Literature Review: "The Farthest Shore" (1972)

Two years ago, I discussed Ursula K. LeGuin's seminal "A Wizard of Earthsea," and last year, "The Tombs of Atuan."

This week, I wanted to take a look at the next book in the Earthsea Cycle, "The Farthest Shore."

In a somewhat surprising move, the second entry in the Earthsea Cycle has a new main character!  Rather than Ged from "A Wizard of Earthsea," we follow the action through the eyes of Tenar, a young Kargish girl who is the high priestess to the "Nameless Ones" at the titular Tombs of Atuan.

The Tombs are the center of religious activity for the Kargish Empire (one of the antagonists in "A Wizard of Earthsea") and feature several different faiths that seem to get along quite well.  Oldest and most sacred (but also neglected) is worship of the "Nameless Ones" and their high priestess is the "undying" Arha- undying in the sense that every time the incumbent high priestess dies, the other priestesses find a girl child born at the same time, while apparently becomes the new vessel for the "undying" Arha.

As so it was with Tenar, taken as a child and raised in this strange place by strange women for this strange purpose.  She loses her name (becoming the new Arha) and grows up a lonely servant of a mostly neglected religion.

Ged does show up, but only half way into the book.  He has recovered half of the broken ring of the archmage Erreth-Akbe is looking for the other half, hidden in the Tombs of Atuan.  Once rejoined,  the ring will reveal the powerful magic rune of Peace.  Arha/Tenar manages to trap him in the underground labyrinth but will he escape?  No spoilers but this *IS* the second book in a trilogy...

After "A Wizard of Earthsea," I found "The Tombs of Atuan" to be rather disappointing.

Like its predecessor, this is another coming of age story.  However, unlike Ged, Tenar is a victim of kidnapping and brainwashing and has no special powers.  Unsurprisingly, she has very little agency and spends the most of the book simply reacting to other characters.  In fact, when she asks to become an apprentice sorcerer, Ged shoots down this idea and she simply accepts his judgment!

So, why exactly would young girls want to be her?

The tone and feel of  "The Tombs of Atuan" are also vastly different.  For example, there's no exploration, and very little sense of the magical world of Earthsea.   In addition, the pacing is quite slow for most of the book.

Another area where the story is weak is that, rather than presenting a more balanced view of the Kargish, they are still portrayed unambigiously as the bad guys.  They worship the clearly evil "Nameless Ones",  They are okay with child slavery.  They even banned literacy!

Doing so, LeGuin turns them into orcs.

Of course, "The Tombs of Atuan" does have good points.  It's well written and imaginative and it does shed light on some of the events in the first book.

However, if you are expecting another fantasy adventure tale, you will be quite disappointed, as "The Tombs of Atuan" is more a psychological character study of a pretty weak character.  There are also some horror aspects, but frankly, this is not a frightening tale as I never felt that Tenar or Ged were in serious danger.

Let her be Eaten?  Whatever. 

TV Review: "I, Claudius" (1976)

Decades before there was "Rome," "I, Claudius" set the gold standard for quality historical drama.  So, this week, I wanted to give a shout out to one of the greatest TV series of all time:

By turns gripping and chilling but always compelling, "I, Claudius" brings to life the wicked schemes and dastardly deeds of those vying for power over the mighty Roman Empire.  Based on the best-selling novels "I, Claudius" (1934) and "Claudius the God" (1935) by Robert Graves, Emperor Claudius narrates an "insider's story" of the early days of the empire, from 24 BC until Claudius' death in AD 54.

After the death throes of the late Roman Republic, being beset by devastating civil war after civil war, peace has come to the Empire, or at least for the common folk.  For Augustus and those who seek to replace him, it is different story, being a time rife with an orgy of betrayal and murder, as well as actual orgies.

Based on history but not strictly factual, "I, Claudius" vicariously brings to life names and places from dusty pages of history textbooks, with a degree of creative license.

As with "Rome," "I, Claudius" focuses on the personal political scheming rather than massive battles to stretch the budget.   Indeed, there are no fight scenes of any kind.  Oh well.

However, the series does excel on the scheming front, covering dozens of characters and their changing fortunes over a century.  From aging Augustus to brutal Tiberius to depraved Caligula to the Hobbit of Emperors (i.e., Claudius being the most unlikely person imaginable to become First Citizen) to even more depraved Nero, the show vividly airs the dirty laundry of the Julio-Claudians.

Moreover, the lengthy, set-bound scenes give the series a distinctively theatrical quality which plays to the strengths of the cast, a veritable who's who of great British actors of the period, including  the great Brian Blessed as Augustus and Siân Phillips as the deliciously evil Livia.  Plus, there's evil rapey Captain Picard with hair!

So, if you are a history buff, a fan of political scheming dramas or just want to see Patrick Stewart wearing a wig, this show is a must watch!

Literature Review: "The Tombs of Atuan" (1971)

Last year, I discussed a work that is both one of greatest fantasy novels AND one of greatest young adult novels, Ursula K. LeGuin's "A Wizard of Earthsea."  This week, I wanted to take a look at the sequel, "The Tombs of Atuan."

In a somewhat surprising move, the second entry in the Earthsea Cycle has a new main character!  Rather than Ged from "A Wizard of Earthsea," we follow the action through the eyes of Tenar, a young Kargish girl who is the high priestess to the "Nameless Ones" at the titular Tombs of Atuan.

The Tombs are the center of religious activity for the Kargish Empire (one of the antagonists in "A Wizard of Earthsea") and feature several different faiths that seem to get along quite well.  Oldest and most sacred (but also neglected) is worship of the "Nameless Ones" and their high priestess is the "undying" Arha- undying in the sense that every time the incumbent high priestess dies, the other priestesses find a girl child born at the same time, while apparently becomes the new vessel for the "undying" Arha.

As so it was with Tenar, taken as a child and raised in this strange place by strange women for this strange purpose.  She loses her name (becoming the new Arha) and grows up a lonely servant of a mostly neglected religion.

Ged does show up, but only half way into the book.  He has recovered half of the broken ring of the archmage Erreth-Akbe is looking for the other half, hidden in the Tombs of Atuan.  Once rejoined,  the ring will reveal the powerful magic rune of Peace.  Arha/Tenar manages to trap him in the underground labyrinth but will he escape?  No spoilers but this *IS* the second book in a trilogy...

After "A Wizard of Earthsea," I found "The Tombs of Atuan" to be rather disappointing.

Like its predecessor, this is another coming of age story.  However, unlike Ged, Tenar is a victim of kidnapping and brainwashing and has no special powers.  Unsurprisingly, she has very little agency and spends the most of the book simply reacting to other characters.  In fact, when she asks to become an apprentice sorcerer, Ged shoots down this idea and she simply accepts his judgment!

So, why exactly would young girls want to be her?

The tone and feel of  "The Tombs of Atuan" are also vastly different.  For example, there's no exploration, and very little sense of the magical world of Earthsea.   In addition, the pacing is quite slow for most of the book.

Another area where the story is weak is that, rather than presenting a more balanced view of the Kargish, they are still portrayed unambigiously as the bad guys.  They worship the clearly evil "Nameless Ones",  They are okay with child slavery.  They even banned literacy!

Doing so, LeGuin turns them into orcs.

Of course, "The Tombs of Atuan" does have good points.  It's well written and imaginative and it does shed light on some of the events in the first book.

However, if you are expecting another fantasy adventure tale, you will be quite disappointed, as "The Tombs of Atuan" is more a psychological character study of a pretty weak character.  There are also some horror aspects, but frankly, this is not a frightening tale as I never felt that Tenar or Ged were in serious danger.

Let her be Eaten?  Whatever. 

RPG Focus: 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1977)

While the Mentzer Red box (Basic Dungeons & Dragons) was my introduction to tabletop RPGs (preceded by the Choose Your Own Adventure series and similar gamebooks), I fairly quickly moved onward to 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.  This seemed like the obvious thing to do (it was "advanced"!).  While I have since gained a new appreciation for the Basic lines (B/X, BECMI), AD&D1 still remains my personal favorite iteration of Ye Olde Fantasy Game. 

1st Edition is the game I've spent the most time with over the years and it was where I really cut my teeth as a role-player.  I still remember spending hours memorizing the THAC0 tables.

Moreover, aside from obvious nostalgia, I think the biggest reason First Edition remains my personal favorite is the flavor: the purple Gygaxian prose, the particular blend of crunch and fluff, the cool weird bits scatter throughout the books, the Old School artwork (which might not have been great per se but it fired up your imagination), such as:

Rather than spell everything out to the nth degree, Messr Gygax presented a broad framework where one could do and play whatever you wanted and extolled you (in an avuncular tone) to play!  The sense of wonder and adventure that was only limited by what you could imagine.

And while AD&D1 certainly had mechanical issues (*cough*level limits*cough*), that's what house ruling is for:

"As the creator and ultimate authority in your respective game, this work is written as one Dungeon Master equal to another. Pronouncements there may be, but they are not from "on high" as respects your game. Dictums are given for the sake of the game only, for if ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is to survive and grow, it must have some degree of uniformity, a familiarity of method and procedure from campaign to campaign within the whole."

Unfortunately, teh interwebs have a dearth of good videos about AD&D1.  So, this week, I wanted to give a shout out the series of vlogs on 1st Edition by Robert from Black Belt Gaming:

These vlogs are really well done and informative, full of heart and humor.  Robert shares plenty of fun stories that evidence a clear love of 1st Edition.

So, if you are fan of AD&D1, you really should take a gander.  I've already been through the series twice.

Literature Review: "Ill Met in Lankhmar" (1970)

Happy Holidays!

This week, in honor of Fritz Leiber's birthday on December 24th, I wanted to discuss one of the most famous stories by the man who literally coined the phrase "Swords & Sorcery", "Ill Met in Lankhmar":

Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novella, "Ill Met in Lankhmar" is a prequel to more than thirty years of stories about the adventurous duo.  It is filled with Leiber's trademark twists and turns and shows off his economical yet witty style.  There's humor in his tongue-in-cheek tone and his world building is excellent, as the city of Lankhmar comes to life in these pages.

This ripping yarn  reveals "[t]he second and decisive meeting of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser," two of the most famous figures in Swords & Sorcery.  One dark night, two members of the Thieves' Guild steal some valuable jewels but are, in turn, bushwhacked by a pair of independent operators, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.  After getting really drunk, the new soul mates (there's a clear bromance brewing) decide to behead Krovas, Grandmaster of the Thieves' Guild, at the behest of their girlfriends, despite Krovas being one of the most powerful mortals in the world.

Of course, it all goes horribly wrong.

I really wanted to like this story but I couldn't get past that we are meant to treat Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser as heroes, when they are not nice guys.  Setting aside that they are murderhobos (all they do in kill people and take their stuff), the adventurous duo exhibit some sociopathy in this story, including the murder of a helpless child.  Plus, there's the fact that Fafhrd is a deadbeat dad who abandoned his baby mama for some girl he randomly meets.

However, Leiber glosses all this over in the interest of presenting them positively.

Given Leiber's influence on the development of Dungeons & Dragons (see Appendix N of the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide), another point that should have been in the story's favor is how much it reads like an RPG session.

Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser meet randomly when they are independently trying to rob the robbers.  There's no real reason why they should trust each other and form a party.  This is fine for an RPG but not so much for a story.

Further, there's the adventurous duo plan and disguises to infiltrate the Thieves' Guild.  Both are unbelievable and if there was any realism to "Ill Met in Lankhmar", Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser would have been immediately made, outed and executed.

If I was the DM, I would ask the players *REALLY* want to do this.  If they insisted, as an Old Schooler, I would let the dice fall where they may and then explain that the players need to roll up new characters.

Video Game Review: "Zork" (1977)

This week, I wanted to give a shout out to a legendary game that is both one of the pioneers of interactive fiction AND that also ranks as one of the greatest computer games ever!

You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

A seminal computer game, in Zork, the player takes a nameless but intrepid adventurer down into the twisty and confusing realm of the Great Underground Empire in search of loot.  Sound familiar?

Zork allows someone to singlehandedly play an Old School Dungeons & Dragons-esque text adventure.  Unsurprisingly, winning requires using your head and a bit of luck to overcome terrible monsters and difficult puzzles.  Roughly contemporaneous with the Choose Your Own Adventure  (CYOA) gamebooks, this game was also an amazing and groundbreaking piece of interactive fiction that created its own genre.  As with CYOA, Zork is written from a second-person point of view, in present tense, creating an inherent role-playing element.

Aside from the clear influence of Dungeons & Dragons, there's also hints of Tolkien (e.g., the elvish sword that glows when danger is nearby), Jack Vance and classical mythology.  While there were no graphics, Zork's minimal yet intelligent and witty prose brought the game to life with the power of the player's imagination, as with any good book (or tabletop RPG):

Zork (an MIT nonsense word that's slang for an unfinished program) was written between 1977 and 1979 by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, members of the MIT Dynamic Modelling Group.  Inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure (1976), the first adventure computer game, and using the same conversational and humorous tone and dungeon crawling format, Zork was a significant step forward in terms of technology, story and gameplay.

The game proved hugely popular over ARPANET (the precursor to the Internet) and a professor encouraged the co-authors to offer the game to the general public.  The original program was so large that it was split into three games for the commercial release:  Zork I: The Great Underground Empire, Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz, and Zork III: The Dungeon Master.

The Zork series went on to become some of the top selling computer games of the 1980s!

Without mincing words, Zork is quintessential Old School: a challenging game, there's no hand holding and the player needs to use their brains and to carefully read the text to spot clues.  One wrong move can produce an instadeath.  Old School!

In addition, the terrain is complex and there is no automapping function- back in the day, you had to use paper to figure out by hand where the heck you were!  Old School!

Moreover, just like an Old School RPG, there are no limits to what the player can attempt.  Experimentation is implicitly encouraged and is sometimes the best path to finding the solution.  Old School!

This game isn't for everyone but if you are looking for a classic dungeon crawler that will test your mind six ways to Sunday, "Zork" might be right for you.

Gamebook Review: "The Cave of Time" (1979)

This week, I wanted to give a shout out to the seminal "The Cave of Time" by Edward Packard, as well as the entire Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) gamebook series:

The above book cover should be familiar to a generation of readers who were children and young adults in the 1980s, when CYOA reached the peak of its popularity.  Much like Original Dungeons & Dragons popularized tabletop role-playing, CYOA popularized interactive fiction a few years later, where the reader took on the role of the protagonist and made choices that determined the direction and outcome of the story.  For example:

You are hiking in Snake Canyon when you find yourself lost in the strange, dimly lit Cave of Time. Gradually you can make out two passageways. One curves downward to the right; the other leads upward to the left. It occurs to you that the one leading down may go to the past and the one leading up may go to the future. Which way will you choose?

If you take the left branch, turn to page 20. If you take the right branch, turn to page 61. If you walk outside the cave, turn to page 21. Be careful! In the Cave of Time you might meet up with a hungry Tyrannosaurus Rex, or be lured aboard an alien spaceship!

Not only are *YOU* the protagonist, but *YOU* direct the narrative!  This was mind-blowing stuff for kids!

"The Cave of Time" was among the first CYOA that I read and it's a still classic, evoking both mystery and a sense of adventure.  Although listed as #1, "The Cave of Time" was preceded by Messr Packard's "Sugarcane Island," published by Vermont Crossroads Press as the "Adventures of You" series in 1976, but it *IS* the first work of interactive fiction for wide release.  

Consequently, CYOA spawned a wave of imitators, most of which were not nearly as well written or as engaging to read.

I would also be quite remiss if I didn't mention the wonderful and evocative illustrations by Paul Granger:

Messr Granger's pictures lend the story, by turns, whimsy, gravity and terror.  Great stuff!

Related to the last, CYOA is, of course, notorious for instadeaths and "The Cave of Time" is no exception:

"The Cave of Time" can be quite harsh with its instadeaths, as they can come with no hint of your impeding doom.  While that may be true to life, this is an instance where I think the gamebook is better served by verisimilitude instead.

Board Game Review: "Dungeon!" (1975)

This week, I would like to take a look back at another well known "Old School" product, albeit not an RPG.  Sort of.

Dungeon! is a competitive board game where players race through the eponymous dungeon, slaying monsters and taking their stuff.  The first to reach their particular adventurer's gold piece goal and race back to the starting point wins.  Since adventurers have different gold piece goals and the dungeon has different levels of difficulty and loot, the game remains roughly balanced even though adventurers have different abilities.

The mechanics are quite simple: upon entering a new room or area, the player draws a monster card appropriate for the dungeon level that lists the target numbers for each adventurer.  If successful, the player draws a treasure card appropriate for the dungeon level.  If not, something bad randomly happens to the adventurer (including death).  Old School!

If fact the mechanics are so simple that for many gamers from the early days of tabletop role-playing, Dungeon! was a gateway to RPGs: you can get your dungeon crawl on without worrying about story or campaign elements.  This simplicity is also a reason for Dungeon!'s recent renaissance, as the children of those same early gamers come of age, such as the daughter of my AD&D DM!

Dungeon! is also of historical interest since Dave Megarry, the primary designer, was a friend of Dave Arneson and a member of the Blackmoor campaign, from which grew the rule set that eventually became into Original Dungeons & Dragons.

So, gamers can see and experience a version of the earliest days of tabletop role-playing.  Thus, in a way, Dungeon! is the closest that many gamers will get to adventuring in Castle Blackmoor.

Literature: "Elric of Melniboné" (1972)

This week, let's take a look at Michael Moorcock's seminal Swords & Sorcery novella "Elric of Melniboné":

Elric of Melniboné follows the eponymous protagonist, Emperor of the titular island nation of  Melniboné, fend off the multiple blatant and unclever attempts of his cousin Yrkoon to usurp the crown.

The story works both as a straightforward Swords & Sorcery yarn, but also as a deliberate deconstruction of the genre: Elric is physically weak and dependent on drugs, highly flawed and a master of dark sorcery.  This is where the novella shines, as Moorcock is intentionally playing against the archetype.

There's also an interesting gothic and moody vibe with the protagonist as the doomed ruler of a doomed people.

Unfortunately, Moorcock shatters my sense of disbelief with an unbelievable (in several senses of the word) own goal at the very end: he tries to play up the tragic angle by making Elric a complete moron and by making the Melnibonéans completely unrealistic: placing would-be usurper Yrkoon as regent should rightly shatter confidence in Elric and his government.  Furthermore, Yrkoon's heel-turn is telegraphed from approximately a bazillion miles away.

I realize that Moorcock is trying to show that Elric is different from the rest of his people because he is thoughtful and capable of mercy.  However, by flying in the face of common sense and basic self-preservation, he merely comes across as unbelievably stupid.   For example, Elric pointedly ignores the prudent advice of his trusted advisors, while offering nonsensical counterarguments.

I also realize that this work was written over 40 years ago, but if one attempts to defend the above idiocy on those grounds, they are admitting that the story is horribly dated, as successful modern authors are typically far more sensible on matters of political science (at least post-Babylon 5).  I mean, even Ned Stark would do the smart thing and kill Yrkoon!