7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable, but of spotty quality., May 12, 2001
This review is from: Truth Until Paradox 2nd Edition (Mage: The Ascension) (Paperback)
This is a collection of short stories set in the "World of Darkness" that is the backdrop for the "Mage" role playing game. Many of the stories are quite interesting and well-written; a few more are either one or the other. A few were just not up to professional standards. In general, this is a fairly interesting read, but I do wish that they had better quality control: the number of typos and other proofreading errors was higher than should be found in a professionally edited book.
The first story, "The Crystal Messiah", by Philip Nutman, started well, but the ending looked as if the author had missed his deadline, and had to rush 25+ pages of story into a one-page summary.
Next, "The Great Escape", by Edo van Belkom, was interesting and well-written (being one of the few stories in the volume in which I DIDN'T find a typo, grammatical error, or malaprop) but I thought that the basic idea was a rather trivial conflict, even if it was potentially deadly.
"Introit", by Jackie Cassada, was perhaps the best of the lot except for the stories by Kevin Andrew Murphy and James A. Moore; again, there were no glaring errors, but more importantly, the characters were well-developed, the plot moved well and seemed reasonable, and the ending was satisfying.
"When The Moon", by James S. Dorr, was not bad; it had its share of typos, and I can't really say that it resonated with me, but it was a fair story, fairly told.
"That Which Is Given", by Don Bassingthwaite, again had its share of errors, but other than that was a very interesting story, very well told.
"Waiting For Yesterday", by Brett Brooks, was a well-told story, and fairly interesting, but I found the ending less than satisfying.
"Candledark", by Thomas S. Roche, was a moderately interesting story, more sloppily proofed than most, with interesting characters, and a somewhat implausible ending.
"Make 'Em Laugh", by James Lowder, had no obvious errors in the text, and was a marvellous story with interesting characters and a very satisfying ending.
"A Block Of Time", by Jane M. Lindskold, had a bit more than its share of errors, but was otherwise an interesting and enjoyable read.
"The Judas Tree", by Richard Lee Byers, was an interesting story too, but had WAY too many errors to be considered professional (I count 11 in a twenty page story). Professionals proofread their own work, Richard.
"End Run", by Nigel D. Findley, was not the most interesting of stories, but it was told in an interesting first-person style, and was error-free other than misspelling "tinnitus" as "titinus".
"Pushing The Right Buttons", by Doug Murray, was another sloppily unprofessional story (eight typos in fourteen pages); other than that, it was an only passable story anyway.
"Dreamspeaker", by Bill Crider, had only one typo that I noticed ("through" used when "throw" was meant), but while the story was interesting in general, there was to my mind a flaw in the basic storyline.
"Devil's Bargain", by Thomas Kane, was a fairly interesting story with only somewhat more than its share of typos.
"Silver Nutmeg, Golden Pear" and its sequel, "Grim Reminders", both by Kevin Andrew Murphy and James A. Moore (the first story primarily by the former, the second primarily by the latter),were unquestionably the best of the lot. The characters were delightful, the plot fascinating, and the writing good. Murphy managed to get through a 38 page story with only one noticeable glitch, and Moore 26 pages with three. But these stories were good enough that I'd have been willing to overlook far more typos. I hope to see more writing by these two.
Finally, "The Seven Sages Of The Bamboo Grove", by John H. Steele, was unquestionably the weakest story in the collection. There was only one typo, but the story itself was disjointed, a confusing attempt at being artistic, and neither the plot (such as I was able to follow it) nor the characters were even marginally interesting.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Affirmative, September 1, 2005
This review is from: Truth Until Paradox 2nd Edition (Mage: The Ascension) (Paperback)
James Yanni, you have absolutely read my mind and I'm so giddy that someone else feels the exact same way, so I won't go into a long review. My only thing was that I think my personal "tilt" toward some of the best stories was enough to redeem the ones that were less appealing. Don't get me wrong, professionalism and spelling errors aside, I think all the stories are at least a fine read to some extent.
But some, like Introit, really grabbed me. The main character altered my perceptions of the Chorus so completely, that I wanted to make my own Chorister Mage. My atheist preconceptions of the Tradition were tossed out the window and I honestly think I'm a better Mage player because of that. ;D
I found "When The Moon" a little mysterious, because it didn't really seem to fit into the Mage universe, rather it fed me some really strange imagery that made the story sort of hard to follow. The ending, though a tad cheesy, was very enjoyable as I heard the song floating through my head and humming through my lips for hours after. Overall, it was just weird though. XD
"Candledark" was a little between River from Firefly and Penny Dreadful. Good read, but yeah, a little sketchy around the end.
Overall, I find that all the themes in the Mage game are here: Nephandi, Technocracy, Marauders, Traditions all at each others' throats. The whole sci-fi feel of alot of the stories really appealed to me, and let's face it, there isn't much Mage fiction streaming directly from White Wolf any more. I think there are 2 other books including this one-Penny Dreadful(which is SUCH an awesome read) and the TOJ series that ran a few years ago which wasn't very entertaining.
I ABSOLUTELY recommend you download (for free) and read Penny Dreadful from the old White Wolf site.
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