Reviews and Comments

I see why this is considered a classic of speculative fiction, and don't know why it took me decades to get around to reading it. The story and ideas clearly influenced entire generations of modern writers.

It's even better on a re-read years later.

Very much a piece of its time, this book is equal parts disheartening and uplifting. Sure, Gen X got screwed in the demographic lottery, and the Boomers seem intent on never letting go of the levers of power, but we have Nirvana. Written in 2007, Barack Obama is not yet elected, but Gordinier is very tired of the Bush era, and not terribly fond of looking back at the Clinton Administration either.

The optimism Gordinier views some of the Web 2.0 innovations with is downright adorable in retrospect. YouTube and Pandora and Meetup as forces of change and liberation? It's hard to recognize now. Gen Z is looking pretty energetic though.

While the book held a good story, it also held a lot of padding. Calling this "book 1" of a series is wildly misleading, as it is clearly a sequel to a previous series (the Shades of Magic). In an effort to relieve the reader of the need to finish the earlier books, The Fragile Threads of Power is overloaded with exposition in the form of multiple layers of flashbacks. Perhaps this would have worked better as Shades of Magic book 4, instead. At least then the reader would have assumed they'd need some familiarity with the previous work, and the author could have trimmed about half of the verbiage from this tome.

OK, that out of the way - it's an interesting concept, with the four parallel "worlds" with different magical strengths. Many of the characters are interesting, particularly Tes, but most of the named characters have some intriguing depth to them. I kind of saw the big reveal coming long before it was written, but that didn't remove any of the interest. I still want to know why.

If you're a massive tabletop gaming nerd, this may be a book you're interested in. It is a bit dry, and structured much more like a doctoral thesis than a pop culture book. But, it is exactly what it says on the tin - a brief history of hobby games and how they relate to race and gender.

While you'd think a retelling of the myths of the Trojan War from the perspective of the mostly-marginalized women would be compelling, this book falls short. There aren't many new perspectives that we couldn't have written in our heads, and there's no big subversion of any of the various stories. We get Ulysses, Achilles, Hector, Agamemnon, and all the rest, but it felt too much like all the previous iterations on the core tales. There are a few very good scenes, but not enough to overcome the sameness throughout.

Newitz built a tripartite story, spread across millennia, and it's very good (as expected for previous readers). But, the characters aren't given QUITE enough room to breathe, and expanding this single novel into three, rather than the current three connected novellas, would really have been my preference.

Still, great book, but I want to know what else happened!

This collection of essays is a good view of the current state of professional wargaming, specifically within the context of military and political education. It's not for everyone, but for those in the biz, it's a very interesting read.

This is a very good book about relationships of all kinds - familial, romantic, friendly - and the relationships that are harder to define in a single word. Sure, it's also about video game design, narrative structure, being empathetic and kind, and a little love letter to Southern California. It feels like the 1990s, and also timeless. Zevin writes wonderfully about gender, race, age, and all the ups and downs of those definitions across generations.

Very highly recommended, for people who like people.

This is a very good book about relationships of all kinds - familial, romantic, friendly - and the relationships that are harder to define in a single word. Sure, it's also about video game design, narrative structure, being empathetic and kind, and a little love letter to Southern California. It feels like the 1990s, and also timeless. Zevin writes wonderfully about gender, race, age, and all the ups and downs of those definitions across generations.

Very highly recommended, for people who like people.

Just reading in between running combat simulations, so it's taking a while.

no spoilers, so forgive the vagueness

Moran's latest, the LONG awaited new book in the Continuing Time series, is another phenomenally good read. His talent for explaining the world/universe without feeling like an infodump remains, and if anything his dialog has become sharper over the decades. The reader wishes they were half as clever or as confident as any DKM protagonist.

This short novel offers a great glimpse into the K'Aillae society and their mixed support of the humans in their fight against the Sleem. We will have to wait for some future story to explore the war with the Sleem, which is just how Moran builds his audience.

We also get a bit of detail about how the Tremodian clan began, and some hints of where it's going. He also explains why there was a planet named Tin Woodman.

But that's just worldbuilding. The action, the story, the interpersonal relationships and interspecies/intersociety relationships - that's where the real excitement builds. Like any good book in a series, Moran leaves us wanting the next tale, while still wrapping up enough of the narrative to feel like a good stopping point. Now that DKM has retired from his day job, I hope we won't have a decade before the next installment.