Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I've had a tumultuous relationship with the Harry Potter series of books and movies. When the first movie was imminent, I decided that it'd be nice to read the book first, so I picked it up in a cheap mass market paperback format. I read it in one day.

Then, I turned around and bought the next three (the only ones available at that time) and read them all in a couple of days. Then, literally, I turned around and read the whole series again.

I really loved them at the time; I thought they were extremely charming books about extremely charming characters, and the turn at the end of the fourth book towards a darker atmosphere got me really excited as well. The movie went ahead and came out, and as an adaptation of the book it was... workmanlike. Nothing wonderful, but not an embarrassment either. The best parts about it were the production design, the eclectic casting of famous British actors in, essentially, cameos, and the John Williams score which, while not revolutionary, is still one of his better ones.

More books came out. I was actually very much put off by the fifth book, which disappointed me greatly (it's since grown on me some, but only some.) The movies continued coming out, and I think they've largely improved each time. The sixth book was a return to form, but the final book, again, disappointed me.

So, my earlier excitement and furor over the series has been greatly diminished by a few missteps, and in particular by a conclusion that didn't satisfy me. Yet, I still have a love for the characters and their setting, at least, and so it was with quite a bit of excitement that I went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with Julie and the kids last night. Again, in case you missed it, this was one of my favorite of the books, a fine return to form after the disappointing Order of the Phoenix.

The movie was interesting. Visually, it was a treat. The movies have all improved in this regard. The acting is superb compared to past efforts. The young stars have really matured and honed their talents. The movie has a fair bit of comedy, especially around the budding romances brewing amongst the characters. Pacing-wise, the movie was a bit flat. If you didn't already like the characters, and enjoy seeing them interact for that reason alone, the movie may disappoint you. I do, so I enjoyed it, but the feedback from everyone in the family was that it was kinda slow and much lighter on action than previous ventures. A looming, brooding sense of impending menace wasn't quite sufficient by itself. And, although this is an artifact of the source material, it really also felt like an extended "coming soon" advertisement. Most of the Harry Potter books (and movies) have been pretty self-containted; this one felt much more unresolved at the end than any that have come out to date.

I think, without spoiling anything major, it's not too much to say that there are two budding romances throughout this movie; one of them was handled very well; believably, and even charmingly. The other felt rushed and undeveloped, and we were merely supposed to accept that it happened because the movie told us so. This is also an artifact of the source material (although it was more egregious in the movie), but the movie's subtitle was really an afterthought. The fact that they mentioned it at all felt tacked on clumsily.

Despite these minor quibbles, I enjoyed the movie, and I think it set up the remaining two quite well. I continue to be excited to see the conclusion of the series.

Monster Manual V

The Monster Manual V is the kind of book you can set down for a while and then pick up again and not miss a beat. For that reason, I've been reading it for quite a long time, but I finally finished it today when I went out to my car for a "lunch" break.

You'd think that the monster manual concept would be played out by the time they're on number 5 (and if you count the Fiend Folio and the smaller Monsters of Faerûn book, they're really on 6½, not 5.) However, that wasn't the case at all. The Monster Manual V was quite a good book, and in fact I enjoyed it quite a bit more than Monster Manual III, which I read not that long ago as well. It's a lot of really good monster ideas, and I really like the implementation of them.

There's fewer than in some monster books; each entry took at least two pages, because they spent more time talking about the monsters, their role in the ecology and campaign, a few strategies, etc. These still weren't as flavorful and inspirational as Privateer Press's Monsternomicon series, but it was a darn sight better than the original Monster Manual. It really made the signal/noise ratio for this book fairly high, I thought... I could immediately see where I'd potentially use most of these monsters, rather than just kinda gliding over them saying, "meh." The concepts were, somewhat surprisingly, useful, not weird esoteric ones. In fact, some of them, like the Wild Hunt, are so iconic from folklore and mythology that it's almost embarrassing that it took so long for them to get done. Even the less "creative" ones, like variants on hobgoblins and kuo-toa so you can throw an entire society at the PCs with very little work, were interesting reads and potentially very useful entries.

All in all, I can recommend this book highly, moreso than most of the other monster books in the 3e/3.5 line-up (you still really need the first Monster Manual though; it's got too many of the basics). Now that it's finished, I'm replacing its slot in the line-up of "what I'm reading" with Sandstorm, the environmental book that focuses on deserts.

Taldor: Echoes of Glory

Just read the quick little book Taldor: Echoes of Glory from Paizo last night. The Pathfinder Companion series are short little books, 32 pages. About a third of the book is a description of the country itself, a third is a description of Oppara, the capital city, and a third is mechanical options like a prestige class, some spells, feats, and NPCs.

Taldor as a setting element is kind of interesting; it's got a lot of clear (and purposeful) correllations to the late Byzantine Empire (including even an analog to the Varangian Guard); it's a country on the brink, teetering towards dissolution. Maybe not even teetering, a succession crisis is brewing as well. Qadira even works as an analog to the Ottomans (or the Sassanids before that); a powerful Eastern rival with smoldering border conflicts and territory that often goes back and forth.

Although the book was a very interesting read, one thing that I don't think it did as well as some of the other Pathfinder books, however, was give immediate and obvious adventure hooks. The text is great information for supporting games, but if you set a game in Taldor, what do you actually do? I'm not sure. I mean, I'd have to think of it myself; the book itself doesn't immediately suggest a lot of gaming activity. There's some vague mention of brigands and river pirates, and it says in several places that ruins abound due to the decayed state of the empire, but that's not much to go on, and it's kinda generic to boot. Maybe Paizo doesn't really see that as a problem; they are primarily, after all, an adventure publishing company, and this Pathfinder Companion product line is supposed to merely be support. I don't know that I see it as a problem either, because I've been running games for a long time and am confident I can think of plenty of things to do. But it's worth noting.

The next volume in the series is Qadira and after that Cheliax, both areas of the Golarion setting that interest me greatly (enough so that I wish they were getting the larger Pathfinder Chronicles treatment rather than the relatively more abbreviated Pathfinder Companion treatment. Oh, well.) I imagine I'll pick both of those up in short order as well. In the meantime, I'm still marching through Monster Manual V and have picked up my copy of Dark Markets: A Guide to Katapesh to read (and review) next.

Balor ilo

I'm curious in an academic sense about the upcoming release of the Pathfinder RPG by Paizo Publishing, a kind of "3.75" Edition D&D alternate. I'm not actually interested in updating my 3.5, to be honest with you, but I might grab a handful of house rules from the betas of that game that I've got from them.

I am, however, very interested in what Paizo is doing with their setting, the Golarion setting, which I've reviewed here in the past. I've got many of their setting books, and I think they're excellent. And although I'm not actually a huge fan of the concept of published adventures, Paizo's are genuinely fun to read, and even if I don't run them as is, they've got tons of stuff I can "borrow" including great monsters, locations, NPCs, and just concepts in general.

As part of their Pathfinder RPG, they're releasing their own version of the monster manual, and they've put up a few art samples. Here's their version of the balor (I presume; it wasn't actually labeled as such), and frankly, it's one of the best illustrations of that iconic, balrogish monster that I've ever seen. The four eyes makes it look just alien enough that it differentiates itself from other balrog rip-offs, like Warhammer's bloodthirster, for instance.

Good stuff. Congrats to Paizo for putting together what looks to be (yet again) another quality product. I'm a big fan of their writing, their design, and---for that matter---their production values, which I think is an often overlooked and undervalued commodity in the RPG business.

Libris Mortis

I finished Libris Mortis, actually a few weeks ago before leaving town. All in all, I found it the least impressive of the monster speciality books, which is disappointing, because undead are incredibly iconic to the fantasy genre. In fact, I'd daresay I have more occasions to use undead than dragons by an order of magnitude, but the text in this book was fairly flat. It did little to make undead seem "alive" (no pun intended) or much more than a mechanical challenge for the characters to face. The new monsters section was fairly underwhelming. I found finishing the book to be a chore. Even the organizations near the end, and the alternatives for various monsters---sections I was looking forward to---didn't impress me much.

Of the series as a whole, I think Hordes of the Abyss is my favorite. It's extremely well done, the subject matter of the book is very iconic and interesting, and it's engagingly written and the ideas spark the imagination. It's diabolic counterpart is also good, although Hell as corporate cubicle culture was either an extended joke that went on too long, or just plain not that great an idea in the first place. But in general, the series quality overall has been excellent, and I have little but good to say about Lords of Madness and The Draconomicon too. Which is why Libris Mortis is so disappointing; it's not that it's a bad book by any means, it just feels very pedestrian and boring compared to its collegues in the monster speciality subseries.

In any case, I've moved on to Monster Manual V for now. I think my next gaming book forays may be into some Paizo material that I've had for some time, but not read because the format is so difficult for me to work with. I'm actually going to buy some hardcopies of books I already own on pdf, and I've learned my lesson not to go that route anymore thinking that it's a time saver and a convenience. Clearly, at least for me, it has not been. Maybe if I had a laptop it would be different. And maybe in the next year or two I will have one. But for now... it's been difficult to read pdf books, and I've made very little headway on books that I've owned, literally, for years in some cases.

Another synthpop discovery

Weird video. Cool song.

3e wishlist

Every once in a while, I like to make lists. I may have made this list before, in which case it probably hasn't changed too much. This is the list of 3e (or 3.5) books that I want to buy but still never got around to. Actually, that's not exactly true. This is the highish priority list. There's a few more also that I wouldn't mind picking up, although I wouldn't go too far out of my way for them. Anyway...

The rest of the Complete series that I don't already have:
Complete Mage
Complete Arcana
Complete Divine

As you can see, I don't much care for spellcasters. I mean, heck; I've already got Complete Psionic for cryin' out loud, before I got any spellcaster completes. But; I want to complete the set.

The rest of the monster manuals:
Monster Manual IV

Yeah, that's it. I count Fiend Folio as a MM. But I've already got it.

The rest of the environmental books:
Sandstorm
Stormwrack
Cityscape

I actually am not counting Dungeonscape. I don't care about that one. I've actually only got Frostburn, but holy crap, great idea for a line of sourcebooks.

Other books I want that aren't exactly part of a series per se:
Player's Handbook 2
Heroes of Horror

That's nine books. In nine books, I could be done.

Of course, I could also be not done. If I get past those nine books, I've got another list of lower priority books to buy.

The rest of the Races series:
Races of Stone
Races of the Wild
Races of the Dragon

I bought Races of Destiny on the cheap years ago, and I wasn't impressed with it enough to make a point of collecting the rest. But, probably, one of these days I'll get around to it.

Two of the Complete books I've never been that interested in, but the completist in me will probably eventually drive me to buy:
Complete Champion
Complete Scoundrel

A few other books, that belong to no series per se that I can percieve:
Magic of Incarnum
Tome of Magic
Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords
Spell Compendium
Dragon Magic

So; ten more. Low priority, but still; I'd eventually like to have them.

Of course, then we start on the Forgotten Realms and Eberron books that I don't have.

D'oh. I've got a lot of buying to do after all.

Still; only the first nine are really "high" priority, and by "high" I mean, even though they've been out of print for a year and a half (or longer) I still haven't gotten around to buying them. High being a very relative term in this instance.

Fantasy subgenres

As a self-professed genre-bender, who likes to mix and match fun genre conventions regardless of origin, you'd think I wouldn't care much about the rather nitpicky and esoteric subgenres of fantasy, but actually, I think that they're quite interesting to examine. As a reader, occasional writer, and long-time fantasy roleplaying game fan, I also care quite a bit about the "feel" of certain genres, and often try to implement this feel regardless of other conventions sometimes.

This list isn't meant to be exhaustive, although it does catch most of the major categories.

High Fantasy: The grand-daddy of them all. Well, not really, but High Fantasy is what so many people think of when they hear the term fantasy that for all intents and purposes, to them High Fantasy is synonomous with Fantasy. High fantasy usually takes place in a secondary creation (i.e., a fantasy world, not the real world), often includes quests to save the world, often includes a dynamic of good vs. evil, and often follows such conventions as Campbell's Hero's Journey very blatantly, including the farmboy turned hero/king. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is High Fantasy, for example.

Sword & Sorcery: This is the other major pillar on which most modern fantasy rests, and it was pioneered by writers such as Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber, etc. S&S does not feature "save the world" as a plot element, it is often told in short story format, the protagonists are often fairly amoral guys, looking for adventure and glory rather than higher ideals. It's focus is on exotica, action, and fast pacing. S&S originated in the pulp magazines (especially Weird Tales of the late 20s and early 30s) and as such, it bears a strong helping of the "pulp aesthetic." As already mentioned, the most prominent and iconic Sword & Sorcery fiction is the Conan cycle of stories by Howard.

Heroic Fantasy: This is a slightly unclear definition, and seems to be used most often to label something that would include both High Fantasy and Sword & Sorcery, making it an umbrella term of dubious value. However, it's worth pointing out that games like Dungeons & Dragons, which feature an intriguing mix of High Fantasy and Sword & Sorcery conventions mixed together, is perhaps best served by this label.

Low Fantasy: This is probably a bad label, but you may see it frequently. It's defined more by what it's not than by what it is, i.e., it's not High Fantasy. So, this includes Sword & Sorcery, for example. And dark fantasy

Dark Fantasy: Best described as a hybrid between horror and fantasy. Some dark fantasy "leans" more towards one endpoint or the other. Dark fantasy is also often "non-heroic" i.e., characters are vulnerable to nasty death at every turn, often don't have plot immunity, and the grittiness and "realness" of life is emphasized. Glen Cook's Black Company series could be considered dark fantasy (as well as other things), as could George R. R. Martin's Song of Fire & Ice.

Contemporary Fantasy: Fantasy that doesn't take place in a pseudo-medieval setting. It could be, literally, the real world of today, or it could be a fantasy setting with modern trappings. The most obvious and popular contemporary fantasy today is J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.

Urban Fantasy: A subset of Contemporary Fantasy, urban fantasy takes place in the dark alleys of the modern metropolis. Growing out of a dark fantasy/horror scene, urban fantasy features a lot of overlap with that scene. The Anita Blake and Dresden Files novels are a great example of Urban Fantasy. For that matter, so is much of the World of Darkness line of roleplaying games from White Wolf.

Romantic Fantasy: Fantasy mostly written by women and targeting a women audience, this subgenre combines elements of traditional high fantasy with the romance novel. Mercedes Lackey wrote a ton of this kind of material, and a roleplaying game by Green Ronin dedicated to it even came out, Blue Rose. I don't know how successful that game was, but it was the direct predecessor to the True20 system, so it's worth it for that alone, if nothing else. In case a bit of bias is showing through here, I'll go ahead and officially say it: I have yet to read a single book of this subgenre that I like, and I actively avoid it now.

Science Fantasy: Perhaps not so much thriving subgenre in its own right as opposed to a label retroactively applied to a few works that don't easily fit in other subgenres, science fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy that has science fiction trappings, but other conventions (and even cliches) from high fantasy, or other fantasy works. Frank Herbert's Dune is probably one of the earliest well-known varieties of this, but the Star Wars franchise is usually what it meant when this label is applied. Of course, things like Warhammer 40k could also be called science fantasy, and for that matter, you could easily retroactively call a lot of space opera science fantasy today, like E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen series.

Historical Fantasy: As the name implies, this is fantasy that takes place in a historical setting. Celtic fantasy, Homeric fantasy, Arthurian fantasy, etc. If it takes place in the real world, using real (or real legendary) characters, at least as window dressing, if nothing else, then it's historical fantasy. Regardless of how much magic, monsters, dragons, and whatnot happen to infest this fictional real world.

Epic Fantasy: You probably hear this term a lot, but it is unclear. Some people use it to mean something that's identical to High Fantasy. Others use it to refer to how long a work is. Neither is a particularly useful definition, in my opinion, so I tend to ignore this label as nonviable.

Parralox

New musical discovery, y'all. Parralox, an Australian synthpop duo that's been compared to Dare-era Human League, and fairly too, in my opinion. They've got a full-length CD out, and a remix single for the song "Sharper Than A Knife" which I'm embedding from Youtube.

Love this stuff.