New Reviews - Five Books

Last year, I managed more than 52 reviews. Most of them were sci-fi-themed as I reviewed a ton of Helen Mary Hoover books. Technically, she is a young adult author but also ticks off the science fiction and young women coming of age in bleak future tropes. I love them. I hope to finish up the last of her books this year. 

I've got a great start this year, having tackled 5 books in 15 days. Well, 5 novels anyway. I read a few more than that if you include gamebooks or science lectures. Back in 2016, I graduated with my Bachelor's in History. I would typically read a book a week per class. Each 16 week semester I would chew through 45+ books, not counting textbooks or articles, or other reading materials. Two or 3 books a week is a nice slow pace for me. It makes the content easy to digest.  

All but one of these are classics, being over 20 years old and must-reads for the science-fiction or fantasy buff. The odd man out is Inhibitor Phase by Alastair Reynolds as it was published in 2021. 

• Footfall
• Sanctuary 
• Swords And Deviltry
• Inhibitor Phase
• The Winds of Gath

My intention with this post was to have all 5 reviews done before posting. But that turned out to be more time-consuming than I anticipated. As I post more reviews, I will add more links. Additionally, I would like to rework the top page bar at the top of my blog to break down reviews into categories, so that Traveller Fans don't have to pick through fantasy books and vice versa. 

As a part of the digestion portion of these readings, I also plan to have a post about science fiction weapons that are terrifying. Niven, Pournelle, and Reynolds have stuff in their books that is absolutely insane and somewhat based on reality. 

In addition to all of this, I also have several new sources for books beyond physical or electronic books from Amazon. I have my favorite two or three local bookshops, but those aren't available online. Abebooks is an excellent resource. I will be sharing each of these with you as a part of the review process. 

With Amazon, you have physical books, ebooks, and Audible books. One attractive feature of Audible is the ability to purchase the ebook along with the Audible version. I have done this a couple of times and found it less useful than advertised. I probably won't do it in the future. 

If you need an Audible account, click the link below. All clicks to Amazon result in remuneration to me, which supports These Old Games. 

Nice Set of Dice from Amazon.com and A Book From DriveThruRPG

"Dad, guess what," said Nathan.

"What?" I asked.

"We have a D&D club at school!" he answered. 

"You are such a nerd," his sister, Catherine said. 

Guess what I order. Dice for everyone! These KUUQA dice come in a pack of six sets, each individually wrapped and six dice bags. 

It's a really nice set of dice for 13 bucks. The links below are paid ads and will take you to Amazon.com and DriveThruRPG, respectively. 

If you are looking for a Christmas gift, you are too late. 

So let's move on to something better than these dice. Let's talk Simon Miles' SM00 A Traveller's Atlas of Dunromin and the Land of the Young published by Dunromin University Press. Set in the world of World of Barnaynia but is easily adaptable to any type of campaign. The city maps are gorgeous and go on and on. As soon as time permits, I will do a full review of this product. I have to say I love it.

This title is pay what you want. I chipped in a dollar, but I think I will either have to go back and bump that up or purchase more products from Dunromin University Press.

Image Resources for Future Reviews

I'm going through my shelves and getting read to review some older products. This is the first post of images needed to get that done. I have some classic books right along side some classic games. Most of the games are Mac OS 9 stuff.

In looking at some of the D&D stuff, I might not do reviews, I'm thinking about sharing how they have been worked into my campaigns. I mean, what more can be said about Deities & Demigods which hasn't been said to death?