In Summer Knight, Harry is dealing with the after effects of Susan leaving. He spends day and night trying to find a cure for her vampirism. To no avail. Anger and depression are the mainstays of his life now. He doesn’t eat. He doesn’t bathe. He doesn’t see any of his friends, whom are really worried for him. Harry has isolated himself in a manner that is hardly healthy.

After meeting his friend Billy (and surviving both simultaneous attack from both a ghoul and a drive by shooting), Harry finds out that Billy has set up an appointment for him. Harry goes and meets the client, to find out that is is Mab, Queen of the Winter Court. She asks him to find out whom killed a man named Ronald Reuel. She also tells him that she now his purchased debt to Lenanasidhe, and she is willing to cancel the debt…after he does three favors for her. This is the first one and Harry really doesn’t have much of a choice. You do NOT say no, to the Queen of Air and Darkness, so therefore he is now the emissary for Winter.

Monsters: can’t live with them, and . . . well, it seems like there’s days where you’re spending all your time killing them. Particularly when it comes to horror gaming. If you’re not out staking vampires, you’re blasting zombies or shotgunning werewolves.

There are many table top RPGs that dip their toe into the horror genre with great aplomb. And when it comes to “regular people” (AKA Player Characters) taking up arms and blasting apart things that go bump in the night, three or four titles instantly come to mind. And one of those titles is GURPS–as if you didn’t know.

For the uninitiated, GURPS stands for “Generic Universal Role Playing System”, which is a fancy way of saying, if you can dream it up, you can play it using GURPS. First published in 1986, it came out at a time when nearly all RPG systems were tailored to a particular genre.

Steve Jackson has dominated the games industry lately with a seemingly endless supply of Munchkin-related games, accessories and knick-knacks. Just to prove there’s more going on at Jackson Labs than Munchkin, Steve Jackson Games released Zombie Dice last year to great acclaim. That acclaim is well-earned: Zombie Dice is fast, fun and addictive, and it’s cheap to boot.

Zombie Dice includes 13 dice, instructions, and a dice shaker/storage container in the package. The instructions are very simple: you (as the zombie) roll three dice at a time, and pick them out of the cup without looking at them. If a brain logo comes up, hooray! – you’ve successfully eaten some brains; set those aside.

The crew of the exploration ship Znutar just wanted to cruise around the Galaxy, discovering strange new worlds and playing pool. But then their ship was invaded by the Awful Green Things . . . and suddenly they were fighting for their lives!

I recently had the chance to try this game. Amazingly, I had never even demoed the Awful Green Things From Outer Space before. I’d seen it sitting on the shelves of the local game store before and thought it looked like fun. Naturally, I played the role of the alien monsters the first time out, but both sides are just as fun in the end.

Before game play can begin, there’s a little set up involved in this primarily two-player (or two teams) game. First, the Znutar crew has to be placed into different locations on the ship. Then, players need to resolve the starting locations for the Awful Green Things, weapons, etc. Once you’ve played a few times, the set up will go fairly quickly. It took us about five or ten minutes to set up the game the first time we played.

Luckily, I have had the pleasure of meeting Kenneth Hite, albeit briefly and in passing, at a convention only a short time ago. He was engaging, intelligent, and knowledgeable about things most people find horrific with a particularly keen interest in Lovecraft. I could think of few other game designers and authors better suited to write a game of horror. Even though I found myself quite daunted at the thought of reviewing a Steve Jackson Games product, I was not disappointed and from the first few lines my attention was transfixed while my mind whirled with the possibilities of my own fear-filled campaigns.

GURPS Horror, which I will simply shorten to G:H, begins with a history of the game, a small dose of the authors quite note-worthy credentials, and a short piece on what exactly ‘horror’ and horror role-playing is. After a brief explanation on why players need to remain mindful of their fears, G:H jumps into character creation. Going beyond simple numbers or hastily jotted notes, Hite actually seems to endorse players giving quite a bit of thought about their characters backgrounds.

Again, I am trying not to spoil too much. But some things have to be said.

Grave Peril starts with a new character. Michael Carpenter, Knight of the Cross. For some reason the ghosts of Chicago have been going crazy for the last few weeks, and Harry and Michael have been running all over the place trying stop them. Michael is a great addition to this serious, because he brings a character that faith driven. Oh, and he has the holy sword Amoracchius, which was created by one of the nails that was used to crucify Jesus. Awesome.

Combined with plots dealing with Harry’s fairy godmother (Leanansidhe of the Winter Court of Fae), and ramifications of his actions in Storm Front with a Red Court Vampire named Bianca…this is the book that starts to move the serious toward being a great one. Harry and Murphy’s relationship was better after Fool Moon. Still not great, but better. Even to the point where with a few other CPD members, they took down a seriously twisted sorcerer named Leonid Kravos. So things are better.

Shadow Chase is an urban fantasy novel written by Seressia Glass. While this book follows the events of Shadow Blade in the author’s series, I felt the story — which dives deep into Egyptian mythology — stands on its own.

Glass writes believable characters that we can all relate to by focusing on their internal struggles. I really liked reading about the emotional impact of the “things gone wrong.” When someone dies? We feel it. When Kira, the main character, makes a mistake? We experience her guilt. By focusing on what makes these characters human, in spite of their supernatural powers, I feel the author takes some risks because we don’t always see the “cost” of magic in our world. However, these risks are what makes the story and its characters more believable, because those emotions help us identify with them — regardless of their ethnic or cultural background.

Kira Solomon is a Shadowchaser. Although she’s human, she serves the Light and dispatches the Fallen. Although a lot of the worldbuilding was inspired by Egyptian mythology, the battle between good and evil takes center stage.

How do I start a review of the final book in a series that I love, which had me sobbing for about three chapters of the conclusion? As it turns out, by avoiding the issue:

I feel sorry for Prince Armand.

There, I said it. Three kick-butt heroines of the whole series and this review starts off with some compassion for the guy who is always first in line to get cursed, kidnapped, and just generally gets the short end of the deal. In a series about princesses who don’t need to be rescued, someone else has to be — and once again, nice-guy prince Armand (who seems reasonably capable) suffers some of the very first consequences to evil becoming a threat in the kingdom of Lorindar.

This time, the threat starts close to home, with Snow White, who has been set up for this kind of fall from the beginning of the series, overstretches her magical abilities and ends up releasing a demon from her mother’s magic mirror. Worse, the demon corrupts Snow herself, meaning that our three heroines are no longer on the same team.

I am going to try to keep these as spoiler free as I can, but some things you just have to talk about.

Fool Moon is the second installment of the Dresden Files. As much as I love this series as a whole, this is my least favorite book. That doesn’t mean I do not still like and enjoy it, but you have like something the least, right?

One of the things I like about these novels is that he does a good job of having more than one theme in regards to the story. The theme of this book is a few things. One, werewolves have come to Chicago, and
two, Harry’s relationship with Karin Murphy. After Storm Front, you know they have a tenuous working relationship.

Hellboy: Oddest Jobs is an anthology edited by Christopher Golden and illustrated by Mike Mignola. The collection isn’t like other anthologies, for this one steers toward the category of “collectible.” You want this anthology to sit on your self to show-off to your friends.

As a collector of all things Hellboy myself, I picked up this anthology for two reasons: one, it was Hellboy and two, I knew that Christopher Golden’s involvement would ensure that the stories would have a certain quality to them.

I wasn’t disappointed. Although I didn’t like each and every story in the collection, there’s a broad range of tales and storytelling styles from authors I’ve read and authors I haven’t. Each plot stands on its own, however, and offers something new for fans of this franchise. I really appreciated A Room of One’s Own by China Mieville and Jiving with Shadows and Dragons and Long, Black Trains by Joe R. Lansdale.

I was asked at Odyssey Con, several months back now, if I would write a review on Labyrinth Lord after I spoke of it while helping with a panel. It has taken me far too long to write this, as I do enjoy the game a great deal. It has simple and quick character generation. It has endless ways in which to perish with little-to-no escape. It has what many games have lost over time.. simplicity.

Far back in the ancient days of gaming, gamers hewed dice from stone, wood, or chit and the games were far more bare and stripped down. They did not rely upon ponderous tomes of rules that detailed out every contingency. The rules left much of this up to the individual game master to work out. When new product would arrive into the waiting hands of players and dungeon masters, they would pour through these new found nuggets of lore.

Gwen Frost, a gypsy, doesn’t know where she fits in, and she doesn’t really want to. She came to Mythos Academy after the death of her mother — for which she blames herself — and doesn’t understand what she’s doing there. She’s no warrior, and her gift of psychometry, the ability to read emotions and history off of objects, mainly helps her find lost things. She doesn’t really believe in the Pantheon or the Reapers, and she’s got no interest in fighting those battles even if they are real.

But then Queen Bee Jasmine gets brutally murdered in the library, where Gwen works, and everything changes. Unwilling to let Jasmine’s death go unmourned — when not even Jasmine’s friends seem to feel grief at her murder — Gwen is determined to discover the identity of Jasmine’s killer. And in the meantime, she ends up finding out a lot about what it is that brought her to Mythos Academy in the first place.

“Meet Vincent Morrow, a doctor looking for a vaccine… for the apocalypse! In this stand-alone first issue, a family needs Dr. Morrow’s help with their son’s illness: Demonic possession. But when Morrow attempts an experimental cure, he discovers the boy’s disease isn’t all spinning heads and pea soup – it’s like nothing you’ve seen before! Horror gets a brain transplant in WITCH DOCTOR, the book WARREN ELLIS calls Mental.”

I knew I needed to see this book just based on the cover art alone. Now let me tell you a few things I liked about this issues art, the colors popped off of every page. The “exorcism” scene at the beginning of the issue was just drop dead GORE-Geous and the demons were bad ass. My only downside was that I didn’t think the human cast stay as consistent as they could have. However it didn’t take anything away from this issue it was easy on the eyes.

“Stricken with grief from the death of his girlfriend, Sith, Guy Salvatore struggles to make sense of his world. He’s plagued with hallucinations of monsters that torment him with outrageous requests. Enter Satan: a strange, old man who implores Guy to call upon his latent power to break through his world’s plane to rescue Sith, who he claims is floating aimlessly in and out of dimensional planes known as the “Dream Worlds.” But is Satan to be trusted?”

The only thing I knew about this book before diving into it was how GORE-Geous is was going to be. I will admit though that what took it a notch above most is that Chandra took the time to create every element on every page.

As most people know, Ghost Story (Dresden Files, No. 13) is coming out this month, and I love these books so much that I always re-read them all before the next one comes out. I have read Storm Front probably about 8 times or so now, but I always get excited when I start them over. Of course I am a bit of a Dresden fanboy at this point.

But to get to go back and see where Harry started (and for Jim Butcher as well) out is always fun for me.

Harry is a Wizard. The only one listed in the Chicago phone book. This may seem like it would be difficult, because it is. Most people cannot take him seriously, since they do not believe in the supernatural. It goes with the territory and he takes that with a grain of salt…most of the time.

The Third Bear is a collection of fourteen stories penned by Jeff Vandermeer. The tales ranging from folklore to absurdist; each story offers a different, sometimes surreal, take on a genre. In short, the collection was penned by a “master writer.”

It’s hard not to be a little envious of Vandermeer’s writing, for each story has the kind of quality most writers dream about. These stories belong in a school curriculum to be pored over, obsessed about, and analyzed. By far, my favorite was the signature story — The Third Bear. When I read it, I imagined I was sitting in a pub somewhere with a tall pint of ale, listening to an old, grizzled guy tell this folktale as a warning to curious travelers.

That style of writing is what I feel will draw even the most casual reader into this book. Often, you’ll find that there isn’t just one, but two stories written in each and every tale.

Nothing quite as sweet as a miniature dragon, perhaps of a suitable size to hold in your arms like a pet… but drakes are not pets, but sentient beings in their own right, fascinating creatures to have around in your game. (I had to add ‘in your game’ lest I start to conjure fantasies of one coming in my back door…).

The Introduction talks about, despite – because of? – their iconic nature, how difficult it can be to actually have a DRAGON wandering around in your game. They’re big, they’re tough, and they tend to amass game-unbalancing amounts of treasure. Moreover, they’re supposed to be the creatures of myth and legend, not someone you meet down the pub for an ale and a few hints about the next adventure.

Let’s be honest; who doesn’t love Count Dracula? The cape, the sex appeal, the slick hair, eschewing modern dentistry – he did it all, including upsetting more than a few well-to-do British noblemen. In Van Helsing, one player gets to play the toothy Count, while the remaining one to four players take on the roles of Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray, Lord Godalming and Abraham Van Helsing – the Hunters.

The board is a loose grid of spaces showing three levels of Dracula’s castle. Hunters move around the board looking for Dracula and his brides. The object of the game for them is to destroy five of the eight brides, or destroy Dracula himself if they like doing things the hard way. For the Count, his goal is to either transform all four of the Hunters into his minions or kill them, or to get four of his potential brides to the coffin space in his castle.

It has been years since I read the first three novels of this series, and since the series came out on HBO…I decided to re-read them and this was the first time I actually read the fourth book. One of the hardest things that Martin has been able to do was write from so many different perspectives. I think people underestimate how difficult
that can be. So when you pick up this book you are ready to see what has happened after the craziness of the ending of Storm of Swords.

Wow, if you are someone that needs continuity, you are in trouble here. Not only do you not get the characters you are normally used to reading, but you get characters you have never even heard of before. Mainly due to the fact that they are called “The Prophet” or “The Princess in the Tower”.

Right off that bat you don’t even who these people are. This wasn’t a horrible thing, it just was confusing to all of a sudden get perspectives that you have not gotten at all in the first three novels.

The Golden Key is a dark fantasy epic romance that was written as a three-way collaboration between Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson and Kate Elliot. The book, which clocks in at eight hundred and eighty-nine pages, spans hundreds of years in a duchy called “Tira Virte.” The sequel, dubbed The Diviner, is due out this August.

I called The Golden Key an epic romance, but I feel that might be a little misleading. So, before I go any further, let me explain why I put it into that category. At the heart of this novel, is the tortured relationship between two characters: Sario Grijalva and the cousin he adores, Saavedra. He loves her; she does not love him. Well, at least not in that way. She does love and care for him, but her heart belongs to someone else. The passion Saavedra feels for (and shares with) Alejandro becomes the catalyst for Sario’s demise. In many ways, Sario has tortured himself for a love that may (or may not) never be consummated.