Book Review - The Winds of Gath by E. C. Tubbs

Title: The Winds of Gath
Author: E. C. Tubbs
Year: 1982
Pages: 192 pages
Print Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Audible Rating: N/A 

The Winds of Gath is a curious story that was suggested to me by SAFCO podcast. This is the first in a series describing Earl Dumarest journey back home to Earth. Being born on Earth, Earl is the only person who knows it is real, everyone else believes it's a myth. 

E. C. Tubbs spends a lot of pages describing the titular planet of Gath, the winds, and the society that Earl must navigate to get home. By way of explanation, Earl was presented as a youthful 30-something, somewhat unaware of the nature of the worlds he navigates. From the text, it is very obvious that the Traveller game has roots here. The older age of the protagonists, the technologies, skills available and the progression Earl follows to the conclusion all harken back to the aesthetics of Traveller. 

What I find interesting is the obvious comparison to the book, The Grapes of Wrath. The hard-luck freedom gained by Earl and Tom Joad in the opening of each book is similar. Their exploration of their immediate situation leads to a journey full of adventure, disappointment, and mediocrity. Both stories end with a brutal fight against the powers that be, Tom beating a deputy and Earl beating a battle-trained prince. Where Tom's story ends, Earl's continues in a series of 32 other books. Welcome to the Dumarest Saga. 

Obviously, where Tom was a Christ analog, Earl is not. All three take the role of teacher at various points, but Earl's situation is wildly different as this is a story of belief as opposed to one of leadership in belief and love.  

I find this story to be very creative and appealing. However, I think that Earl and Tubbs come into their own in future titles, as the point of this story is less the journey and more the miles. 

As always, I suggest that you look for this title in your local book store. However, if it is not available you can check out AbeBooks.com for a copy. Click here to search for The Winds of Gath by E. C. Tubbs. All clicks and purchases provide remuneration to support this site

Book Review - Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber

Title: Swords and Deviltry: The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Author: Fritz Leiber
Narrator: Jonathan Davis, Neil Gaiman (introduction only)
Year: 1970
Pages: 254 pages
Print Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Audible Rating: 5 of 5

In 2022, I would like to add a lot more fantasy to my collection of book reviews. Today, I look at a classic by Fritz Leiber.

Swords and Deviltry tells the story of The Gray Mouser and Fafhrd's first meeting in 4 short stories that Leiber weaves together into an excellent novel. 

If you have never read Fritz Leiber, his prose is clean, poetic, and fine. This is the perfect book to listen to via Audible as Jonathan Davis's voice is amazing. At the outset, I had my doubts because the book has an introduction by Neil Gaiman, whose voice sounds like golden whiskey to me. Davis sounds plain by comparison, but his care and tone with the characters is perfect. Davis does not do "voices" for different characters, but his style of slightly changing his voice while adding subtle tones conveys so much. 

As mentioned before, this "novel" is 4 stories assembled in novel form. They were originally separate short stories for magazines. I have provided the date of publication next to each one: 

• Opening Introduction/Credits read by Neil Gaiman. 
• "Induction" (1957)
• "The Snow Women" (1970)
• "The Unholy Grail" (1962)
• "Ill Met in Lankhmar" (1970)

Induction was the primer on the world of Nehwon and was only about 300 words long. It wasn't really necessary to include it, but Leiber was building epic characters so the magical world of Nehwon needed to be set. 

The Snow Women dealt with Fafhrd's family issues and lovers. Fafhrd leaves his lover Mara behind to adventure south the sultry actress Vlana. Fafhrd danced delicately between the two women and the magic, onuses, and curses sent by his mother and her coven. Davis, the Audible narrator really shines in this presentation, giving voice to both Vlana and Mara. His tone and tempo convey a sense of drive and passion in these characters. You can almost hear blushing, eye-rolling, and pursed lips in his delivery. This was very important to the presentation of Fafhrd, who has what could be described as a feminine voice himself. At no point is this confusing to the listener. On paper, in prose, these characters are driven and strong, no doubt about it. Both renditions were excellent but I was surprised at Davis's performance in the audio version. 

In the 3rd story, we meet Mouse as the apprentice of the magician Glavas Rho. Mouse is torn between what type of magic he wanted to pursue. Mouse, as read by Davis becomes stronger and more solid as the performance and story progress, which seems to have been the intent of Leiber writing of him. Sure, but not cocky, determined at first and later driven describes Mouse's transformation. And what a transformation it is. His hand was forced as the Duke slew Glavas Rho while capturing the poor Mouse. As a captive, he discovered the Duke's daughter, Ivrian was also an apprentice to Glavas Rho. Using her as a conduit, he escaped torture by casting the darkest black magic at the Duke. 

And finally, in Ill Met in Lankhmar, the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd bushwacked a pair the thieves on their way to the fence some items at the guild house. Realizing they are kindred, the two adventurers join forces to infiltrate the thieves guild. Unfortunately, their loves pay for their daring and are killed, setting the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd on a path of vengeance and adventure. 

This collection was the very start of the duo that really shaped sword and sorcery fiction. Six more books followed these first adventures.  

I cannot suggest Swords and Deviltry enough. I would hope that the book is available at your local book store, but if it isn't click the link to search AbeBooks.com.

Book Review - Footfall by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven

Title: Footfall
Author: Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven
Audible Narrator: MacLeod Andrews
Year: 1985
Pages: 495 pages
Print Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Audible Rating: 4 of 5 stars

I explored two different versions of this title: the ebook and the Audible version. Both have their flaws, but of the two I found the ebook superior until the final 100 hundred pages where the Audible book is by far superior. Niven 'n Pournelle are a dynamic duo, the authors of dozens of books together. And they fit together nicely as it is difficult to sense a shift of voice that can happen with two authors. However, this is a weakly told story with many flaws. 

I find Footfall difficult to review as it doesn't really fit with my reading habits. It's iron-hard science fiction in the guise of a summer blockbuster. It's tough on the reader. Back in 1985, I am sure that it was groundbreaking but over the years, 75 to 85% of the book is dated to the point of being trite. The ebook edition leads with a cast of characters that is longer than the chapters of books I have read. The Audible version experiences many near-failures with trying to render an alien language which makes the narrator sound like he is having a stroke. It really wasn't Andrews' fault, it was the story. 

In order to get through the review, I will ignore the flaws and get right to the 5 W's and H questions. In 1995, the Soviet Union is winning the Space Race and the Americans are deeply concerned as a mysterious spacecraft is spotted near Saturn. As the craft approaches Earth, a cast of easily a hundred characters in the United States and the Soviet Union band together to welcome our first contact aliens, the Fithp. 

Niven and Pournelle flesh out these aliens to an insane degree. They have a language, a homeworld, a collection of technology, and psychology. They are elephant-like creatures with superior firepower and a herd mentality. The authors hang out the lampshade on war-like, herd animals right at the outset and screw in a strobe light so the reader never forgets it.

First contact goes as well as you can expect, with a human delegation on the Soviet space station taken captive as all infrastructure for communication and war-making was bombarded from orbit. Much of the American countryside was laid to waste and the story shifts from the East and West coasts to the heartland states. 

As the human captives were interrogated, the reader and the humans learned more about the Fithp than the Fithp learned about humans. As I said, the lampshade non-preditors having war machines was unavoidable. Back on Earth, President Coffey moved his office and command to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. The best and brightest minds were assembled like the Avengers, everyone from scientists and military men to the Secret Service and sci-fi authors who are thinly veiled analogs of real-world authors, including Niven and Pournelle themselves. The best and the brightest were able to probe the Fithp's motives and limits to come up with several plans to fight back, which climaxes in the titular Footfall, an asteroid dropped into the Indian Ocean. The devastation was incredible. It neutralized every force except for a couple of small rag-tag bands in the United States and U.S.S.R. 

The Fithp had the upper hand but a herd mentality is difficult to shake off. On the Fithp homeworld, there was a technologically superior race that died out, leaving the Fithp all of their scientific knowledge. The knowledge that a band of exiled Fithp planned to use against the people of Earth. The Fithp, being herd creatures do not engage in battles to the death, they surrender if overwhelmed. They do not understand why humans continued to fight back. More importantly they, like the authors, do not understand how humans would suddenly band together against a common enemy and say, "F--- it, let's kill 'em all."

The story itself is a 2-star yarn. Where it shines is in the diversity of characters and the incredible feats of realistic science, all of which become apparent in the end. The last 100 or so pages of the book are pure awesomeness. I won't spoil it for you. 

But let me tell you about the hurdles that the final 100 pages had to overcome to drag this book from 2 stars to five. First, back in '85, the United States and the Soviet Union were super clear white hats and black hats. The Soviet characters actually age well, becoming more heroic than the author intended. They have a female cosmonaut, a handicapped astronaut and insisted on having a Keyan delegation member onboard the space station to meet the Fithp. They are smart, wise, and cunning. The Soviet cosmonauts come across as absolutely ruthless adversaries to the Fithp, as if the authors believed the reader would suddenly feel compassion for murderous aliens. They almost read as noble determinators. 

Illyana, the deputy officer on the Soviet space station highlights the second problem with the story, whacky scrabbled-egg misogyny engaged in by the authors and all of the male characters. Every woman in the novel as a vehicle for sexual use or a strange depreciation. Oddly, the story can't happen without these characters as they seem to be the prime movers for every plot point. It is the strange case of "Livia was a whore AND she did it". 

Livia cum filio suo Tiberio.

In case you don't get that reference, Livia was the wife of Caesar Augustus. In Roman history, women were tagged as either saintly women or as evil stepmothers. Livia strangely had both attributes as she wisely advised her husband until his death, but might have also murdered him for her son's benefit. There are T-shirts that read "Livia did it." The women in this book, despite being the prime movers of the story are not treated as kindly the Augusta. 

The degradation doesn't stop with the writing, in the Audible version all but two women are portrayed with a whining tone at all times, which makes it difficult to distinguish them. Only two (maybe, three) women don't have this attribute or characterization and are better for it, but they have little to do with the major plot points.  

I hate to say it, but the authors were confused about what the characters did and their importance. With a cast of 100, cutting off 50 female characters at the knees doesn't help with the confusion.

How can a book like this jump from 2 stars to five? The human response to the aliens and their ruthless methods of destruction and subjection of the threat. Earth fights back. And hard. This is no snub fighters against the Deathstar. It ends in a curb-stomping battle of diamond-hard science.

The Fithp have lasers and relativistic kinetic weapons. The humans have better. Gamma-ray laser and 2000 lbs. nuclear shells. And I haven't even told you the best part. I won't spoil it for you, read it yourself. All I can say is after I read the last quarter of the book I reread it. Then I switched to the Audible version because I couldn't believe what I heard. The Narrator who had been suffering through the first three-quarters of the book positively shone in the last quarter. It was amazing. 

Footfall may be available on AbeBooks.com. This affiliate link will take you to the appropriate AbeBooks search page. Books are sorted by title and lowest price. I find that AbeBooks is a great source for old paperbacks and hard-to-find books at a good price.  

The Inaugural 2022 Post

Welcome to 2022! The year of Time Runner and Soylent Green. 

As promised, I will continue to do science fiction and fantasy book reviews. Last year I was heavy on the sci-fi so this year I hope to swing the other direction into fantasy. 

It's January 2nd and I have already burned most of a $75.00 B&N gift card and a good chunk of another gift card. And read a book, Inhibitor Phase by Alastair Reynolds. I have a couple of other books lined up for review this year, classics like Fritz Leiber's Swords Against Deviltry and a newer title, After Dark by Michael and Shell DiBaggio. I also have Aurora Rising, Permafrost, The Winds of Gath for my Traveller friends and Sanctuary for you murderous thieves lurking out there. 

Lastly, I have picked up about 7 game titles from Noble Knights and DriveThruRPG to round everything out.

I hope you stay tuned this year. Join me on a year of epic reading. 

Mecha Review in Battletech Compendium - 10 Ton Mechs

Stuff you don't fight with a 10 ton mech.

10 and 15-ton mechs don't work for Battletech. Mechs of these sizes are punished by the math. Every cockpit is 3 tons. Every mech requires a gyro that weighs a ton per 100 units of rating. Tack on the internal structure of 10% of your maximum loaded weight. 

A hidden penalty is hiding in the construction rules of The Battletech Compendium. It's the units of 1 ton or 1/2 ton per part added. Some of the math results in values much lower than a half-ton, but rounding dictates either full ton or half-ton depending on the reading. 

Personally, I modify that rule to be 1/4 ton because .75 and .25 are just as easy to add as 1 and 1/2. It's not a "grab" to do this, it is just convenient to pair .75 tons of gyro to a 1/2 ton machine gun and 1/4 of ammo. It's not battle-effective, but it makes a lot of mechanical sense from a manufacturing point of view. 

One way to analyze mechs is to build them backward. A 10-ton mech needs a 3-ton cockpit, 1 ton of Internal Structure, an engine, and a gyro. The engine and gyro weights are linked. On the table below, everything in parentheses uses my 1/4 ton rule. 

Mech Tonnage	Cockpit	Internal Structure	Engine Rating	Gryo Size Rating/100	Engine Tonnage	Remaining Tonnage
10	3	1	100	1	3	2.0
10	3	1	90	1	3	2.0
10	3	1	80	1	2.5	2.5
10	3	1	70	1 (0.75)	2	3.0 (3.25)
10	3	1	60	1 (0.75)	1.5	3.5 (3.75)
10	3	1	50	1 (0.50)	1.5	3.5 (4.0)
10	3	1	40	1 (0.50)	1	4.0 (4.5)
10	3	1	30	1 (0.50)	1	4.0 (4.5)
10	3	1	20	1 (0.25)	0.5	4.5 (5.25)
10	3	1	10	1 (0.25)	0.5	4.5 (5.25)

As you can see, the 1/4 ton rule modification doesn't do much at all except for the extreme last two cases. It does make a difference in larger mechs. 

Just looking at that chart I built, there is hardly any room for weapons, ammo, and armor. If you slap 2 tons of armor on the mech with an engine rating of 100, you have a crazy fast mech that can only engage in melee. That won't last long at all but there is a case for an unarmed scout. 

At the other end of the spectrum, you could have a mech with a move of 1 or 2 toting good armor and small weapons but they will never get into range of a bigger mech. 

In order to understand a 10-ton mech, you need to consider what every mech can do. They move. They have a reactor for power and heat sinks. Mechs tower over the terrain and protect the occupants. These advantages aren't enough for combat, but they may take a role in combat support. 

Every 10-ton mech can lift loads and move things fairly rapidly with a footprint smaller than a vehicle of equal size. They can provide power and sensors at a base. These are your jeeps, your radars, and your delivery vehicles. In terms of Battletech, these are more targets of opportunity or a terrain piece to dodge around. Sort of like shooting up the parking garage. 

Where they do make sense is in the RPG Mechwarrior. The characters need appropriately themed transportation. A 10-ton mech with an engine rating of 100 is a sprinting Maserati while one with a rating of 10 is a robot-themed bulldozer. 

They have their place but they don't have to be combat effective. 

Trip Hop By The Light of the Silver Cords

I have some idea of what I'll be doing in 2022. It all starts with a theme and some tunes. This is a playlist for my next campaign, "Trip Hop By The Light of the Silver Cords". 

1. Nuits Sonores - Floating Points
2. Wandering Star - Portishead
3. Feel Life - POLIÇA
4. Trip & Glide - Love And Rockets
5. 6 Underground - Sneaker Pimps
6. Rocking Horse (Acoustic Version) - Kelli Ali
7. The Gaudy Side of Town - Gayngs
8. Zero 7 - Destiny ft Sia and Sophie Barker (2002) - Sia Argentina
9. Back To Front (Circular Logic) - DJ Shadow
10. Diet Mountain Dew - Lana Del Rey
11. Blue - MARINA
12. Limerence (Orchestral Mix) - Dmitriy Kuznetsov
13. Stay The Course - DJ Shadow
14. Roads - Portishead
15. Blood Moon - POLIÇA
16. Sonic Boom - Venus Hum

I haven't even started writing a premise yet, but judging by the soundtrack, "Gonzo" should cover it. Normally, I start with an idea but this time I have a sensation. My players need to grab their guns and gasoline to save the world. This promises to be no holds barred insanity.  

Mecha Monday - 12-20-2021

I think I know what I'll be doing for next year's weekly series: Mecha Monday. I've let a lot of things go this year, but I've also hung on to a lot of things. Somehow I completed my 52 weeks of reviews in 2021 and I am very proud of that. A weekly blog post seems to work best for me and the simpler the better. In fact, this post and the next will tag off of that. 

My next review will be of the Battletech: Beginner Box. 

I was hoping to do something like #monsterousmonday, #mechmonday, or #miniaturemonday but some of my skills have slacked off in the past year. For example, I let my drawing skills slack off which also impacted my painting ability. Basically, they are the same skill with two different types of media. 

rough... really rough

To get back on track, I'll be doing #mecha2022 because it involves fun games and ties into my art skills. 

Mecha are amazing because there are so many different kinds. And they lend themselves to the exploration of ideas and concepts. They can be rude like the image to the right or more polished like the image below. Both are the same Mecha, an Invid from Robotech. 

Of course, Robotech mecha aren't the only kinds out there. A more realistic rendition of giant killer robots are the Battlemechs from Battletech. My personal favorite mech is the Locust. 

It's like a Jeep on steroids and legs. What isn't there to like? 

Anyway, 2022 is coming and I am ready to go. I hope you follow along with me. 

Game Review - Battletech Compendium (1990)

Title: The Battletech Compendium
Rule Set: Battletech
Year: 1990
Editor: Donna Ippolito
Publisher: FASA
Pages: 144 pages
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars 

Battletech started in 1984 as a boardgame called Battledroids. Over the years, Battletech expanded the universe with a series of boxed sets like Aerotech and Citytech. Each one came with a set of rules, folding Mechs, bases, and two large maps. By 1990, Battletech was ready for a revamp, with all the rules in one place and streamlined. This took the form of The Battletech Compenium. 

And boy is this book concise and detailed. Within these 144 pages, you get Mechs, Aerotech fighters, infantry, dropship, tanks, heliocopters, and even subs all with integrated rules and easy to understand construction and pricing methods. 

The game is a great "I go, you go" game. Pick you mech or mechs, set the map, roll initiative and go crazy! 

One of the great things about Battletech is the heat system. Heat is the limiting factor on what you can do in a give round or game. Sure, getting a limb blown off slows you down, but if your reactor overheats, you're done. Like "went nuclear and got a fork stuck in you" done. You can actually explode from your own actions. 

Oddly, unlike other games where bad rolls can turn deadly, you have control over what harm you could inflict on yourself with heat. Every data sheet has a schedule of what occurs at each heat level. If you find the risk too high, slow down and cool it down. With great management, heat is never an issue. It's really a great game which lends itself to either one-on-one matches or full scale battles. 

For small scale fights, the rules are quick. Larger battles can bog down, but with some familiarity of the rules, they are still manageable. Even better, large battles work best off the hex map, so this set includes full color rules for tabletop battles with terrian. There is a massive selection of 1/287 scale figures for use with this set and to be honest, having the mechs is more fun than playing. 

Models for black and white pictures don't need to be painted.

This particular book requires more information than what is included. You will need Mech Data Sheets, a map or table, ruler, dice, and figures or tokens. There are plenty of resources online or use can use the ruleset to make up your own vehicles and mechs. The creation rules are extensive but intuitive. 

I got my copy on Abebooks. You can try this link for the The Battletech Compendium to search by ISBN on their site.  

You can also check out Classic Battletech on DriverthuRPG? While they don't have this exact title, they have tons and tons to choose from in the Battletech Universe.