"Brimstone Angels" Series of Forgotten Realms Novels

This evening I just finished the 4th book in the Brimstone Angels series of Forgotten Realms novels.

I read the 3rd book on the series last fall as part of my read of The Sundering series (which is the main track covering the transition from 4th edition Forgotten Realms to 5th edition), and I bought the first two books to introduce myself to the characters in that book. However, I decided to read the book, The Adversary, to go through the whole Sundering series (though with occasional break to read other books, such as following Drizzt Do'Urden and one or two things from other genres, as some of the books in The Sundering series weren't all that great) before getting back to the first two books.

I found that I enjoyed "The Adversary" a great deal. It was one of the best D & D novels I had read in a long time. It is well-written, and the characters are interesting --- and I also do enjoy Planar beings and politics in my novels. (I really dug the Planescape setting back in the day.) The occasional draconic swearing mixed in with the English also reminds me of Firefly, so that is a nice touch too. To keep this track going, I decided to read the 4th book first and will treat books 1 and 2 as preludes. (Book 4, called Fire in the Blood is also very good.) I'm not sure if I will get through them both before the 5th book comes out in December (and I would like to jump to that to keep the story going), especially as I want to read the next Do'Urden book that comes out next month.

Every time I go on sabbatical and have some more time or it's the summer and I have more time, if I find a good fantasy novel, I am reminded how much I enjoy them --- even though during the school year, it's hard to spend much time at all reading novels. Around the last month or so, I have tried to make it a point to at least read a little bit of a novel on most days. (It would be really nice to keep that up; it makes me happy.) I also really miss playing in a D & D campaign, so between wanting to find a way to play RPGs regularly again and enjoying a really good D & D novel, I have been thinking about D & D a lot lately (including reminiscing about adventures from days gone by, browsing a bit through some 1st edition books, etc.). I used to have so much more time for reading novels and playing D & D, and it would be really nice to recover that. I have become so busy in the last few years.

So, this is my book recommendation for the day. I think it's been quite a while since I blogged about a novel!

Fatescape

I just joined a Planescape campaign. Well, it uses the Planescape world, but it uses the Fate system and 'fudge' dice. I am happy to play with an easy mechanical system in a world that I love.

I am a bariaur, "wanderer" (Ranger is the closest class equivalent, if one wants to think in such terms), member of the Sign of One faction (the ones who believe that they are the centers of the universe and everyone else is just a figment of their imagination), and a psionic wild talent with metacreation. Oh, and I'm also chaotic neutral. :)

This character won't cause any trouble at all. I swear...

Headline: Catholic Church Removes Outer Plane from Multiverse

You don't believe me?

Just take a look at this story on yahoo.com (which was pointed out to me by Danny Schwarzblatt).

The Catholic Church released a 41-page document that gets rid of the concept of Limbo. As a result, tons of githzerai, slaadi, and Harry Belafonte are now homeless.

According to rumors, Mechanus (aka Nirvana) might be the next Outer Plane to be removed. At the moment, only the Happy Hunting Grounds seems safe from expulsion (if for no other reason than it would hurt Dick Cheney).