Knights & Knaves Alehouse

The Revenge of the Rose by Michael Moorcock.

(Actually it's part of an omnibus I'm reading called Elric: The Stealer of Souls.)

Re-reading Count Zero by Gibson. I re-read Neuromancer Friday afternoon. Probably go back and re-read Mona Lisa Overdrive too.

I might re-read Virtual Light and Idoru but I will likely skip All Tomorrow's Parties. That last one was infuriating.

I'm re-reading _Dune_ atm.

grodog wrote:I'm re-reading _Dune_ atm.

Nice. Been thinking of cracking my copy open as well, since the heat is up here in the desert.

- Wheggi

Funny, just did my yearly plow through Dune as well. There are about five books I re-read every year.

And I always get something new out of it. This time, it occurred to me Paul's observation that once you get addicted to the spice that's it, and if you leave Arrakis you must take some of it with you sounds a LOT like the traditional vampire who must take his grave soil with him where ever he goes.

Swords And Deviltry
I read the first of the three stories in the collection, illuminating Fafhrd's departure from his clan. I've enjoyed it more than any of the other Leiber I've read thus far. Hoping to read the rest of the slim volume this weekend.

Re-read chapter 1 to get in the mindset of the Barbarian for game later.

Finally got most of my huge pulp/mystery/detective story catalogued, and re-reading one of my favorite detective novels, The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley. Has one of the greatest first lines in literary history:

"When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon."

Mike B.

Flambeaux wrote: Swords And Deviltry
I read the first of the three stories in the collection, illuminating Fafhrd's departure from his clan. I've enjoyed it more than any of the other Leiber I've read thus far. Hoping to read the rest of the slim volume this weekend.

I have been reading the "Second Book of Lankhamar", which comprises:

The Swords of Lankhamar
Swords and Ice Magic
The Knight and Knave of Swords

Have to say they are greatly inferior to the earlier works.

Prisoner's Base by Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe)
Callahan's Lady by Spider Robinson [again]
BESM Dungeon by David Pulver and James Maliszewski [again]
Rappen Athuk (S&W)
OA1 Ochimo The Spirit Warrior by Jeff Grubb [again]
Authentic Thaumaturgy by Isaac Bonewits [thanks to trp]
Fiasco RPG by Jason Morningstar
Scenic Dunnsmouth by Zzarchov Kowolski
various Cosmic Patrol quickstarts

Matthew wrote:

Flambeaux wrote: Swords And Deviltry
I read the first of the three stories in the collection, illuminating Fafhrd's departure from his clan. I've enjoyed it more than any of the other Leiber I've read thus far. Hoping to read the rest of the slim volume this weekend.

I have been reading the "Second Book of Lankhamar", which comprises:

The Swords of Lankhamar
Swords and Ice Magic
The Knight and Knave of Swords

Have to say they are greatly inferior to the earlier works.

The last two for sure, but I remember really enjoying The Swords of Lankhmar BITD - in the same way as Howard's Hour of the Dragon it felt like sort of a summing-up capstone of the entire series. Plus, how can you not like the scene with the Gods OF Lankhmar vs the rats?!

T. Foster wrote: The last two for sure, but I remember really enjoying The Swords of Lankhmar BITD - in the same way as Howard's Hour of the Dragon it felt like sort of a summing-up capstone of the entire series. Plus, how can you not like the scene with the Gods OF Lankhmar vs the rats?!

Bits of it were good, but overall it just did not compare to any of the earlier works. The whole deal with the rat society under the city was rather twee, but worse a lot of the story was far too boring and predictable.

Wrapped up Wilson's The Philosopher's Stone, and now into his The Mind Parasites. Now, Parasites was written, and published, prior to Stone, but I am happy with my (sheerly by luck) decision to read them in reverse order.

Really not much of a spoiler: The cool thing about Wilson's mythos stories (other than they're very entertaining), is that, they are deeply interlaced with real world personalities, history, research and books. It's not that this makes them any more realistic, but they do provide terrific source material for my Call of Cthulhu games.

Would love to find compilations of Lankhmar and The Dying Earth.

Appendix N of the DMG is a real treasure...

Recently finished Jack Vance's last book in his Cadwal Chronicles trilogy - Throy. It was an alright series overall but I always end up feeling let down in comparison to The Demon Princes, or even say Planet of Adventure. Probably heading for a reread of The Dying Earth again soon as well.

Just bought the latest installment of Cook's The Instrumentalities of the Night series - Working God's Mischief at my local store. I swore I'd wait for it to arrive in paperback but couldn't hold out. Don't know why, as I was a bit let down by the ending of Book#3 Surrender to the Will of the Night. I agree that the original Dread Empire series and Black Company stuff was better. I'm also a big fan of his Sci-Fi stuff, notably Passage at Arms and The Dragon Never Sleeps.


The owner of my local book store also opened up a comic book store next door, so I purchased the first two Conan comics (or are they considered graphic novels?) by Dark Horse Books: Vol. 0 Born on the Battlefield and Vol. 1 The Frost-Giant's Daughter.

Think I'll start these next. Howard was my first exposure to fantasy and I used to love collecting Conan comics when I was a kid. I really didn't understand the differences in the writing prose of the Carter & De Camp "Howard" versus his original stuff. Very much enjoyed the Del Rey Conan books, not to mention those with his other heroes like Bran Mak Morn, Kull & Solomon Kane. All good stuff!