Book review: Lore & Legends (Dungeons & Dragons)
While I Began my journey into RPGs with Lord of the Rings (Middle-earth Role Playing 2nd edition, to be more precise), its rules were far too complex and full of tables for a child. Then, one day my father came back from a trip to the USA, and brought me the Dungeons & Dragons 1991 boardgame, and that changed everything: With easy to learn rules, it provided a smooth introduction to the world of Dungeons & Dragons, opening my appetite of more; 2nd edition DM and Player books, and the Monster Compendium came after. But I would end disconnecting from the role-playing game after the 3rd edition, playing a lot of D&D-based videogames but not a single RPG session. And, since then, I have not played again (for various reasons). During (and after) the pandemic, I tried to convince my friends to play something online, to try some VTT (Virtual Table-Top) systems with any fantasy system (D&D or not), but to no avail.
And now, fast-forward to 2024, me visiting a local store, and finding the Lore & Legends book: A huge +400 pages book, full of images and drawings, indeed celebrating the 5th edition, but doing so by going back to the roots of the game: Each book, adventure module, setting/universe mentioned, explained from the first incarnation to the latest edition version. With abundant drawings, limited editions and associated merchandise (collectibles, miniatures, ...), I had a great time reading about the journey of the game. And I learned a lot, from the origins of the Dark Sun setting (influenced by Mad Max movies), to my surprise that the iconic Ravenloft module was created in the early 80s, it is full of details and gorgeous full-page pictures.
Regarding the pictures, not only we see some of the old ones, but I think that all the 5th edition books/modules detailed contain uncropped/"expanded" versions of the cover images, which is spectacular as at times, there is a significant portion of the drawing that you don't see in the cover.
While the text contents are of course interesting, what really got me spending "extra" time when reading were the images... I had forgotten how detailed and incredible they are. And this brings me to the less good part: For a book that goes through visual history, at times it feels doing less justice than it should: An overabundance of pictures from famous real-world folks, YouTubers, and celebrities; Many pictures of the WizKids not-really-great plastic miniatures (their painting being from average to, very often, mediocre); And a lot of emphasis on the latest digital era, with live role-playing sessions via streaming, YouTube, Twitch, and the like. It is good to know, but I'd rather have more images from the book contents, or more cool drawings, instead of the 6th photo of some celebrity during his module-related precisely timed campaign game session.
Don't get me wrong, it is still a great title, and feels to me as a D&D equivalent of a history book. It so happens that I got my hands on another title Dungeons & Dragons: Art & Arcana: A Visual History, and despite being more focused (theoretically) on the art, this second book contains at times a deeper and more interesting history, which makes me feel that Lore & Legends should have been more ambitious and content-rich.
Tags: Books
Comic Book review: The Strain
Comic Book: The Strain, The Strain: The Fall & The Strain: The Night Eternal
I very much enjoyed the first season of The Strain TV series: A fresh and less common take on vampires, with a great initial suspense and events unrolling. But then, the remaining seasons went a bit sideways, feeling almost boring at times, and leaving me not too satisfied with what looked as a promising script from Guillermo del Toro.
I know that, based on the initial TV script rejection, there are some books, but I haven't read them. But when I found that there are also comics, based on the books (not on the TV series), I had to read them. Spoiler alert: I am happy that I did.
I will review comparing the comics with the TV adaptation. The three comic books correspond to the three textbooks, meanwhile the TV series had 4 seasons, partially because they expanded some characters, invented others, and modified a non-trivial amount of content. At times, the comic felt advancing quite fast, maybe too much if it's your first landing on The Strain. A few characters are given much less attention, but the comics are darker, crueller, and less optimistic. It's difficult to avoid spoilers, so I'll just say that it surprised me a few times, even knowing the basic story (or at least, the adapted story).
The drawings are excellent, colourful, gory, and explicit. There is abundant text (entire chunks must come from the books because as far as I can remember, the TV series say them too almost the same), and the pacing is very rapid; There's almost always something happening, if not multiple things in different places at once.
A highly recommended comic compilation.
Tags: Comic Book
Comic Book review: Mad Max - Fury Road
Comic Book: Mad Max: Fury Road
I love Mad Max: Fury Road, the movie. It is not only the best film in the series, but also amazingly well done. I've also seen recently Mad Max: Furiosa, and I'm sad it even exists; Such a disappointment in every aspect, from the bad script and worse humour, to the abuse of computer-generated effects. So I needed something to wash out that bad taste... And I found that there are some comics that act as a decent prequel to Fury Road. Here is my small review, spoiler free so not telling too much.
There are 5 comics, 4 main ones telling three stories (actually four, what a numbering mess!) and an extra one about the War Rig:
- Issue 1: Nux and Immortan Joe
- Issue 2: Furiosa
- Issues 3 & 4: Mad Max
- Extra Issue: The War Rig
The first one is quite unrealistic, but interesting to learn about Immortan Joe.
The comic about Furiosa gives a much-needed context on why the movie events happen, and I disagree that it is bad, as many say. It is at times disgusting, it involves non-consensual sex, but it sets the stage for Fury Road, and I found them way softer than the Crossed comics.
The double issue about Max summarizes the first 3 movies, and then narrates a story of what happened until the beginning of Fury Road. I did not enjoy it too much, it felt less interesting than the other stories.
Finally, the War Rig special issue explains the origins of different pieces of the big trailer. Some are sad, others have a dark sense of humour, and in general I liked them. A good way of narrating mini-stories about objects.
Tags: Comic Book
Book review: Children of Dune
Book: Children of Dune
Note: I can't write about this title without spoilers from the previous ones, so jump directly to the last paragraph if you wish to avoid them.
The third book of the Dune series, Children of Dune happens 9 years after Dune: Messiah. Blind and no longer with premonition powers, Paul went to the desert to die. His sister Alia is now in command, but something is not going well, both inside her and in the imperium. Plots and conspirators are everywhere. Dune is now advanced in the terraforming efforts, with some areas quite green, rains, and Fremen are starting to become used to water no longer being a scarce resource.
Paul and Chani twins, Leto II and Ghanima are 9-year-olds with an incredible intelligence, fully aware that something is amiss with Alia, and that they must do something to regarding their aunt, the Atreides empire, and maybe even Arrakis.
This book switches the main protagonist obviously from Paul to his family. We will learn about Alia's "issues", but the real main characters are the twins. This book also departs a lot from a "mild" sci-fi setting (worms, ghoulas and prescient powers aside), to fully embrace the fiction part. Without spoiling much, the premonition and inner voices powers that both Alia and Paul's children have go way further than the powers that Paul had, and there will be other plot twists and events that will surprise you.
The first half of the book is relatively calm, pretty much focused on politics, conspiracies and developing the characters. But, once you pass the first, half it jumps into a series of events that made me spend some long night sessions reading on and on, wanting to know what would happen next. Definitely more science-fiction than the previous titles, and, in my opinion, highly recommended.
Tags: Books
Comic Book review: Dune: The Graphic Novel books 1 & 2
Books: Dune: The Graphic Novel Book 1 & Dune: The Graphic Novel Book 2
Continuing my desire for more Dune content, after the first two books and watching the movies (and now going to watch 2024's Dune Part Two), I recently discovered that there were some graphic novels based on the books; Two already published, and a third one coming mid 2024. What I did not know is that each graphic novel covers one third of the book... so be aware of that detail.
The writing is mostly directly taken from the book, so many dialogues are 1:1 matches. It sticks very close to the original content, so excepting a tiny change here and there, most of it has been ported entirely. Brian Herbert is listed as one of the authors, so that's probably why it is so accurate.
Where you will see some differences is in the visual style. After having two movies, many videogames and concept art/drawings, I at least have my image formed of certain aspects, like the Ornithopters, the Harvesters, even how the Harkonnen look (pale, bigger than normal humans, with dark clothing...). The style adopted by the illustrators is not bad, but reminds me more of the 1984 David Lynch's film than the other pre-existing materials, and sometimes feels not too elaborated; for example the Harkonnens look the same as the Atreides, and even the Baron is not very imposing. Don't get me wrong, it is not bad, just that the visual style didn't click with me.
Interesting additional material, but I'd go read the book instead. In any case, I will grab the third and last graphic novel book when comes out, and see how the more action-packed part is depicted.
Tags: Comic Book