Jim Wright

I like you too.

Thanks.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

(18) Life in a Medieval Castle, Giles and Giles.

Chapters on various people found and events in a castle.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

(17) Skeleton Man, Tony Hillerman

A plane crash over the Grand Canyon in 1954 affects an inheritance in 2004.

US 666 makes an appearance, but I'm not sure it was still around when the book was written.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

(16) "Philip Jose Farmer's" The Dungeon, Volume I: The Dark Tower by Richard A. Lupoff.

A Victorian explorer is kidnapped into an underground kingdom while searching for his lost brother.

Plot makes no sense.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

(15) Quantitative Reasoning, Eric Zaslow.

Ten case studies on how how to use basic math to think quantitatively about various issues.

It has ten chapters, the author teaches at Northwestern, which means that Northwestern is on a quarter system.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

I am also going to note how much I hate "gods need human belief." If Fred Saberhagen couldn't pull it off, neither can you.

Only Fritz Leiber's "Lean Times in Lankhmar" and Terry Pratchett's _Small Gods_ (which lampooned Lean Times as much as the Bible) did it well.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

(14) Ring the Bells, C.M. McDonnell.

This Christmas story stars the Stranger Times cast.

An ancient god returns to Earth and exploits children's belief in Santa to gain power.

Mildly disappointing compared to Relight My Fire, which was probably the best of the series so far.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

* Showing that I read Pratchett's books far after the fan service started disrupting my enjoyment of the novels** in Feet of Clay, but they would have been better stories without it.

** Don't read anything of Discworld before Equal Rites, don't read anything after Feet of Clay.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

As much as I like Cogs and Zeke, they don't need to be in every story, for example. Interesting pair, useful when useful. Non-essential fan service.

I don't know if it's reached the Werewolves Directing Traffic level of annoying,* but it's noticeable.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

(13) The Fallible Fiend, L. Sprague de Camp.

Bookish and bumbling demon is invoked to serve a wizard, run a carnival, and save a nation.

Mildly entertaining, from an author I usually like.

Interesting reference to the Unbeheaded King series, though, which is one that holds up.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

(12) I Have Sinned, Caimh McDonnell.

As in all great Irish literature, this novel begins and ends with a fart.

Parallelism between the comic-book style international assassination ring and an urban gang.

An Irishman dressed as a monk exposes himself.

You'll love it.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

(11) The Wailing Wind, Tony Hillerman

A little different because the two POV characters were Leaphorn and Manuelito (instead of Chee).

A dead man in a truck. A convicted murderer. A missing woman. A cold case. An army base.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

(10) Curb Rights, Daniel Klein

Discussion of mass transit systems from jitneys to trams.

How to use market mechanisms to improve of the performance of state-owned or state licensed monopolies in a way that doesn't generate an anarchy that causes service provision to collapse.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

(9) How to Write Adventures That Don't Suck, James Ward, Ed.

25 essays on various topics that delineate different ways in which RPG scenario writing can go wrong and how to fix it. Each essay comes with an encounter as an example.

Well, 22-23. Some are just general GM advice.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

This doesn't make too much of a difference, something like this should give you inspiration for creating things that fit for your setting.

Only bad DMs use canned settings, cities, and dungeons. You riff off them, or modify them radically.

But, these aren't even good for that.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

(8) Legendary Locations, Various Authors

160 places to sprinkle in your D&D game. Mostly shows that D&D isn't for people who read Conan and Elric, or even Tolkien, anymore, but it is now for people who read Harry Potter and Twilight and don't like challeneges.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

Thematic Problem: The implied setting makes no sense. There are boy scouts, Bard's colleges, and all sorts of things that don't mesh with the implied technology level of the buildings and weapons.

The setting makes no sense.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

(7) Integrated Physics and Calculus Vol 1, Rex and Jackson

This is the book they were teaching with when I was a TA in graduate school.

The engineering students had their physics and calculus in one class -- which is what this book does.

Very good idea. Didn't take.

[Jim Wright @meanwright]

(6) Vectors and Tensors by Example, Richard Haskell

Bare-bones vector and tensor algebra and calculus. Includes quaternions.

Each chapter ends with a section of examples of Matlab code showing how to calculate them.