I noticed it serves as a prequel of sorts... I was thinking of reading it first for sure.

Every so often I get the itch to read something from Appendix N* to the 1E DMG that I hadn't read before, and this was one of those times, so I dug out my copy of Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword



My first encounter with Poul Anderson was via Conan pastiche novels in high school, which I enjoyed at the time. I have read one or two of his Viking sagas over the years and a handful of short stories in anthologies, but I had never read "the big 2" in terms of influence on D&D, The Broken Sword and Three Hearts, Three Lions. Since I didn't own a copy of Three Hearts when the bug hit me (I found a copy at HPB last week), I broke out The Broken Sword.

It is the tale of a human child (Skafloc) stolen by the elves and replaced by a changeling (Valgard), and of the lifelong enmity that develops with the changeling, set to the backdrop of a war between the elves and the trolls, and the meddling of the Norse pantheon of Gods in the matter. The Broken Sword is a cursed sword that must be reforged to defeat the trolls, but whose role as Skafloc's weird will result in tragedy.

The elements of this that influenced early D&D are obvious, but the story itself is quite good. I like Anderson as a writer, and he manages to evoke the tone and feel of the Nordic sagas I have read quite well. It's a solid entertaining read, though some of the plot points and character attitudes may not have aged well and would be out of place in a lot of modern fantasy, it does cleave to its thematic origins in the sagas fairly well. Not for everyone, but if you enjoy this style of story and this era of fantasy fiction, it's worth checking out.

-M



*Gygax's list of inspirational reading included in the original edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide.

Rite of Passage
Alexei Panshin, 1968

A very interesting book by a now almost-forgotten writer (although he was for time quite acclaimed, as the Nebula Award for this novel indicates). It’s set in 2198, about 150 years after life on Earth has been destroyed by a major global war and environmental catastrophes. The remains of the human race either live on a series of colonies that had been established earlier (rather haphazardly) and about a dozen gigantic former transport ships that now serve as moving habitats traveling through the stars and occasionally stopping at the various colonies to trade. The colonies, by the way, are mostly quite technologically backward, which becomes a really important plot point as the story progresses. The story is narrated by a young woman named Mia Havero, a resident of one of the roving ships, who recounts the few pivotal years in her life leading up to her 14th birthday. When they reach that age, all residents of the ship have to undergo what is called the ‘Trial’: they’re dumped on some habitable planet and left to their own devices for a month and if they survive the experience, they’re considered adults. This is told as a coming-of-age story, but this is most definitely not a YA book. However, that sort of YA-type premise at times makes it easy to overlook some of the very troubling moral and ethical issues that are raised (and some of the truly horrific attitudes and practices of the seemingly placid and idyllic society on the ship). All in all, a very thought-provoking and worthwhile book.

Quarry’s Blood
Max Allan Collins, 2022

The latest, and quite possibly, the genuinely last Quarry novel – it’s even set after the events of Last Quarry, which Collins originally intended to be the chronologically last story about Quarry, the former hitman who started to go after other hitmen. In fact, this one takes place in 2021, with the title character now pushing 70. He had been living a pretty uneventful life in Minnesota in the 15 years since the events recounted in the aforementioned book. But his retirement is disrupted, first by a visit from an inquisitive reporter and true-crime writer named Susan Breedlove, who seems to know way too much about his rather bloody former career. Not long after that, he gets a late-night visit from a would-be assassin – whom he pretty easily dispatches despite his age. He realizes that there’s a loose end from his past that needs to be addressed and that he will need Breedlove’s help to uncover who’s after him. In the process of following up on some leads, he also ends up revisiting some characters we first got to know in Quarry’s Choice and Quarry’s Climax, but also his old stomping grounds from the very first Quarry novel. And there’s also another revelation concerning his past that I won’t spoil here.
Even though I personally think Collins probably should have stuck with his original intent to have Last Quarry indeed be the final chapter – and I also have some minor quibbles with a few plot points (and also couldn’t help noticing that the set-up is way too similar to the preceding novel, Killing Quarry) – I can’t deny that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

Two for the Money
Max Allan Collins, 2004

(cover to the 2021 re-issue)
After recently finishing the latest Quarry installment, Quarry’s Blood, I felt the need for another Collins fix and remembered that I purchased this with a whole stack of other ebooks in a Hard Case Crime Humble Bundle offer last fall.
This is in fact a sort of omnibus edition of two novels, Bait Money and Blood Money, that were originally published in 1973 – making them two of Collins’ earliest published works (they were re-issued in 1981).
So the first book, or rather in the first half of this book, Bait Money, introduces the character of Nolan, a top-notch and super-tough professional thief who, at 48 years old, would like nothing better than to retire from that profession. But he’s been on the run from the Chicago mob for about 16 years, and a series of events sees him organizing a bank heist in Iowa City with several amateurs less than half his age. Once completed, he should be square with the mob, and one underboss in particular. But things don’t quite work out as planned, of course.
In the sequel, Blood Money, some loose ends from the first story come back to bite Nolan in the a**, and he goes on a chase in much of the Midwest (from central Illinois to Iowa City then Milwaukee and back) to recover money that he had stolen fair and square and exact revenge on an old enemy.
As usual, Collins delivers a fun romp, full of action but also engaging and likable characters. Bait Money in particular is just a really tightly-plotted, fast-paced heist story.

The Velvet Mafia: The Gay Men Who Ran The Swinging Sixties by Darryl W Bullock.




As its title suggests, The Velvet Mafia aims to explore the often overlooked contributions of the many gay men who managed, advised and directed the careers of some of Britain's biggest recording stars in the 1960s. These include, Brian Epstein (The Beatles, Gerry & The Pacemakers, Cilla Black, Billy J. Kramer); Larry Parnes (Tommy Steele, Billy Fury, Marty Wilde); Robert Stigwood (Cream, The Bee Gees); Kit Lambert (co-manager of The Who); Simon Napier-Bell (The Yardbirds, Marc Bolan, John's Children); along with Joe Meek (visionary record producer for The Tornadoes among others), Tony Stratton-Smith (manager of The Nice, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, and owner of Charisma Records), Lionel Bart (of Oliver! fame), and Sir Joseph Lockwood (chairman of EMI).

The core of the book focuses on the friendship between Parnes, Epstein, and the showbiz solicitor David Jacobs, at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in the UK (it wasn't legalised for over 21s until 1967). To be gay in the late '50s and early '60s was to risk considerable consequences from the authorities, including arrest, public vilification, imprisonment and even chemical castration! At the same time, gay men were often the targets of blackmail and violence in their private life.

I really enjoyed this book and thought that Bullock's research and attention to accuracy was extremely thorough. It's written in a very engaging manner and isn't hard to get through at all. However, the author does tend to run off on tangents occasionally, talking about other closeted gay men, some of them public figures, who weren't in any way involved in the '60s music scene. These parts of the book are kind of interesting in and of themselves, but before you know it you've had to read three or four pages that are ultimately irrelevant to the main story he's trying to tell.

Another criticism would be that Bullock doesn't do much in the way of explaining who some of the book's players are. He drops lots of names associated with the early '60s UK music scene and pretty much expects the reader to already know who they are. Personally, this wasn't too much of a problem, since I'm already very knowledgable about the UK music scene of the '60s, but even for a reader like me there were a few times that I had to consult Google. To a more casual reader – or one who may be coming to the book out of an interest in British LGBTQ+ history, rather than a love of '60s pop music, for example – this is a really bad structural problem.

Overall though, this is a well written and interesting read that focuses on a hitherto largely unexplored aspect of the '60s rock and pop revolution in Britain.