The Vinyl Detective was an interesting launch to a mystery series, with a mystery novel steeped heavily in 1940-50s jazz music, and in record collecting. The question to a book like that is how do you follow a work like that up and keep the framework fresh? Read more
We return to the Star Wars novels with a fairly underrated trilogy. Read more
This week I’m reviewing Of Dice and Men, a personal and general overview of the history of role-playing. Read more
I’m continuing with the Tabletop related books in honor of GenCon this week, with the first novel in the Dragonlance series. Read more
This week, in honor of GenCon being this month, I’m starting off a short series video of reviews of books based on tabletop games. First off is an adaptation of the plot of one of the earliest sets of Magic: the Gathering. Read more
I now come to the conclusion of the Corellian Trilogy as we get to the bottom of events in the villain’s plan. Read more
This week I’m taking a look at book 6 of the Legend of the Galactic Heroes series, as the status quo changes once again. Read more
Man, this is the year for really interesting SF murder mysteries getting nominated for the Hugo awards. In The Best Novella category there’s “Then There Was (N-One)” – and in Best Novel, we have Six Wakes from Mur Lafferty. Read more
Back when I was in Middle School, I discovered the Lovejoy Mysteries, first through the TV series and then through the novels. However, some aspects of the books, such as Lovejoy’s attitude towards women, have aged poorly. So, while I enjoy going back to the books (and I should get around to reading them at some point in the future), they are kind of hard to recommend. Read more
When I last talked about the Books of the Raksura series, The Siren Depths had wrapped up an informal trilogy of novels by establishing why the court protagonist Moon was from was attacked by the Fell in the first place, and what the reason for the Fell to create hybrid Raksura was in the first place. Read more
I’m beginning a new trilogy of Star Wars novels here, where we finally go to visit Corellia.
We now com to what is quite possibly the worst Star Wars novel to date.
The Crystal Star is available from Amazon.com in Print and Kindle editions. Buying anything through those links helps support the show.
Opening Credits: Star Wars Theme from Super Star Wars on the SNES.
Closing Credits: Chiptune Cantina Band from Chiptune Inc. – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvJtiGFudFlvYMfjiU1NKJg
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This time I’m taking a look at the first published Drizzt Do’Urden novel, and the second Forgotten Realms novel.
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Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
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Member of The Console Xplosion Network: http://www.theconsolexplosion.com/
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Magic: The Gathering, of all the TCGs that I have played, has held on to me more than any other game – more than WWE Raw Deal, the Star Wars CCG, the Star Trek CCG, and even Weiss Schwarz. The reason for that, more than the raw play of the game and the people I was playing with, was the world of the game, the lore of the game and how it was conveyed. While cards would certainly have a degree of humor to them, the game always took the world somewhat seriously. Read more
Procedural content, permadeath, and extremely punishing difficulty has become more and more of a thing in game design. So, that fact, combined by my affinity for the history of technology from a social, technological, and scientific perspective, lead me to this book about the history of roguelikes. It makes for a good portrait of the development of four games, and getting briefly into some of the ways roguelikes have spread into wider gaming culture, though what could be a good look at the larger gaming picture is sadly limited. Read more
More than Darkwalker on Moonshae – which I need to get around reviewing at some point – The Crystal Shard by R. A. Salvatore is very much the introductory jumping on point for fiction within the Forgotten Realms campaign setting – and the introduction of possibly the most infamous character in fantasy fiction – Drizzt Do’Urden. Read more
When I last left the Log Horizon series, they’d gone into a political and economic thriller, as Shirou started forming the Akiba Round table with members of all the major guilds, before driving a bunch of the bad actors out of Akihabara through the unified powers of cash and good food. However, the series had also set up a new concept – that the People of the Land – the former NPCs are now fully sentient. Books 3 and 4, with the collective subtitle of “Game’s End,” get into the ramifications of that, along with what’s been going on while Akiba was getting its act together. Read more
At long last, the first Record of Lodoss War novel has received an officially licensed US release. I’ve read it, and here are my thoughts, and some notes on the differences between the two releases.
The Grey Witch is available from Amazon.com and RightStuf. Picking up the book through those links helps the site.
Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero
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This week I’m taking a look at what is widely regarded as one of the worst books in the Star Wars EU. Read more
It’s the battle we’ve all been waiting for.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes Book 5 is available from – Amazon.com (Paperback, Kindle) and RightStuf.com
Any purchases you make through those links helps support the show.
Please support my Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Member of The Console Xplosion Network: http://www.theconsolexplosion.com/
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor/
We wrap up Kevin J. Anderson’s Jedi Academy Trilogy. Read more
A few years ago I did a video review of the original OVA for Record of Lodoss War. At that time, the OVA was out of print, as was (and still is, sadly) the manga adaptation of the novels. Since then, Funimation (not the company I expected to do it) license rescued all of the anime, and now Seven Seas has done something I never expected to happen – they licensed the first novel, and gave it a fantastic edition in 2017. I got it for myself for Christmas, and finally was able to read it in February. Read more
It’s time to wrap up the Jedi Academy Trilogy and all its myriad plot threads. Read more
We return to the Jedi Academy trilogy to see how Luke starts to train his students. Spoilers: Not everything goes well.
Opening Credits: Star Wars Theme from Super Star Wars on the SNES.
Closing Credits: Chiptune Cantina Band from Chiptune Inc. – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvJtiGFudFlvYMfjiU1NKJg
Please support my Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Member of The Console Xplosion Network: http://www.theconsolexplosion.com/
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor/