Aaron
Four chapters in and his parents have been murdered, his dog has been murdered, his wife has been gang raped and murdered, and his 4-year-old daughter has been brutally murdered.
I was first introduced to Larry Correia through his Monster Hunter International series, which I love. A noir detective, even a magical one, didn't interest me. Fortunately, this isn't noir.
Hard Magic has great pacing, exciting action, and interesting characters. It also has a very cool magic system, well done alternate history, and blimps. And not your boring goodyear variety, cool blimps!
I'm excited to read the rest of the series.
Alright, now this is getting good. I like the characters, and we get to keep most of them, the plot is really starting to heat up. I think I like it.
The author seemed to be going down a checklist of mistakes amateurs make. The book starts with melodramatic introspection, moves to an info dump of irrelevant world building, and then starts telling (and telling and telling) instead of showing.
It's been a while since I've read this and, from reading the reviews, I don't remember it as well as I thought. I remember liking it overall, but not being interested enough to continue the series. I'll probably re-read this at some point.
On the title page it says “Deeply inspired by The Princess and the Goblin.” I didn't realize that slightly re-worded, probably by AI, counted as “inspired by.”
I like the book overall, but the preachy tone really killed it for me.
A deaf, native American, girl struggles to cram in all the judgmental diatribes she can.
Another one that it's been awhile since I've read it. The story kind of lags after the second half of the last book and the ending wasn't very satisfying, but overall worth reading.
I love the dark fantasy setting taken from the video games, but the stunt system is probably this system's greatest asset and liability. The idea of getting to do cool stuff when you roll doubles is interesting, but in practice it never seems like you get to do the cool stuff you want to do when you want to do it.
I wish they had this setting with the system from the FFG Star Wars RPG.
A great take on Tolkien's world. I think this captures the feel of Middle-earth better than any system before it.
There are a few minor things I don't care for, like social introductions, but most of the rules are elegant and interesting.
It's a little difficult to adventure in the time period of the Lord of the Rings books, and that wasn't helped by the long delay in publishing adventures, but I still hope to get a full campaign in one day.
