You got me in the mood to re-read some old Perry Rhodan books, wildfire2099! And the darn tings are addictive, too. I had meant to only re-read Atlan's telling of the founding of Atlantis, but I can't let go! Looks like I'll get to the end of the Druuf story arc!

On the bright side, that justifies my keeping these books for forty-odd years; each time we had to move, my wife asked if I would really read those things again! 

I'm surprised to learn that the American edition sometimes skipped stories. I'll grant that not all of the side adventures were must-read material, especially when Rhodan & Co. weren't involved themselves, but it must be a little annoying not to have access to the stories.

Slavic Supernatural
Vesna Kurilić and Antonija Mežnarić (editors), 2023

This is a collection of 11 stories that are all inspired by the myths, fairy tales or legends of the various Slav peoples. In most cases, this means that either the pre-Christian Slavic pagan gods and/or mythical creatures actually appear in the stories, sometimes as main characters, while in a few their presence and the supernatural/magical aspect itself were more muted (mainly to create some kind of eerie atmosphere). As with any anthology, the quality varies, although with possibly one exception, I found that most of them ranged from solidly enjoyable to pretty damn good. One of my main criticisms would be that all of the authors originally wrote their stories in English, and for some of the non-native speakers this really shows, so there’s a lot of little grammatical errors, odd syntax, etc. in many of the stories. The editors really should have intervened more than they apparently did.
My favorites are: “The Gentleman Hat” by Ivana Geček (who’s also done some comics work), a very well-structured horror story set in the rural area north of Zagreb in the modern day and dealing with a rusalka (water spirit); “Traveling Spring” by Lidiana Bunda, about an itinerant (probably) Ukrainian family that’s set about 20 years in the future and more than anything else seems to be a contemplation of refugee life and climate change; and “Where the Birch Trees Sing” by Greg Gajek, which is set in pre-Christian Poland and very sensitively deals with two teenage girls who fall in love with each other and make the ill-advised decision to run away together.
The book was quite recently released; I went to the official promotion at Zagreb’s SF convention the weekend before last, so I had the editors and several of the authors, as well as the cover illustrator, Antonio Filipović, sign my copy – the latter even drew a little statue of the Slavic thunder god, Perun, for me:

The figure on the cover is Morana, sometimes considered the goddess of death in the pagan Slavic pantheon, although she’s a much more complex deity, as she is tied to the land and seasons as well, and personifies the end of winter and beginning of spring – so she is often alternatingly presented as an old hag and a young(ish), seductively attractive woman.
If you’re interested, you can visit the publisher’s website, www.shtriga.com (by the way, ‘shtriga’ or rather štriga, is the word for witch in the Croatian dialect spoken on the northern Adriatic coast); they publish most of their books in English (although the point I made above about the quality of the writing may apply) and they’re all available as e-books.

Fuzzies and Other People
H. Beam Piper, 1984

The third Fuzzy book by Piper (I reviewed the first two on the preceding page) that was published posthumously – the manuscript was apparently found among his papers almost two decades after his untimely death in the mid-1960s.
It’s again a simple continuation of the preceding book, set only a few weeks after the close of that one. Here some more attention is focused on the rapid political and economic changes occurring on the planet Zarathustra, with preparations for elections and a constitutional convention going on in the background, while the top officials in the provisional government and the head honchos in the Zarathustra Company, which had previously basically owned the entire planet, try to come up with an accommodation on how administration, taxation and public services will be organized, all while making sure that the planet’s native sentient species, the Fuzzies, are treated fairly and not exploited. An interesting plot point in this one is that Little Fuzzy, the one who made first contact with humans, wanders off and gets separated from his humans and then lost in the northern part of one of the planet’s main continents where there is a mining operation. He eventually runs into a band of Fuzzies living in the wild who still have no idea about the humans, and he starts teaching them some of the new tricks he learned from humans, and shows them some of the useful stuff he obtained from them (pocketknife, metal wire, tobacco), although when he teaches them how to start and use fires –it eventually leads to the outbreak of a major forest fire.
Like the first two, this is a very readable and enjoyable story, although some of my misgivings about the paternalistic way in which the Fuzzies are treated by humans remain.

After the D&D movie came out, a couple of prequel novels were released. I was curious to check in on the current state of D&D novels as I hadn't read any written in the last 10-15 years, so when I came across them at a good price at Wallyworld I picked them up. One was a YA novel featuring Doric, the druid character, and the other a standard fantasy featuring the rest of the crew. I decided to read the YA novel first, and finished it earlier this afternoon.



The Druid's Call by E.K. Johnston

It is pretty standard YA fantasy, it tells Doric's (the young tiefling druid's) story of being abandoned by her birth parent, adopted by a group of wood elves and learning to become a druid, all with the appropriate D&D and Forgotten Realms flavor. It started slow for me, but things picked up about a third of the way through the novel. One of the big plot points (who was responsible for the triggering event that was the catalyst for Doric seeking to become a druid) was left unresolved, and the events lead up to pretty much the point where Doric is introduced in the movie, so I am not sure if there is space for a sequel resolving it, and that made the novel a trifle unsatisfying for lack of closure. Other than that, it was an enjoyable read. The prose flowed, the characters were likeable and well developed, the story interesting enough to keep you going. I didn't love it, but as D&D novels go, it wasn't bad. If they did a sequel that addressed the open plot point, I'd be inclined to check it out, but I won't loose sleep if it is never addressed.

-M

E.K. Johnston definitely wrote a couple Star Wars books as well... The Amidala ones maybe? Its funny how some authors just move from property to property.

A Little Yellow Dog (Easy Rawlins #5)
by Walter Mosley


This is the last of 3 Easy books I picked up after having EdoBosnar review them here (sometimes life is like that). This one feels like the end of the beginning... Easy revisits alot of the people that have been in his life in the other books, and alot of them seem to be leaving.

The plot is the school Easy is the head custodian at seems to be in the middle of some criminal activities, and when someone turns up dead he's the first one the cops think of to blame, so he has to go back into the underworld to solve the crime first and make sure he's not framed for it.

The first part of the story was pretty slow.. I had a hard time getting into it, felt like a series of contrived events to give an excuse for all the various supporting characters to turn up, but it picked up when we started getting the pieces of the puzzle, and the ending was decently satisfying, but still left plenty to go on in the next book.

There was definitely more of a focus on the characters then Mosley's social commentary in this book. but still some bits of his take of a black war veteran dealing with racism in the 60s in LA...not as much as I'd like. This book takes us up to Kennedy's assassination, but definitely glosses over it (Easy was pretty busy at the time).. perhaps the fact that he seems to have gotten away with the shenanigans in the was meant to point out that the country was distracted and in mourning... Easy does say at one point the country will never be as good (despite all the problems he has).

I'd definitely happily read more of the series if they turn up like these ones did.

I'm familiar with Davis' work, but I haven't read any of it yet.  I'll have to get around to that.