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scottakennedy

scottakennedy

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Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth
J.R.R. Tolkien
Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension
Michio Kaku
Swords in the Mist
Fritz Leiber
Helping Children with Autism Learn: Treatment Approaches for Parents and Professionals
Bryna Siegel
The Apex Book of World SF
Lavie Tidhar, Dean Francis Alfar, S.P. Somtow, Jetse de Vries, Kaaron Warren, Zoran Živković, Aliette de Bodard, Mélanie Fazi, Tunku Halim, Anil Menon, Jamil Nasir, Nir Yaniv, Aleksandar Žiljak, Han Song, Guy Hasson, Kristin Mandigma, Yang Ping
The Hugo Award Showcase
Mary Robinette Kowal, Elizabeth Bear, John Kessel, Nancy Kress, Robert Reed, Michael Swanwick, Kij Johnson, James Alan Gardner, Ian McDonald
Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa
Jason K. Stearns
The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man's Quest to Be a Better Husband
David Finch
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories
Jeff VanderMeer, Ann VanderMeer
Plastic: A Toxic Love Story

Lankhmar: Swords and Deviltry: 1

Swords and Deviltry - Fritz Leiber Re-reading this book 30 years after first reading it as a teen, it has not aged as well as I expected. This is likely due to the book's deep influence in the evolution of role-playing games (especially the original Dungeons and Dragons) and subsequent computer games. This has rendered the story tropes and plots that seemed fresh to me a 16 to seem over-used now, as people have been beating them to death for well on 30 years.The sentences sparkle, as one would expect with Leiber, the humor is nicely understated, the male characters the exact sort that appeal to adolescent male egos, and the women sadly disposable. But the murkly morality still seems somewhat ahead of its time, and the lightness of Leiber's wit feels like a breath of fresh air compared to grimdark fantasy. I also rather love the way the characters mostly flee from danger, and turn to fight it only when cornered or enraged.