beccastareyes

Day 6: Things that Make Becca Squee

Expect weekend updates, until I get this darn thing caught up. Today's book is The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to include this book. I had mixed feelings about the ending, and it got downright preachy at times -- which is weird for a book with a fictional religion. However, I'm including it as I do think it's a good read for D&D DMs. Deed does the paladin thing quite well. Which is what sold me on the book. Anyone who knows me knows I have a soft spot for paladins. (No, I don't know why -- kind of funny to have an agnostic nerd who, if she wasn't orc fodder, would probably be a wizard or an alchemist if tossed into a D&D-based world.)

Deed isn't properly a D&D novel, but the world does map pretty well to the basic D&D book. As in, I could whip out my Player's Handbook, and probably run a game in the world with only a bit of work. Magic feels a lot like they just took the wizard, cleric, druid and paladin and put them in. The races are humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, (halflings still belong to the Tolkien estate) and orcs. It feels a bit old-school to my 3rd edition sensibilities, but it's still D&D-esque.

But, yeah, my soft spot for paladins. Moon actually went through and put some thought into 'so, D&D has these holy orders of religious knights -- what does it take for them to actually do it'. Granted, I think Chalion handled fantasy gods better, but this puts more focus on a person who served the gods.

(I'd love to know if Elizabeth Moon permitted fanfiction. I've never seen her name on one of those lists of authors that ban fanfic, and I really think that Paks's further adventures would be interesting to read about. It could be that it's just a fixer-upper, which makes me want fic)

Things that Make Becca Squee: Day 3

This is my day for Space Opera and Science Fiction.

So, I have this history of being spoiled by my friends for things, mostly because I don't care about spoilers until I'm actually reading something. I also have a history of remembering when friends mention series that I later end up liking -- like the time we watched the first VHS of Slayers in high school and I kept thinking I ought to see the rest of the series. Heck, I even noticed that the mall's music store carried the tapes. But, I didn't end up seeing the rest until Anime Club in college re-introduced me to it.

(Then again, I would have probably thrown myself right into the ship wars... maybe this was for the best.)

Anyway, today I'm talking about the Vorkosigan Saga series by Lois McMaster Bujold, who was also the author of the series I did for Monday. She's one of four authors that appears more than once on my list, and one of two that appears three times. And the reason I told that story above is because my real first introduction to the series was when eiviiaru decided she was going to play Mark Vorkosigan in an RPG I ran and the co-mod and I had to hunt down a picture of him (or Miles Vorsokigan, rather -- clones are handy like that, and he appeared on more covers).

But, I didn't end up reading the books themselves then. I have no clue why I started reading them. Maybe a chance mention on limyaael's journal or something, or I was really craving some science fiction.

Anyway, the series runs to nine books and four short stories. There are an additional four books set in the universe, but not about Miles himself: two about Miles's parents, one that involved one of Miles's subordinates on a mission, and a fourth set early on that elaborated on a bit of backstory for the universe. The books have a mix in tones from mystery to adventure to romance, and the places Miles visits look interesting.

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I think we kidded eiviiaru a bit, since between Mark and a halfling, she was playing two out of the three shortest characters in the game -- the third being the Ewok lasafara was playing.

Things that Make Becca Squee: Day 2

Okay, so all of my weekdays are having a theme. Monday was 'traditional fantasy' -- by which, I mean fantasy set in another world that happens to be pre-modern. Tuesday is 'stuff I just started reading' --- things where I'm not caught up to the current releases, but damned if I'm not enjoying myself. The first thing I'm reading right now that is making me squee is the manga Claymore by Norihiro Yagi.

I realize that there's probably a few people who don't follow comics, so, I should explain some vocabulary. Manga is the Japanese word for comics, and is usually used both to describe comics imported from Japan and stuff done in that style. Shounen manga is manga whose target audience is boys. It tends to have a reputation for being mostly about fights and action, with minimal focus on romance -- friendships may feature strongly, though.

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There's also an anime series, currently being fansubbed -- I've seen the first couple of episodes. It does have one of those 'Oh, crud, we need to wrap up the anime, but the manga hasn't ended yet' endings, according to Wikipedia. Apparently, around episode 20 of 26, the anime writers figure out they need to start making up a conclusion. yuuo, since I know you'll care about this, Clare is voiced by Houko Kuwashima (Filia) and Teresa is voiced by Romi Paku (Ed). (I don't recognize Raki's voice actor.)

My internet has gotten spotty. Grr. Also, I still haven't gotten my iTunes Avatar download.

In other news, tomorrow starts a month of 'Things that Make Becca Squee'. Every weekday I'll post a book or manga that makes me at least moderately amused and pleased. I'm avoiding very popular things, so check it out for some new book or manga recs. (Also, the nice things about books and manga is it takes less than $10 to find the first thing of it, and see if you like it.)