Robert Asprin wrote quite a number of books and was well-known as an editor on others, and a co-creator of the fairly successful Thieves' World shared-world setting, which I may write about in another entry. But what he may have been best known for was his comedic fantasy entry Another Fine Myth and the subsequent long-running series of novels based on the adventures and misadventures of young failed thief and would-be wizard Skeeve, scaly, blustering, and devious "demon" Aahz ("Oz?" "No relation."), and a diverse cast of [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever
March 3, 2014 By Leave a Comment
1977, as I have mentioned before, was something of a banner year in my fandom experiences for me. Star Wars was released in that year; I first encountered roleplaying games, in the form of Dungeons and Dragons, in 1977; The Sword of Shannara was published in that year. And so was Lord Foul's Bane, the first book in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever – a series which was first a trilogy, then two trilogies, and now a total of ten books with the addition of a final tetralogy. I have not read this final [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Witch Family
February 24, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Written by children's author Eleanor Estes (best known for her "Moffat Family" books and "Ginger Pye"), The Witch Family is probably my favorite of her works. It tells the story of Old Witch, the oldest, most evil, and most powerful of all the witches, and how she was "banquished" to the great bare bleak glass hill for her wickedness by Amy, an ordinary mortal girl living in Garden Lane in Washington, DC. The action of most chapters is an interspersion of Amy and her best friend Clarissa talking about Old Witch and [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: The Incompleat Enchanter
September 25, 2013 By 3 Comments
Fletcher Pratt and L.Sprague deCamp were well-known authors of science fiction and fantasy in the Golden Age. Separately they both produced well-respected works for many years. But together they created something truly amazing: the world of the Mathematics of Magic, featuring Harold Shea and Reed Chalmers – two masters of mathematical logic who theorize that mathematics and logic and perception dominate reality, and thus if one can encode the logic of a particular world into one's calculations, one could in theory travel to the [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Support Your Local Wizard (Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series)
August 23, 2013 By 16 Comments
I had read the first book, and part of the second, of this trilogy (So You Want to be a Wizard, Deep Wizardry, and High Wizardry) many years ago, but recently I picked up this omnibus and read it to my son Gabriel. The basic concept of the series is that wizards have a task of supporting the basic order of the universe, in essence attempting to minimize or even reverse entropy. Nita Callahan is a young girl (12 to early teens) whose major love is reading, and who runs across a strange book titled "So You Want [ Continue reading... ]
Magic, Crime, and Punishment Part Three: Fit to be Tried
May 13, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Fit to be Tried "Pardon my saying so, Majesty… but there appears to be a distinct lack of prisoners in your cell." -- Poplock Duckweed in Phoenix Rising Okay, now let's say you managed to catch (rather than kill in a desperate battle) that criminal. What do you do with him? If the fantasy world has an advanced judgment system, you'll have to give him a trial. If not, you may have to bring him in for execution, or put him in a dungeon until the King or Tribunal or whatever decides his punishment, but in any case, you've [ Continue reading... ]
Magic, Crime and Punishment Part Two: Prevention and Pursuit
May 6, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Prevention and Pursuit "Still, someone has to find out who did this, track them down, and stop them." Poplock hopped on his head and then leaned perilously over, looking down into Tobimar's eyes. "That's an awfully tall order for one exiled Prince and a somewhat height deficient Toad." -- Tobimar Silverun and Poplock Duckweed, Phoenix Rising One of the most challenging parts of law enforcement in a high magic world is the sheer variety of powers available to would-be criminals. Here, if we have a vault with [ Continue reading... ]
Magic, Crime, and Punishment, Part 1: Challenges of Magical Crime Investigation
May 3, 2013 By 1 Comment
This is the first of three separate sections of a discussion on crime and punishment in a high fantasy setting. Magic, Crime, and Punishment The Challenges of Magical Crime Investigation "It’s one of the most drought-damned brilliant and subtle tricks I’ve ever seen,” the Guardian of Eonae said with real admiration in his voice. “The boy’s using elemental magic—in a suppression pentagram, no less!—to effectively cloak their speech with some absolutely inspired… well, I guess you would have to call it sound [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Thirteenth Child
October 19, 2012 By 10 Comments
This was a really excellent book. On the Amazon scale, I'd give it four-and-a-half stars (unfortunate that Amazon doesn't permit half-star ratings to be given out) First-person protagonist "Eff" (her first initial; her actual name is hardly ever mentioned in the book) is the eponymous Thirteenth Child, one supposedly born with cursed magic and destined to go bad according to many in her society. Her plight is made worse by the fact that she is the elder twin sister to a fourteenth child, her few minutes younger brother [ Continue reading... ]
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