... My little outburst of rage was due to a small trip to AEG's boards, which I really should be immune to by now, that made me forget the reason I went there in the first place were these little gems of fiction.
The First Lesson is nice in that the Sparrow are probably my favourite clan, and the story as a lot of atmosphere going for it. I believe it fails somewhat on a conceptual level due to a worldbuilding bug I can't fault Denton for.
Canonically the Minor Clans have been described as ridicullously small (I don't agree with it and there are quite a few authors who clearly don't follow that rule either). At that level the kind of infiltration done by the Spider doesn't really work which make the Sparrow look unbelievably incompetent.. If, like me, you believe a minor clan can have several thousand samurai this won't be a problem at all, but it make for odd continuity.
One Path, Many Truth, might just be the best tattoed monk story ever writen and the only one to provide actual, reasonable insight about them.
Thursday 29 September 2011
I'm really tired of this jackassery
Edit:
Just so we are clear the concept of Yin and Yang is about the harmonious existence of opposite, but complementary concepts. The bellow image is a good shorthand:
Such harmony is by itself Good. If there is no such harmony there is Evil.
Conceptually it could be said that negative effects like droughts, banditry, floods were caused because the ideal harmony had already been broken.
Wednesday 21 September 2011
Wind of Truth
I truly wasn't expecting to say this, but Wind of Truth is actually pretty good.
It's the final installment in the Four Winds series,detailing the exploits of Sezaru and bringing the saga to its conclusion.
As I've said before the portrayal of Magic is something I always struggle with in fantasy novels in general and in Rokugan in particular, but in this case Ree Soesbee managed to deftly avoid most of the pitfalls associated with magic by focusing on the investigation of artifacts and making Sezaru always wary of unleashing his power. In fact there is a recurring theme of self-control and responsability on Sezaru's character
There are of course issues. The main theme of the novel is balance which is something I loathe, and there are some strange continuity problems, all the more so because the contradictions were not so much with then L5R canon, altough there is a strange scene in Crab lands, but with story points Ree Soesbee herself had writen when story team lead.
And just while I mention it, the last chapter has long uncredited sections taken from Rich Wulf's final fiction from the Gold arc. This isn't plagiarism, of course as it was almost definitely authorized, or at least allowed under the terms of the WotC/AEG license, but I'm always a bit disappointed when I find out a writer's work isn't at the very least aknowledged.
Another thing that at some point had me worried was the possibility that Wind of Truth wouldn't bring closure on the Four Winds saga, but as stated above that was not the case with this book published after the end of Gold. On the other hand, with these books being used to characterize each of the Winds I can't help but feel that Sezaru got the short end of the stick with his book being published after it could be used to influence tournament player choices.
Considering that the Tsudao book, and the book I shall not name were really poor showings Naseu ended up being the most fortunate character in terms of story time.
Still I feel this was the best of the Four Winds book and would easily recommend it for what it is.
As a final noter Ree Soesbee also introduced three minor families in this novel, the Fujitze which are Akodo vassals, the Sezu, which are, probably, Crane vassals and the Mariashi which are likely to be Crab vassals. Good times!
As I've said before the portrayal of Magic is something I always struggle with in fantasy novels in general and in Rokugan in particular, but in this case Ree Soesbee managed to deftly avoid most of the pitfalls associated with magic by focusing on the investigation of artifacts and making Sezaru always wary of unleashing his power. In fact there is a recurring theme of self-control and responsability on Sezaru's character
There are of course issues. The main theme of the novel is balance which is something I loathe, and there are some strange continuity problems, all the more so because the contradictions were not so much with then L5R canon, altough there is a strange scene in Crab lands, but with story points Ree Soesbee herself had writen when story team lead.
And just while I mention it, the last chapter has long uncredited sections taken from Rich Wulf's final fiction from the Gold arc. This isn't plagiarism, of course as it was almost definitely authorized, or at least allowed under the terms of the WotC/AEG license, but I'm always a bit disappointed when I find out a writer's work isn't at the very least aknowledged.
Another thing that at some point had me worried was the possibility that Wind of Truth wouldn't bring closure on the Four Winds saga, but as stated above that was not the case with this book published after the end of Gold. On the other hand, with these books being used to characterize each of the Winds I can't help but feel that Sezaru got the short end of the stick with his book being published after it could be used to influence tournament player choices.
Considering that the Tsudao book, and the book I shall not name were really poor showings Naseu ended up being the most fortunate character in terms of story time.
Still I feel this was the best of the Four Winds book and would easily recommend it for what it is.
As a final noter Ree Soesbee also introduced three minor families in this novel, the Fujitze which are Akodo vassals, the Sezu, which are, probably, Crane vassals and the Mariashi which are likely to be Crab vassals. Good times!
Friday 9 September 2011
Updates
As you can see bellow I've updated with Wind of Justice.
I intended to do the Book of the Shadowlands first, and I have finished reading it but I've moved into a new town to work and for college so thing have been a bit hectic for now.
I'm also finishing to read Wind of Truth so that might even get posted before, but hopefully everything will get done before the week.
As a sidenote the Great Clans is out. I haven't decided if I'm going to get it yet, but I'm thinking of waiting for used copies to appear in the secondary market.
However kudos should go to AEG for realeasing the PDF for the book nearly simultaneously with the hardback.
I've also done a more thorough read through of Emerald Empire. While it is about as bad as I feared it was, it does have some nice gems in it. I just wished they were truly striving to prevent bloat.
I intended to do the Book of the Shadowlands first, and I have finished reading it but I've moved into a new town to work and for college so thing have been a bit hectic for now.
I'm also finishing to read Wind of Truth so that might even get posted before, but hopefully everything will get done before the week.
As a sidenote the Great Clans is out. I haven't decided if I'm going to get it yet, but I'm thinking of waiting for used copies to appear in the secondary market.
However kudos should go to AEG for realeasing the PDF for the book nearly simultaneously with the hardback.
I've also done a more thorough read through of Emerald Empire. While it is about as bad as I feared it was, it does have some nice gems in it. I just wished they were truly striving to prevent bloat.
Wind of Justice
The third Scroll of the Four Winds Saga, detailing Hantei Naseu, youngest of Toturi's offspring. Wind of Justice is widely considered the best of the L5R novels, and the only one to be considered automatically canon.
Meh!!!
That all I have to say really.
Still reading this?
I guess I should dispense some words of wisdom then...
"If you believe in yourself, stay in milk, drink all your school, don't do sleep, and get eight hours of drugs!"
Better now?
So you still want to know about Wind of Justice eh?
Well, in my not so humble opinion meh is very much an apt description of it. It's not a bad book per se, at least not in the sense The Phoenix or The Unicorn (we do not speak of Wind of War), but I have wonder if the praise heaped on this book is not just merely a reflection of the fact that it was writen by the Story Team lead during is tenure.
It undoubtful that Wind of Justice is the novel that most smoothly fits canon (it is fact the only novel that seamlessly fits it), but there is very little to aplaud here beyond that.
For the most part is just yet another standard action adventure romp. Competently done, but formulaic, there is very little that makes Naseru stand out, altough to be fair I'm not so sure that isn't the intent.
Reputedly Naseru is a master politician, but the problem is that masterminds are particularly hard to write, so the action adventure trappings might be a way to avoid that problem while still mantaining Naseru's aura of command, and who knows, even giving him some aditional fan cred by allowing him to display traditional samurai virtues of physical courage.
If that was the case I suppose that Wind of Justice achieved it's aim.
Comparing it with the previous Four Winds novels it is definitely superior because it managed to present convincing villains. The Tsuno, while irredeemably evil have undertandable motivations are competent and, more importantly,, capable opponents, something that Junnosuke and the Scorpion lacked in the previous scrolls.
So again we have a novel that I have a hard time recommending to anyone other than a completist. If you're not bothered by standard gaming novel fare, and like L5R, it might be worth your money but for the most part it's forgettable stuff.
Meh!!!That all I have to say really.
Still reading this?
I guess I should dispense some words of wisdom then...
"If you believe in yourself, stay in milk, drink all your school, don't do sleep, and get eight hours of drugs!"
Better now?
So you still want to know about Wind of Justice eh?
Well, in my not so humble opinion meh is very much an apt description of it. It's not a bad book per se, at least not in the sense The Phoenix or The Unicorn (we do not speak of Wind of War), but I have wonder if the praise heaped on this book is not just merely a reflection of the fact that it was writen by the Story Team lead during is tenure.
It undoubtful that Wind of Justice is the novel that most smoothly fits canon (it is fact the only novel that seamlessly fits it), but there is very little to aplaud here beyond that.
For the most part is just yet another standard action adventure romp. Competently done, but formulaic, there is very little that makes Naseru stand out, altough to be fair I'm not so sure that isn't the intent.
Reputedly Naseru is a master politician, but the problem is that masterminds are particularly hard to write, so the action adventure trappings might be a way to avoid that problem while still mantaining Naseru's aura of command, and who knows, even giving him some aditional fan cred by allowing him to display traditional samurai virtues of physical courage.
If that was the case I suppose that Wind of Justice achieved it's aim.
Comparing it with the previous Four Winds novels it is definitely superior because it managed to present convincing villains. The Tsuno, while irredeemably evil have undertandable motivations are competent and, more importantly,, capable opponents, something that Junnosuke and the Scorpion lacked in the previous scrolls.
So again we have a novel that I have a hard time recommending to anyone other than a completist. If you're not bothered by standard gaming novel fare, and like L5R, it might be worth your money but for the most part it's forgettable stuff.
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