Matthew McFarland is first in the book and my personal favorite, as the hero Caliburn returns to England to face not only the child-stealing Bloody Mary but the personal torments of his past.

“War and Hell” by Brett Barkley is set in World War I, an often-overlooked era in fiction nowadays, in which British troops in the trenches prepare to “go over the top” in the company of the legendary Tommy Gun.

“Citizens” by Steven Grant examines the true nature of heroism and revenge as the villain once known as Lord Adonis is given a final chance to take on, and maybe finally best, his one-time rival, the Citizen.

“Decisions” by J. Allen Thomas is a departure from the rest, as it’s about a regular couple with a vaguely troubled relationship, and how a chance encounter with danger draws them closer together.

“Covalent Bonds” by Erica Schippers takes a humorous look at where villains go to just hang out when they’re not busy trying to destroy the world, but it’s also an exceptionally clever tale that spans many years and one unusual woman’s ingenuity.

“The Final Equation” by Robin Laws presents a hard look at the death penalty and its far-reaching effects on meta-humans, and how even the ultimate punishment delivered to one of the nastiest bad guys since Hannibal Lecter can leave a superhero unsatisfied.

“Apocalypse” by Daniel Ksenych features an ill-mixed team of superheroes, including one reformed villainess who isn’t sure how to win the trust of the others when she’s not even sure she can trust herself.

“The Man in the Wall” by Ed Greenwood tells of the Lurker, a man hauled in by the cops for having inexplicable knowledge of, but no apparent link to, various crimes. His story turns out to be one of sacrifice and legacy.

“Ion Shells” by Steven Harper is a sharply-written tale of a battle of wits and attraction between a tricky thief-for-hire and a hero offering a chance at a new life on the side of the good guys.

“Stormcloud Rising” by Jim C. Hines is another of my favorites in this book, because this is the sort of thing I think about. What would happen if two meta-humans, against all medical odds, had a child … and that child could foresee the danger that her powers would bring to her family?

“The Whispering Wars” by Lucien Soulban, though beautifully written, wasn’t exactly to my personal tastes as it seemed more of a spy-thriller / cyberpunk / action movie than a true superhero yarn. But, for what it is, it’s damn well done.

“Hardball” by John Ostrander is a very neat story that proves a superhero doesn’t necessarily have to save the whole world or possess fantastic powers. A neighborhood and the determination to do right is enough, as the Slugger will learn.

“Evening With the Minotaur” by Jon Hansen comes at things from a different angle, with a touch of Greek myth. Boys born with Asterion’s Condition develop bull-like cranial and facial features, great strength, and tempers to match. But they still go on dates …

“Arcanum’s Last Card” by Bradley J. Kayl is touching and tragic, guaranteed to bring a tear to the reader’s eye as the mystic Tarot-themed hero Arcanum lies near the end of life and looks back over love and loss, victory and defeat.

“Mirror, Rust, and Dark” by Alexander Marsh Freed wraps up the book with a tale of alternate dimensions, the classic evil mirror universe thing, as a young woman bothered by nightmares fights for her place in both.

Overall, this was a fun book, and I am looking forward to the next in the series. I recommend it to fellow fans of superhero fiction.

review by Christine Morgan