Book Review: Icerigger by Alan Dean Foster

Icerigger
Author: Alan Dean Foster
Publishing Date: 1974
Setting Genre: Alien Worlds Sci-fi
Narrative Genre: War, Shipwreck, Survival
Themes: "Manning Up", Camaraderie, Unrequited Love
Series Information: The Icerigger Series: book I  ||  Part of the Humanx Commonwealth shared universe

Subjective Length: 3-5 days

Overall 5/10. Enjoyable, but more worth picking up if you come across it than worth hunting the bookstores for. The story and the action in isolation would probably bring this up to a six; however, something in the writing style makes following the dialogue tricky. At several points, I had to go back and work out who said certain lines. In full disclosure, some of these were spacing issues so it's possible some were printer error, and a different printing may give better results. Still, for the version I read, it was an enjoyable book that I don't regret reading, but which still fell directly into "take it or leave it" territory.

Controversial Themes:
Sex: There is a coerced examination of a topless woman by aliens. The act is mentioned, but not described in graphic detail. There is also a scene in which an alien seeks to seduce the main character in his bedroom, and is rebuffed.
Violence: This falls more into intense excitement territory and really, if Jules Verne is clean enough violence for you, then Icerigger shouldn't bring any surprises to the table.
Language: Very mild, but at least one found use of the word "whore".

**SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD**

The story follows a man named Ethan Fortune and the people who crash with him onto the alien world of Tran-ky-ky. Ethan witnesses a kidnapping, before being taken along in it to keep him from reporting it. The Targets are the du Kanes, Hellespont, and his daughter Colette. Also taken as a quieted witness is schoolteacher Milliken Williams. The kidnappers also unknowingly bring along September Skua, a violent man who'd been thrown into the lifeboat by the crew while he sobered up and slept off his hangover. In their escape, Skua kills one of the kidnappers, and makes enough struggle that the ship crashes down onto the frozen world below. 

The five captives and the remaining kidnapper then strive to survive on the ice while they make a plan to strike out for the only known settlement of the Humanx Commonwealth on the planet. The commonwealth colonizes worlds, and their ship had been heading for the commonwealth outpost before they were taken from it. Before they can make good any of their plans, they are found by a search party of Tran, local life-forms indigenous to Tran-ky-ky. They resemble large cats with flying squirrel-like "wings" and razor sharp claws which they use to propel themselves across the ice like kite-wearing ice-skaters. The humans give away the shattered remnants of their ship, a fortune in metals to the local economy and begin to forge a relationship with the Tran present. 

They are taken to the home of these Tran, a place called Wannome, on Sofold Island. There, they use Williams' advanced knowledge, September's superior fighting experience, and Ethan's diplomatic abilities to aid in organizing and pulling off a resistance to a marauding band of piratical Tran who anchor ice boats and ravage towns for tribute, or, when towns will not pay tribute, for spoils of war. After the resistance, they work with the locals to build a substantial ice boat to finally voyage to the commonwealth settlement. 

They are waylaid by a monastic order that seeks to kill them as demons, and stop briefly at a volcano, where the true mineral wealth of Tran-ky-ky is discovered in the magma fissures before continuing on toward the settlement. In the final scene of the story, two guards make mention of the ship barreling across the ice into the settlement and speculate about what it could all mean. 

The story is fast paced, and if you're looking for a pulpy, sci-fi, action adventure with a straightforward plot, and fun heroes, then Icerigger might be a good pick for you. Also, to be clear, a lot of what Alan Dean Foster has written in the Humanx universe is really interesting, and the Humanx Commonwealth itself is a really cool idea. His work is worth checking out, and, on some level, this isn't so much weak in its own right, as it is the weakest of a strong series. No series will see every book tied in the number one slot, and this book is quality enough that it's low-watermark place speaks to the generally high quality of Foster's writing. 

Happy reading, all.

Top 5: Hot Sauces

Hey all, thought tonight might be a good time to count down my top five favorite hot sauces of all time. I'll also be categorizing them, because three great sauces that all do the same thing are not as good, in my opinion, as one good one of each of three different kinds of sauces. But, that's just me, I like variety in the heat options. I've also not tried all or even most of the hot sauces out there.

Those caveats on record, let's get started.

#5 Tapatio
Category: Cheap, Good Sauce

Tapatio is just another hot sauce that wouldn't be surprising on any table in any greasy spoon diner in America. Ask for hot sauce, and they'll bring you Tapatio, Tabasco, or Cholula. They're all perfectly good sauces, but Tapatio stands out in that, if you're buying your own sauces for home, it is less than half the price of it's competitors. Even the link I've included is a little pricier than what I get at my local grocery store. If you're starting your hot sauce collection, this is a great one to pick up first.

#4 Sriracha
Category: Asian Sauce

Sriracha is a great hot sauce that makes any Asian dish and many non-Asian dishes amazing. This is a hot sauce so good that the name of the hot sauce shows up on the names of restaurant entrees. The heat is there, the flavor is strong, and if you've never mixed in some ginger, or tried a sriracha-based spicy mayonaise, do yourself a favor.

#3 Melinda's XXXX Reserve
Category: Heat for Heat's Sake

Melinda's XXXX Reserve is a very hot sauce. It's not flavorless heat, but the heat to flavor ratio is probably the highest of anything on this list. So, why include it? This is a great hot sauce for when the flavor is right where you want it, but the heat could stand to go up a few clicks. While Melinda's makes some hotter sauces, this is about the high end of where my preferences land. If you try it, and want something more, Melinda makes some hotter ones that, while I haven't tried them, are probably great, I've really enjoyed Melinda's products. 

#2 Melinda's Fire Roasted Habanero & Garlic
Category: Garlic Hot Sauce

Yep, Melinda's makes the list twice. This was actually the first Melinda's sauce I ever tried, and while it doesn't have the heat of the XXXX, the flavor is something truly amazing. There's enough heat, plus a great flavor for fans of garlic. This isn't a "Say is that garlic I taste?" hot sauce. You will know there's garlic here, and in the best way.   

#1 Pain is Good: Louisiana Style
Category: All Around Excellent: Tops of the Tops

This is my favorite hot sauce ever. It goes on or in any dish, but the best I've found so far is to use this as a dipping sauce for fast food fries. If not for the lawsuit-happy, take out places would do well to start stocking this among their condiments. It has a slightly sweet flavor, with a lingering burn. It's a thicker sauce, so spreading it evenly over a breakfast dish isn't as easy as with the others on this list, but still, I recommend no hot sauce as highly as Pain is Good: Louisiana Style.


There's the list, then. Happy eating, all.

Bad Casting: Superman

Worst possible casting options for movies. Let's try superman.

Some ground rules: the actor cannot just be a bad actor, that's too easy. They need to be good actors, who do well in some roles, but for one reason or another, would just be a terrible pick for this particular role. We're also not going way off reservation with this, none of this: "Wanda Sykes as Emperor Hirohito!" nonsense. The actor needs to superficially "right" for the role, but be viscerally wrong.

Clark Kent/Superman: Will Arnett

Will Arnett is one of my personal favorite actors. He does a lot of things incredibly well. Most of those things are snarky, smarmy, character pieces. This man gives off an aura of used car salesman in most of his best roles. From Arrested Development to 30 Rock, he is a master of portraying everything Superman isn't. The upside, this would be the least suspiciously Superman-esque version of Clark Kent ever seen.



Lex Luthor: Vin Diesel

If you've seen the Justice League cartoon from 2001, you'll know that, visually, Vin Diesel works well as that version of Lex Luthor. This makes it all the more disappointing that this fantastic actor from movies like The Chronicles of Riddick and Guardians of the Galaxy would be a poor casting for the calm, deliberate mastermind that is Lex Luthor. With his acting chops, I wouldn't even predict him to do poorly, I just think his reputation for more action oriented roles would mar the audience's suspension of disbelief to accept him as the corporate king champion of what passes for humanism in the DC universe. 

Jimmy Olsen: Jack Gleeson

What would a Superman misstep be without the ill-formed decision to include Jimmy Olsen, the poster child of everything comic books left behind with the decline of the comics code. Then, once you've decided to ruin your movie with the inclusion of one of DC's most hated characters, what's next but to give him a punch-able face that audiences are well-accustomed to loathing. In all seriousness, it's a testament to Gleeson's acting ability that he could become so well despised. He was supposed to be hated, and he pulled it off like a pro. He's mostly got the look of the character, and yet, there's something just a little too dark and intense in his bearing to carry off the character so wide eyed and innocent that he makes DC's "Boy Scout" look like a hardened criminal.   



Lois Lane: Zooey Deschanel

It seems like any pick for Lois Lane is going to be controversial to one camp or another. Staying true to the origins of the character is to be insulting to women, and portraying a positive example of a female character brings her so far from her comic book origins as to alienate the fan base. Still, if any skilled actress is nevertheless ill-equipped to portray either a serious journalist or a female door mat, it's the living avatar of the manic pixie dream girl. Imagine a Superman story about him learning to take things less seriously and be more of a free spirit and you've got an inkling of what this casting could do to this movie.



Bizzaro: Gary Busey 

Of course, if Superman's facing off against Lex Luthor, we'll need another villain in here for him to throw a solid punch at. Luthor might be an intellectual giant, whose schemes can sidetrack the man of steel right out of the fight, but there's something satisfying about seeing our hero pull back and deck a dude. For that, let's again make another poor script decision, and, in addition to Jimmy Olsen, we'll throw Bizarro into the mix. He's a less popular superman foe, with a limited vocabulary, and not much to add to the story beside his ability to take and administer a punch. For this villain, we'll go with Gary Busey. The man's outtakes alone would establish a new and interesting take on the character; as he becomes much more verbose, though no more comprehensible.

Book Review: The Color of Magic by Sir Terry Pratchett

The Color of Magic (alternate title: The Colour of Magic)
-Author: Sir Terry Pratchett
-Publishing Date: 1983
-Setting Genre: Fantasy, on the back of a giant turtle in space
-Narrative Genre: Satire, Travelogue, Picaresque
-Themes: Frustration of living in a world not based on logic, The put-upon tour guide,

Subjective Length: A day or two

Overall 7/10. I'm tempted to drop this to a six, solely for a lack of inter-genre appeal. However, its length makes it a little more palatable to readers who are not already fans of the fantasy genre, and the humor is all at once over the top, absurd, and understated in a classically British way. Pratchett is sometimes called the Douglas Adams of the fantasy genre, and I think the term fits admirably.

Controversial Themes:
Nudity: Characters are often nude, little is made of it except to mention the fact.

**SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD**

The main premise of the story is that the world is flat and is held on the backs of four elephants who are, themselves, standing on a turtle, which is flying through space. This volume contains four vignettes of life on this world, which follow Rincewind the wizard, and Twoflower: a tourist from a wealthy continent across the sea. What follows is a comedy of errors, made more poignant by the fact that Rincewind is under orders of the Patrician to keep Twoflower safe. Shortly after giving these orders, the Patrician received new instruction to have Twoflower killed. This information never makes it to Rincewind who continues through the story, following instructions he never knew had been countermanded. The two escape a burning building, an eldritch horror, a city populated by imaginary dragons (and the real men and women who ride them), a brief blip across dimensions to our own world, a current that threatens to drop them over the edge, a city bent on sacrificing them to their gods, and the story ends with Rincewind falling from the edge of the world, while watching a ship containing Twoflower as it circles the turtle in a scientific foray to learn the great turtle's gender.

There's not much I can add to a simple retelling of the preposterous events of the story, the humor's the thing, here. It's not so much what happens as it is the clever way a reader is told about what happens. If you enjoy humorous novels with a strong narrative voice, and an eclectic collection of characters, events, and places, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of The Color of Magic. I also have it on good authority that the rest of the discworld novels are worth a look as well. Happy reading, all. 

Sick day

Hey all,

Been sick, brain's all muffled. Here's a website that looks cool. I know the Risus system intrigued me.

More OC when the brain's on point.

Truckee Games

Book Review: Beyond the Sea of Ice by William Sarabande

Beyond the Sea of Ice
-Author: William Sarabande
-Publishing Date: 1987
-Setting Genre: Ice Ace
-Narrative Genre: Survival, Travelogue, Disaster, Love Story
-Themes: Value of Human Life, Relationship Insecurities,

Subjective Length: 3-5 days

Overall 6/10. The narrative is strong, and the characters compelling; however, the need for heavy emphasis on worldbuilding, the necessarily primitive views on social issues, and the darkness and maturity of subject matter make this not a book for everybody. That said, the ice age is an underrepresented genre in fiction, and fans of that genre who can handle its "nasty, brutish, and short" depiction of human experience will have a winner in Sarabande's excellent work.

Controversial themes: 
Place of Women in Prehistoric Society: As you may assume, this work depicts the ice age as a pre-women's suffrage world. The gender roles are strongly enforced by the characters and are internalized without question even when the story is told from the perspective of female characters.
Sex, inlcuding Rape and Incest: This is where the story will likely prove too dark for many readers. Sex occurs frequently, though euphemistically. The larger issue is the frequent incidents of rape in the story. The first referenced is committed by a father against his daughter, and the tribe, regarding her as her father's property until marriage, regard this act as his right. There are threats meant to coerce sexual compliance, and three characters are captured with the intent of making them sex slaves. The most intense scene comes when a man is coerced against his will into having sex with a woman, and, in retaliation, strives to make the experience painful and unpleasant for her. This incident blurs the lines of who is the victim in the situation in a way that many readers may find disconcerting and deeply uncomfortable. The work also assumes a world in which physical sexual maturity is regarded as old enough to consent to sex.
Violence: The work includes threats of violence and graphic descriptions of violence. The most grisly is a description early in the book of a man being trampled by a mammoth. If you get that far without the violence being too much, you can probably handle everything in the book.
Spiritualism: This work leaves unclear whether spiritualism is merely a deeply held belief, or is the true force behind the world these characters inhabit. This may be off-putting to some readers.
Cannibalism: This work shows cannibalism, sometimes as a last resort of a harsh winter, and sometimes as an accepted way of life, depending on the group engaging in it.

**SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD**

Beyond the Sea of Ice opens on a hunting party, Torka, Nap, and Alinak. They are hungry and seeking food for their starving people. Back at camp, Torka's woman berates Torka's grandfather, Umak, into leaving the camp to die, as she thinks he is too old to continue to take from the dwindling food stores. He wanders out to die. Meanwhile, Torka and his band find a dead mammoth, and while harvesting the meat, are attacked by the dead mammoth's mate. Only Torka survives and he realizes that the mammoth, still enraged at man scent, is making for their camp. Umak, meanwhile, befriends a dog which he names Aar. They find Torka in the snow, and from his warning, discover the threat to the camp. 

The three return to camp too late, finding as the only survivor a girl named Lonit. They move away from the camp, seeking a place away from the scavengers that will come for the bodies of their tribesmen. They believe themselves to be the last people on earth. Torka mourns for his lost wife and child, and Lonit, always called an ugly girl, considers herself the last woman on earth, who must be with someone she idolizes as much as Torka to save the human race. She feels guilty over her gladness  in these circumstances. The group move into a cave shortly after Lonit reaches puberty. It is in this cave that Torka moves past his grief, and he and Lonit begin a sexual relationship. 

Later, in hunting for an unknown creature above their cliff, they discover a boy named Karana. Lonit is devastated to think that now Torka will know there are more people, and believes he will seek out someone better than her. The four humans and the dog Aar live together for a time, before the coming of Galeena's tribe. 

Galeena takes over the cave with shows of kindness and gratitude that fade as he and his people demonstrate that they have the strength to take what they want when they want it. The people are lazy and watseful, and Galeena is tyrannical. It is during this time that Torka, by his words and actions, proves to Lonit that he will not leave her for another, and that he has genuine commitment to her. Galeena and his band drive Aar away, and make life miserable in little steps for everyone who was in the cave before them. 

When one of Galeena's women, whom Lonit has befriended, is in long childbirth, Galeena becomes frustrated with the noise and moves to kill her. Lonit throws herself over her friend, and Torka and the birthing woman's mate rise to defend her. This brings to a head the conflict that has been simmering since Galeena's tribe came to the cave, and Torka, Umak, Karana, Lonit, a woman who loves Umak, and the young couple are banished. After their leaving, an avalanche buries the cave, and they take this as a sign from the wind spirits in the mountains. 

After their escape, Torka and his friend go out to hunt. Torka is separated, and is not at camp when the so-called "Ghost Band" attacks. Umak and his woman are killed, Torka's friend is killed; and Karana, Lonit, and Lonit's friend are taken back to be made sex slaves of the Ghost Band. 

Torka tracks them, and when enlisting the aid of another band, encounters the freshly escaped Karana, who leads them into the Ghost Band's hidden camp when the men are away. They enter and free the slaves before the main force of the Ghost Band returns. Then, Torka and the band he has found chase after the Ghost Band and kill them in the wilderness, to save more people from their aggression. 


-----
The only real critique I have of the story is that the Ghost Band section could easily have been as long as the Galeena's tribe section and stayed very interesting. As it is, it made for an action-packed final tenth or so of the story, and could have been half the story, in my opinion. That said, this is a highly entertaining book, and if the themes and setting appeal to you, give it a try. Happy reading, all. 

The Poker Hands, and Variants of Poker

Poker isn't usually associated with a good, affordable game night; but the right group can help make a night's entertainment happen on a budget. All it takes is a deck of cards and something to use for betting chips. The key to affordability is low buy-ins. Generally, it's believed that there is a five dollar limit on home games, but I've had trouble finding evidence that this is actually the widespread legal fact of the matter. It's probably worth taking a look at the laws in your area, or playing with just chips, no value attributed to the chips, and no money changing hands.

Playing without money does tend to make people a little bolder with their betting in a way that some players feel ruins the atmosphere, but your mileage may vary. In my experience, people are willing to switch between rules variations from hand to hand if there's no money on it, and that makes it a more fun experience in my opinion, but, again, I'm just one guy, and you may have a different opinion on what makes a fun game night.

The first thing you need to know to play poker is the poker hands. Below, I've listed the poker hands, starting with the highest value, and moving down the list. If two players have the same type of hand on this chart, the higher one wins. So a 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 straight beats a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 straight, and three 10's beats three 4's regardless of the value of cards not contributing to the type of hand.

Royal Flush: 10 through Ace, in order, all in the same suit
-10, J, Q, K, A all in one suit
Straight Flush:  five sequential cards, in order, all in the same suit
-example: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 all in one suit
Four of a Kind: Four cards with the same face value
-example: 5, 5, 5, 5, J
Full House: Three of a Kind and a Pair
-example: 4, 4, 4, 10, 10
-note: the three of a kind determines how good the full house is, so that 10, 10, 10, 2, 2 beats 5, 5, 5, Q, Q
Flush: Five cards of the same suit
-example: 2, 5, 6, 7, 10 all in one suit
Straight: Five cards in sequential order
-example: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 NOT all in one suit
Three of a Kind: Three cards with the same face value
-example: 3, 3, 3, 4, 6
Two Pair: Two sets of two cards each, with each set having the same face value
-example: 10, 10, J, J, 2
One Pair: Two cards with the same face value
-example: 7, 7, 8, J, K
High Card: The highest value card in your hand
-example: 3, 5, 9, 10, K (high card is King)

If poker becomes a staple of your game nights a poster like this could be very helpful.

How to bet:
Betting follows a simple formula. Starting to the dealer's left, players go around the table betting on whether they expect to win the hand. A few actions are possible:
Check: If no bet has been made, a player may "check". This means they are remaining in the hand without betting. Once a bet has been made, no player may check.
Bet: The first player to put chips on the table is "betting". They put a certain number of chips in the middle of the table, and anyone else must pay that many chips to stay in the game.
See/Match: A player going after someone who has bet may "see" or "raise" the bet. To see the bet is to put the same number of chips on the table as the last person to bet. A player who does not at least "see" the current bet must "fold" (see below). Once all players still in the game have paid the same amount, no further betting can take place.
Raise: A player who must put chips in the middle to stay in the game may put in more than are required. This is called "raising" the bet. So, if the bet is two chips, a player can raise that to three chips. Now all players must put in three chips to stay on the table. This includes all players who put in two chips, and who must now add a third on their turn to remain in the game.
Fold: A player who no longer wants to continue meeting the bet may fold. No matter what their hand contains, they cannot win after folding. They do not regain chips already bet.

If this seems confusing, here's an example of what this looks like. We'll say our players are named Alan, Bruce, Charlotte, and Duncan.

Alan: check (there's no bet on the table, and Alan doesn't want to bet)
Bruce: I bet two (Bruce puts two of his chips in the middle of the table)
Charlotte: I'll see (Charlotte puts two of her chips in the middle of the table)
Duncan: I'll raise to four (Duncan puts four of his chips in the middle of the table)
Alan: Fold (Alan puts down his cards and is out of this game)
Bruce: I'll see four (Adds two chips to the two he's already put on the table)
Charlotte: Fold (Charlotte puts down her cards and is out of this game, she does not get back the two chips she already bet)
Bruce: Your bet is called Duncan.
(Duncan was the one who made it a four chip bet, since everyone still in the game has bet four chips, the betting cannot continue, and Duncan must reveal his cards first. If Duncan's hand beats Bruce's, Bruce can concede without having to reveal his hand. The better hand receives all ten chips that have gone into the middle of the table this hand)

Once you've got the hands and the betting down, the next thing to figure out is what variation of poker you'd like to play. Below, I've included two versions that are good for beginners, but there are probably hundreds of variations on the theme of getting the best hand on the chart above.

FIVE CARD DRAW:
This is a good place to begin if you've never played poker before. The strategy is all in hand building, which makes it an ideal way to learn the hands. Additionally, it's a great version for camping trips, because if you're just trying to win from hand to hand, you don't even need chips to play. Here's how five card draw works.

1. The dealer deals out five cards to every player.
2. Starting to the dealer's left, players choose as many cards from their hand as they like to replace, and are dealt that many new cards from the deck. Discard three, you get three. Discard none, you get none. Easy, right?
3. After one pass around the table, the players compare to see who built the best hand.

special rule 1. To add betting to five card draw, require an "ante" (pronounced "Ant"-"E"). This is a required number of chips each player has to put in in order to play, and must be played before cards are dealt. Players then bet according to the betting rules before trading their cards (with no reveal) and after trading in cards (this is where the person whose bet was called must reveal their hand)
special rule 2. You may have multiple rounds of trading in cards. To add this and the betting, simply have betting happen between every trade-in round.

TEXAS HOLD 'EM
This is one of the better known versions of poker, due in large part to its popularity in televised tournaments. This is a version of poker that absolutely requires betting, as the strategy is in when to bet and when to fold. To play Texas hold 'em, simply follow the set-up below.

1. Deal every player two cards. They may look at these without revealing them.
2. Bet (no reveal at the end of betting)
3. Deal out a three card "flop", this is shared among all players at the table and may be used in the composition of any player's hand.
4. Bet (no reveal at the end of betting)
5. Add one card to the flop (this card is called the "turn")
6. Bet (no reveal at the end of betting)
7. Add one last card to the flop (this card is called the "river")
8. Bet (reveal and give the chips on the table to the winner)

Each player combines his two cards with the five cards on the table to create the best five card hand possible.

example: if Duncan has 5, 5; and Alan has 4, J; and the river shows 4, J, J, Q, K then
Alan's best hand is a full house: 4, 4, J, J, J
Duncan's best hand is two pair: 5, 5, J, J, K
Alan would win that hand, as a full house beats two pair.

If at any point there is only one player who has not folded, that player immediately wins the chips on the table, the deck is shuffled, and a new hand is dealt.

In Conclusion
So, there you have it: the very bare bones basics of playing poker. If you don't have poker chips feel free to use anything you like in replacement: soda tabs, bottle caps, pennies, beans, or any other small, easy to count items on hand. With these rules, you can start up your own poker night as a regular occurrence or a one-time shindig. Happy gaming, all.

Session Notes: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Library

Alright, so this should pretty much just be an extended version of the Alter Ego Archive. I was going to do one of those about my character from this campaign, but everything about this campaign was fantastic, and, I thought, worth sharing.

This campaign was, from its inception, a gag campaign. It was run by my friend, Jordan LaBelle, who is a masterful joke-smith. My character was named Sophia D'Artois. She was a multiclass Druid/Bard to make a professional damsel in distress, who would go on in the campaign to lead around a pack of princely "followers". She had "profession: damsel" on the character sheet and everything. The party also included a poorly trained Wizard who rolled on a random spell table whenever he tried to cast anything; a Paladin whose god sent him on inane household errands, and whose holy symbol was the plunger; and a multiclass Thief/Monk who had turned from a life of avarice to a vow of poverty, and found a peace he wanted to share with the world, by stealing and disposing of other people's possessions.

We began at a gay bar, called the Rising Rooster, where I was something of a kid sister/mascot who the patrons would periodically rescue to show off to each other. A bureaucratic mind flayer then sent us on a mission to return one of my overdue library books. We came to a restaurant in the sewers with cheap food and expensive showers, and then encountered four turtle/human hybrid creatures all named for German painters. Our wizard cast a sigil of death on a wall, and then killed them all by reversing gravity and making them fall at terminal velocity into the ceiling. This was, naturally, after they recognized my companion, Fabian the pony, and began to tremble in fear of his reputation in the planes of darkness. ("Das Fabian!" is still a common joke in our tabletop group)

From there we emerged from the sewers inside of the city, near a magical ring merchant, and obtained some cursed and some enchanted rings. One in particular was useful in that it caused explosions.

We then entered the library, and fought a dragon who was incensed at my ridiculously high late fees. I was able to seduce a follower into wearing the explosion ring and then getting himself eaten, whereupon, the dragon was slain, the day was saved, and the library was left without proper management. Good times.

How to Play: The Barbarian

My personal favorite role on the tabletop is and has been the barbarian. Named by the Romans, who mocked the tribes on the outskirts of the Empire by imitating their language as "Bar bar bar.": barbarians are outsiders.

Many players seek out the balance of being independent and powerful without turning the game into a contest of "the loneliest wolf who ever did wolf." Barbarians are a great way to do this, loyalty to compatriots is a classic trope of this archetype, and yet they can stand out by simply being foreign in a frightening way. Think Worf from Star Trek: the Next Generation for a great example of how to support your party and contribute to the team effort, while remaining an outsider. Your ways are brutal, your "culture" inexplicable to the civilized folk, and your role on the battlefield contributes to this notion of someone who breaks the mold without becoming less valuable to the team for it.

The first rule of playing a barbarian is to find a GM who throws out the alignment restrictions. You are not chaotic, you are not anarchistic; in fact, you often hold to your codes and laws more tenaciously than your more "civilized" companions. Thing is, your laws are strange and scary. Do you honor the dead by consuming them? Do you speak orcish, and empathize with these horrifying monsters? Maybe you take "honors" striking an unarmed opponent as a sign of respect for the threat they pose, even when restrained. Or perhaps your retaliation is simply out of proportion to the crime, by their standards. The gist of it is, your ways are ironclad, and foreign to the classic models of behavior. Pursue your course with dignity, even when it seems savage to people too "enlightened" to understand.

The second rule of playing a barbarian is to be outwardly fearless. Your character may not actually be fearless, but good luck to anyone trying to get an admission of that. In the absence of a good rogue, you're the trapfinder: with your deep HP pool, high constitution, and a skill set built for recklessness. When everyone's afraid to do the thing, you're the one who steps up and does the thing.

The third rule is to fear all magic, at least at first. This can manifest as animosity toward party magicians ("Milk-drinker witch" is a great term to bandy about), fear of portals, unwillingness to carry or use magical artifacts, or really anything else. As the game progresses, feel free to warm to individual magic users who've shown their mettle, but no amount of growing respect will make a magical staff in your hands anything more than a particularly glow-ey and fancy beatin' stick. I particularly enjoy making unjustified claims of magical ability: one time I decided the best way to kill a wizard was with magic, so I tackled him and hit him in the head with a magical rock we found. Good times.

The fourth rule is: DO NOT FORGET TO RAGE. This is huge. If you forget to rage, you throw away what's mechanically about the barbarian. "But it lowers my defenses." No, you don't get safe, you get angry. "But I only have so many rounds of rage per day." It only takes one to rip a kobold in half and throw out an intimidation check at his little friends.

The fifth rule, Charisma is not your dump stat. Intimidation is huge. One of the most fun things you can do as a barbarian is play bad cop when the prisoner's getting questioned. This feeds back into foreign ideas of what is or isn't acceptable behavior. Go off the rule book, or be nicer than everyone expects, just so long as the party has to reevaluate their view of you and of your culture in light of how you think a prisoner should be treated. Don't kneecap your Constitution or Strength to do it, but keep Charisma up, if you can. It's worth it. This character wasn't a barbarian, but had some very barbarian tendencies: a half-orc I'm still playing. As two players argued over one of them overpaying for a draft ox, I sliced the Gordian knot of the argument by walking up, taking the ox by the horns, getting eye to eye with it and rolling animal handling to say: "You are a 100 gold ox. You can deserve that distinction. Be worthy of what was spent for you." The ox straightened, flexed, and ended that argument. Aggressive, primal charisma has potency behind it.

Speaking of slicing through the Gordian knot: rule six, barbarians are pragmatic. When everyone argues over what a button does, you know the quickest way to get an answer is to press it and wait. When an enemy is too dangerous to leave alive, you kill it without looking back. Occam's razor will serve you in good standing here: the simplest solution is the best solution.

Next time you roll up a character at your table, consider the wonderful world of violence that is the barbarian, you'll have a heck of a time with it.

Soap Bump!

Hey all, I know I haven't gone off-schedule before, but this is real exciting for me. A friend of mine just started up a website for selling his homemade soaps. I've got a bar he gave me, and it's good stuff. Nice fragrance, and, um . . .

So, clearly I don't know how to review soaps, but trust me, this is good stuff. If you know all the lingo of promoting good soap, just pretend I said that: it's probably accurate.

If you want some, his website's here: Natural Custom Soaps Give it a try, and, um, I guess the proper send off on a message like this is "Farewell, and Happy Bathing!"

Book Review: The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge

The Snow Queen
-Author: Joan D. Vinge
-Publishing Date: 1980
-Setting Genre: Science Fiction // Post-post-apocalyptic
-Narrative Genre: Ensemble Cast, Rebellion, Political Jockeying,
-Themes: Enforced Intellectual/Technological Stagnation, Conflicted Lawful Good, Woman as Seductress, Poaching,

Subjective Length: 3-5 days

Overall 6/10. Science fiction fans have a winner here, but the cross-genre appeal is limited. Also, the sheer scope of the book may be outside some readers' reading habits. The human element is strong here, and relatively few plot points rely on traditional sci-fi tropes. If a reader is familiar enough to accept time dilation, hovercrafts, aliens, and robots without much in the way of explanation, they will be brought into a very human story of betrayal, political players, and love. Two minor points stuck out as potential plot holes, but I'll get into those more in the synopsis. Needless to say, they didn't stop me from enjoying this book immensely.

Controversial Themes:
Sex: There's a lot of sex here, but it does stop just short of what could be called graphic. The plot includes seduction, romance, and sex workers, as well as edging a little close for comfort toward a potential rape scene.
Slavery: There are threats of off-world enslavement and a prolonged imprisonment scene in which two characters are called "pets" of a tribal woman. They are caged and treated as members of a multi-species menagerie. Despite the lack of their being used for labor, I believe this scene deserves inclusion in a rundown of examples of slavery in the text.
Poaching: While hunting sentient creatures for profit is shown as something villainous, it is still shown in, and shown in sometimes graphic detail.
Polytheism, Pantheism, and Humanism: At various times, characters swear by the "gods of the eight worlds", or by "the Sea". There are also people imbued with genetic access to a pre-war information network, called Sibyls, who are treated with a reverence leading into religious worship.

**SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD**

The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge is a retelling of the Hans Christian Anderson tale in a science fiction setting. As fantasy-skinned science fiction, it is one of the better examples I've come across. The story takes place on the planet Tiamat, whose summer/winter cycle lasts centuries, creating a cycle of winter and summer dynasties. As the book opens, the world is preparing for the next change, when the Winter Queen will be sacrificed to the Sea and a Summer Queen will be named.

The story opens with a prologue, showing the Winter Queen working with an offworlder to create clones of herself and implant them as embryos into Summer women at a festival. This plan is sparsely described and creates a mystery of what is to come.

The plot proper opens on two young people: Moon Dawntreader Summer, and Sparks Dawntreader Summer. They encounter a sibyl, and decide to pursue the induction into the mysterious order of the sibyls, a group revered by the Summers and mystically able to answer any question asked of them.

As the plot progresses, their attempt to become sibyls ends disastrously, with Moon called to the order, and Sparks left behind. Because of a cultural belief that it is death to love a sibyl, they both realize that the love they shared can never truly be. Sparks goes into the capital city, the Carbuncle, to seek his fortune, and Moon goes off to train as a sibyl. It is at this point that the reader gets an insight into the Winter Queen's plan. Moon is the successful clone who was not overly genetically altered by the host body. In a desire to take Moon under her wing, the Winter Queen brings Sparks into her court, and sends Moon a message, falsely from Sparks, encouraging her to come to his aid.

En route, Moon falls in with techrunners, smuggling illegal tech onto Tiamat, and is brought off world with them. Using her sibyl abilities she is able to navigate the black hole that forms the portal to and from the worlds of the Hegemony. Due to time dilation, she loses years in what was, to her, a few months of travel.

Meanwhile, Sparks falls in love with the Queen, who Moon was cloned from, and challenges her lover, a man known to the public as only "The Starbuck". The Starbuck is an offworlder who consults with the Queen to give her advice on dealing with offworlders. When Sparks wins, he dons the mask to become the new Starbuck, and begins a decline into darkness as he compromises his morals to establish an underworld information net. Additionally, the duty falls to him to lead the hunt for the Mers, a race of amphibian creatures whose blood can grant continuous youth, if taken regularly. The Mers are revered as the Sea's children by the Summers of the world, and his hunting of them physically embodies his decline away from his old morals.

Offworld, Moon learns the truth of who she is: that sibyls are not magical beings, but the result of experimentation by the old empire to connect humanity to information networks that would aid the rebuilding of civilization. The Hegemony is trying to keep sibyls marginalized on Tiamat, by making the Winters regard them as hocus pocus, and making the Summers as technophobic as possible, to prevent the use of sibyls by Summer to their full potential. All of this is to keep Tiamat dependent on the Hegemony's technology, so that the rest of the Hegemony has leverage to obtain the blood of the Mers in trade. Moon is "proscribed": the term for a Tiamat native who has been off-world, and is banned by Hegemony law from returning to bring her people the knowledge she's found. For the rest of the Hegemony, the advancement of Tiamat is legally restrained.

Nevertheless, Moon returns to Tiamat under the radar. She is captured by natives, and makes connections with a captured Hegemony police officer. With his aid, they tear down the Queen's further plans to hold power through the coming change to Summer authority. Moon, using her sibyl abilities, is able to win the contest to become the Summer Queen. She rescues Sparks from being sacrificed with the Winter Queen and the two prepare to change their world for the better. With the change to summer, the alignment of the planet to its sun makes black hole travel impossible, earning the world a century's reprieve from Hegemony authority. As the story closes, Moon prepares to bring this world into it's own, using the sibyl's power and her found respect for technological advancement to bring their world into a stronger position when the Hegemony forces are able to return.

A side plot to this revolves around Jerusha PalaThion. PalaThion is in the position of being a police officer of the Hegemony, who continues to find more and more evidence of the fact that the Hegemony is exercising an unjustified tyranny over the people of Tiamat. She is torn between the knowledge that ignoring the law for her own desires is an opening for vigilantism and anarchy, and the knowledge that obeying the law is to be a party to tyranny: between an unjust law and the knowledge that lawlessness is worse. She is tormented by the fact that an officer of the law cannot strike a middle ground between totalitarianism and anarchy. This is a compelling internal conflict whenever it is used, and Vinge's use of it is masterful.

Two things stood out as potential black marks against the story. They might be plot holes, they might be explainable but unexplained pieces of the world, or they might even be something explained so briefly that I just missed it; that's entirely possible. First: for a government that works so hard to keep technology away from Tiamat, and that keeps Tiamat residents who leave their world from returning: the Hegemony is surprisingly okay with Hegemony citizens born on other worlds just deciding to stay on Tiamat. Seriously, all it takes is not bothering to get on the ship, and the Hegemony's fine with it. It's a little odd. The other is that after over a century of keeping a Starbuck to counsel her on off-world matters, the Winter Queen never learned that sibyls have real power, and are more than just a Summer superstition. For the level of devotion we see from the two Starbucks in the text, it seems unlikely that over all that time, none of them decided to share that information with their Queen and their love.

Those issues aside, this is a compelling world, and a masterful blending of genres. If you're a science fiction fan, this is one well worth reading.