Our author begins his book by informing us that table-top RPGs are at a crossroads. They are at a point in time where they must make a choice between a new system, something revolutionary and different, and the power of nostalgia, classic systems and tradition on the other. This is an easy assumption to make, casting your eyes about to the RPG market and seeing the 4E update and change in D&D in what seems, especially to outsiders, as very dramatic ways. It is from this premise our author builds his book. I would claim this is his thesis statement; the foundation of the argument for the book. Unfortunately, it couldn’t be more wrong.

Review by Vincent Venturella

Religion is electrified in the snappy first book of Jeff Somers’ cyber-noir series featuring Avery Cates.

John Lennon might have imagined a world without religion, but this futuristic tale features a church gone mad, where to convert means sacrificing your brain to a cyborg’s body. And if you don’t want to convert…well, the Electric Monks want to kill you. (I think. I read a lot of this in front of the TV, and thus didn’t pay as much attention as I should have.)

If your mission is to kill the head of a legalised-yet-suspicious religion, where might they live? In England, apparently, in Westminster Abbey – only what Avery Cates finds there is mind-blowing. But before that he has to build up a team to help him take down Dennis Squalor – which is nice, but I got tetchy waiting for the assassination to begin.

Review by Tez Miller

The Rose-Bride’s Plight is a new adventure for Changeling: the Lost from White Wolf Publishing. Written by Jess Hartley and Developed by Eddy Webb.

This particular adventure can be run as a stand alone game or worked into an ongoing chronicle. There are tips and tricks provided for both types of games including suggestions for connecting existing characters to members of the local Courts and possible motivations for getting involved in local events.

This adventure contains some new materials that will be useful for Lost games beyond this particular story, including a new system element, Unwitting Pledges, as well as a new Goblin Fruit, The Myrsina.

It’s Halloween season and until this weekend the movie theatres had offered horror fans zero tricks or treats. On October 10th director John Erick Dowdle’s Quarantine became this season’s first theatrically released genre movie and by default it vaulted to the top of my must-see list.

Quarantine, the American remake of last year’s well-received Spanish genre offering, [REC], opens with TV reporter Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott (Steve Harris) filming an episode of their soft news program in which they profile the firemen at a Los Angeles fire station.

Review by Jason Thorson

“I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife’s grave. Then I joined the army.”

Chances are, if you read a webzine such as this one, that you’ve been around the internets long enough to have heard of John Scalzi. Either you’ve viewed the ever-famous picture of his cat with bacon taped to it, or you’ve spotted his blog, “Whatever”. Spotting Scalzi isn’t hard: he writes, anything, a lot of it.

Ah, but have you read his fiction? No? Do so.

Review by Aly Condon

This is fairly hefty for a PDF, though it would make a slim book, 90 pages of rather dense rules information providing information for playing the aforementioned classes as well as a little supplementary information in the form of appropriate magical items and the idea of a post-cataclysm gaming in a fantasy world. The approach here differs from that hinted at in the Wizards’ books particularly in naming the source of Barbarian and Druidic power ‘Primal’ and that of Bards and Monks ‘Ancient’, rather than the ‘Nature’ spoken of in the official line.

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

Welcome to the Gillian Key Admiration Society–that is, if you’re male, paranormal, and exquisitely handsome, as all the men in Talia Gryphon’s Key to Conflict seem to be. From ghosts to vampires to werewolves and dark elves, everyone wants to get retired marine and paramortal psychologist Gillian Key into their bed. Some of them succeed, to a greater or lesser degree (the ghost having to resort to sleeping with her in incredibly erotic dreams, so she won’t know she’s being screwed, if you can forgive the pun–and the forced-love aspect of the novel). While there’s also a plot, it doesn’t really pick up until page 227 of 325, when we meet Gillian’s old marine special ops unit, who gather to rescue a kidnapped vampire. The first 227 pages set up the world in a somewhat haphazard fashion: paramortals went public twenty years ago. Or they were creatures of legend up until the Human-Paramortal War a few years ago.

Review by Alana Abbott

Lovecraft Aficionados are well aware of the pulp author’s use of large and obscure words; it was practically his trademark, and has befuddled eager young readers ever since he first began publishing his work in the 1920s. How appropriate then that there should be a word game using many of his creations as a backdrop — Unspeakable Words is a card-driven word game that challenges players to spell without going mad, and believe me, it isn’t easy!

Created by the talented game design team of James Ernest and Mike Selinker and produced by Playroom Entertainment (www.playrooment.com), Unspeakable Words begins with each of the players receiving a hand of seven cards.

Review by Bill Bodden

The Apelord is the first effort of new company ‘One Bad Egg’ and one of the first ‘proper’ 4th Edition D&D products to grace the virtual bookshelves. The Apelord is a new character race, with all the attendant options, but is also comes packaged with some monster ideas, numerous special abilities and a few adventure ideas. In short, it’s like an extended Monster Manual entry, such as were starting to become the norm at the end of 3.5.

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

You may remember that in my review of Shearin’s Magic Lost, Trouble Found, I expressed some confusion about reading a novel that felt like urban fantasy but was set in an elves-and-goblins style world. Armed and Magical follows the further adventures of Raine Benares as she tries to get rid of the Saghred, the evil stone that has claimed her as its link to the world, and has very much the same style as the first book. In reading the sequel, however, I finally made the connection that I missed in Raine’s first adventure: Raine is a seeker, which is roughly the equivalent of a private investigator for her world. What Shearin is writing isn’t a hybrid of urban fantasy and low fantasy–it’s hard boiled fantasy noir.

Review by Alana Abbott

When I first heard about the Battlestar Galactica boardgame, earlier this year, I was interested in the game but not really dying to buy a copy. Sure, the Shadows Over Camelot-like approach to the game sounded fun, and the theme interested me, but I wasn’t so excited that I kept a close eye on rumors and new about the game. And when presented with an opportunity to buy the game at GenCon, I let is slip through my fingers (unlike The Black Goat of the Woods, which I immediately snagged). It wasn’t until I started hearing about the gameplay that I directed serious attention at the game.

Review by Philip Reed

I’ve read a handful of Forgotten Realms fiction over the years, interviewed a few authors, played a few games even. I’ve not kept up quite as much with the more recent developments as I have a few other settings, but still, I thought I was doing pretty good for a while there. This book surprised me a bit with how much I don’t know about the setting. It was still an interesting read, it just took me a bit longer to get into the story than I thought it would.

It helped that Davis knows how to write some compelling action. The fight scenes were entertaining and the variety of challenges the characters faced while on their quest kept this from being just another goblin killing adventure.

Fascinating world-building and a unique serial killer make Gena Showalter’s Awaken Me Darkly an engrossing read.

In New Chicago, Mia Snow works for Alien Investigation and Removal, hunting out predators and protecting humans. Not every alien is evil, but the ones who are keep Mia in business. The latest serial killer’s identity has been narrowed down to one of the Arcadian females, and on the chase Mia’s partner is near-deathly wounded. To survive, he needs special blood, and the only provider is the brother of the case’s lead suspect. Kyrin en Arr’s ultimatum is to set his sister free, or else he won’t keep Mia’s partner alive, but letting loose the most likely serial killer is hardly ideal for Mia.

Review by Tez Miller

Four Heart-Pounding Pulp Adventures for Trail of Cthulhu

The first supplement for Trail of Cthulhu this book has four new adventures written by Rodin D Laws. These pulp-style adventures are a good companion for the core book, helping folks get started with the Gumshoe system from Pelgrane Press. The book itself is 82 pages (including the handouts) and has a cover by the talented Jerome Huguenin. Most of the book’s layout is a three-column format with occasional sidebars and dark black-n-white images that show off some of the scenes for each adventure.

On with the adventures…One of the things I’m going to try to avoid in this review is revealing too many details about the adventures and the mysteries within them. That way, folks will still be surprised when they get the chance to play along. Hopefully I’ll still be able to provide enough information to let you know how useful the book is and whether or it will add to your Trail of Cthulhu game.

You might remember when I last wrote about one of Rosemary Clement-Moore’s books, I pronounced it the scariest book I’d reviewed for Flames Rising. Since I’m also a fan of “fluffy bunnies” level horror (as I also expressed in that review), I was not disappointed when the sequel, Hell Week, was not as nightmarish. In the sequel, girl-psychic Maggie Quinn does face a whole new level of evil: Rush and sororities. As a college freshman and budding journalist, her plan is to infiltrate her campus’s Greek societies and write scathing exposés. Balance this with an undefined relationship with the cute upperclassman who, in Prom Dates from Hell, helped her defeat a demon; her grandmother’s urging to continue her psychic training; her best friend continuing to study witchcraft against Maggie’s long-distance advice; and freshman year would be tough enough. But evil doesn’t take a break, and there’s something scarily lucky about the Sigma Alpha Xis, who choose Maggie to join their number. When Maggie’s usually helpful dreams disappear and she finds herself on the receiving end of that same good luck–and enhanced sexual attraction–that is the mark of the Sigma Alpha Xis, she suspects something dark at work. On the bright side, evil is always good for investigative journalism, if it doesn’t kill her first.

Review by Alana Abbott

Zombie Cinema is a storytelling game of the Living Dead. It allows players to explore a world that they create based on the zombie classic Night of the Living Dead. The goal of the game is to tell a compelling story of your characters facing zombies. A compelling story will always win over a character making it out alive at the end of your movie.

The rules of the game are rather simple. There are 3 types of character cards that you choose from, but there is no limit to how many you can choose, as long as your character is compelling. You then flesh out a background for your character, and can go as in depth as you want it to be. Your characters start at their starting point, and the zombie marker starts at its place. A red marker is used to show who the director of the scene is. The director sets the scene and is the decision maker for any non-character conflicts that may arise. The director lets the characters set as much of their scene as they want.

Review by Crystal Mazur

Horror’s not so scary in this humorous horror anthology presented by the Horror Writers Association, and edited by Kevin J. Anderson.

Let’s not deny it: anthologies are often a mixed bag containing mostly so-so stories, with a few outstanding contributions. Blood Lite is no different in that respect.

Here’s the story breakdown:

The name of the Wind is the first book in the Kingkiller Chronicles. The story revolves around an owner of a backwoods tavern named Kote. He is a man previously known as Kvothe, and for the most part he just wants to be left alone. Yet, Kvothe is a man of mystery and legend. A man that if some people knew where he was, would be killed. A man that has does extraordinary things. A man tracks him down and for the first time, Kvothe is willing to have his story told.

This is one of the better fantasy novels I have ever read and definitely the best I have read in quite some time. I can barely believe this is his first novel, since some people can go years and never write something this well. From the moment it started I was hooked into the story and the he told it. I am normally not a huge fan of stories told in first person, but this was masterfully done.

Review by Stacey Chancellor

SLA Industries is somewhat different. It posits, in the typically dour, rain-swept and pessimistic style it has achieved, a contest between the players and the monsters – er, a series of psychopathic serial killers – which may or may not be equal or fair in nature. The conceit is that the players take the role of quasi-official operatives who may accept contracts to eliminate undesirable presences on the mean city streets, returning if successful with evidence of the kill (ears, perhaps, in the Mongolian style or some other previously agreed token). There are twenty such ‘Hunter Sheets’ provided in this supplement, which runs to a length of 77 pages in a PDF item. As well as initial and concluding fluff – sorry, intensely-wrought and crafted flavour pieces (there is a reason why publishers are so reluctant to pay for fluff) – the twenty serial killers are presented one at a time, first with information for players and then the same for the GM. The first would be presented to the player group, depending on how much choice the GM is prepared to offer them, while the second is reserved for subsequent use. Some clues are presented for working the individual killers into play but, inevitably, too many of these in a row will make game play feel a little repetitive. Perhaps they may be reserved for occasional interludes when a campaign reaches a natural break or when an impromptu game breaks out for one reason or another.

Review by John Walsh

The mystical is also believable in Jes Battis’s ace début novel.

An Occult Special Investigator for Vancouver’s Mystical Crime Lab, Tess Corday arrives at a crime scene where a vampire is dead. A note and photo on the vamp lead Tess to Mia Polanski, a thirteen-year-old in danger but whom also possesses great power, and Lucian Agrado, a necromancer who’s liaison to the vampire community. And the action heats up as the investigation deepens…

Vancouver is a welcome diversion from the seemingly endless stream of American cities in urban fantasy. Jes Battis gives a right good dose of Canadian flavour that makes the setting all the more enjoyable.

Review by Tez Miller