Matthew Hunter

Elliot Kay’s new book Run Like Hell asks and answers the question: “What is it like to be the monsters when an adventuring party kicks down your front door?” Although the book is technically game-related literature, it doesn’t have the usual hallmarks of character sheets or explicit rules elements. It’s just set very solidly in the generic fantasy game setting, with the perspective reversed. Gaming fans will have a lot to recognize while finding quite a lot of new and interesting elements from the perspective shift.

L1: The Secret of Bone Hill Chris (Tiberium/Malag), Coby (Gunnar/Warin), Matt (Barron/Lenny), Brian (Pyrzifal/Norsk), Dean (Thic Duc/Thic Duc), and Jeff (Amathar) are returning cast members. As we left the party, they were still split into two groups – one at the top of Bone Hill, and the other having just rescued (well, mostly) a kidnapped baby from a nest of wererats the night before. We begin with the Band of Heroes.

Brandon Sanderson has had a series of stories featuring a character named Legion (real name, Stephen Leeds) whose “superpower” (in a thinly defined world mostly similar to our own, but with science fiction elements) is a form of multiple personality disorder. In essence, he hears voices and sees things, specifically, other people. These “aspects” encapsulate and represent the information and expertise that his own own mind cannot itself contain and represent.

Port of Shadows occupies a strange place in the chronology of the Black Company; it predates almost all of the history we know, picking the story up after the first book and before the second. The author appears to be numbering it 1.5. Thank god for decimals. This is not a good place to start the series. Read The Black Company (the first book of the series by the same name) for that.

L1: The Secret of Bone Hill Chris (Tiberium), Coby (Gunnar), Matt (Barron), Mariel (Leah), Brian (Pyrzifal), and Jeff (Amathar) are returning cast members. Kayli (Ganymede) is a new player. As we left the party, they had split into two groups – one at the top of Bone Hill, and the other just arriving in Restenford after a vivid dream about wererats and undead followed by a fight with pirates on the high seas.

The 7th book in Evan Currie’s Odyssey One series, this book adds a few new elements to the series that are less than ideal. Still, the writing is good, and the story remains entertaining. There are still space battles, but less exploration. If you’ve enjoyed the series up to this point, there’s no reason not to continue reading, but I can’t give the series a full thumbs up because of the unnecessary and intrusive virtue signaling.

L1: The Secret of Bone Hill Interlude Dean (Thic Duc v2.0), Chris (Tiberium), Coby (Gunnar), Matt (Barron) and Mariel (Leah) are returning cast members. Jennifer (Ruby) and William (Sydney) are guest stars. As we left the party, they were lost in a very realistic dream about a child kidnapped by a giant rat. Tiberium awoke from the dream in a cold sweat, feeling that the lessons he had learned in that dream were solid and real.

Wearing the Cape is the first book in a rather interesting, if not especially deep, superhero series. As you might expect, the first book is the origin story, but it covers a bit more than that. It’s obvious by the end of the book that we’re not dealing with a comic-book level plot. These heroes have grown-up problems. It’s worth reading at certain price points. I started the series when it was on Kindle Unlimited, but it’s no longer there, and the books are currently priced at $8 each (about half a traditionally published new release, and roughly the same as an older traditionally published book).

The latest in Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, Serpentine continues the series with the planned wedding of “Ted” and Donna. Of course, things never go quite according to plan, and there are the usual supernatural complications that seem to follow Anita whereever she goes. Since we’re talking about book 26 in a series, this is not the place for new readers to start. Further, we’re talking about a series where the closest thing to a Dark Lord threatening the world was killed off something like 10 books ago.

L1: The Secret of Bone Hill Interlude Dean (Elmond Alward), Chris (Tiberium), and Brian (Pyrzival) are returning cast members. Kyle (Pipko) joins us for the first time. As we left the party, they were trying to figure out what to do about a statue throwing hammers. We leave them to their fate, and the camera focus shifts to a tavern in nearby Restenford, where a young paladin and his gnomish tutor are enjoying a well-deserved meal together.