Wayne of Gotham by Tracy Hickman

I can't believe that I missed this book from Tracy Hickman when it came out.  A Batman novel by one of my favourite fantasy novelists!? I couldn't wait to grab this up at my local library.  I'm not going to give a long plot synopsis, but let me tell you that it gives a much broader, and deeper look into the mind and father of Bruce Wayne/Batman.  I like how it refers to Batman, when Bruce Wayne is wearing the cowl, and how it says Bruce Wayne when he doesn't.  And since it's Tracy Hickman, who's been working on his craft for years and years, I knew it would be well written, but even as a trhickman fan, I was surprised at the pure genius of it.  The use of flashbacks to Thomas Wayne's life, and the jumping around the city using a small horizontal rule, and a small font stating the place and time of the next bit of text was a great way to introduce a change of scenery.

So long story short, this passed mustard.  If you like Batman and/or Tracy Hickman take it out of the library.

Forgotten Portals 1: Rise of the Magi (a Soterion Novel)

Forgotten Portals 1: Rise of the Magi (a Soterion Novel)

by Randy Blackwell Jr.

I was really looking forward to reading this book. Having already read 3 or so short stories in the Soterion universe on soterion.com and having had some contact with the author over the past couple of years, what with his table top RPG based on the Soterion world and proposed video game based on the RPG, you could say that I'm a Soterling.

There were some issues with the print itself. Some spelling mistakes, some grammar issues, and typographic errors, and after only 1 month of owning the book, the lamination is starting to peel off the cover. Although these are all minor issues and easily looked over, they did detract from my enjoyment of the story for brief periods. One of the biggest problem I had is trying to pronounce Miyka in my head, especially when it was spelled Mikya once. It always came out as mik-EE-a for me. I can't really come up with anything else wrong about it besides the usual first edition hiccups that you get.

The main characters in this story are the founders of the Order of Magi, Omar Metzger and Myles Callaghan. Omar is the epitome of scientists, inventor of miracles and researcher extraordinaire, who grew up a child prodigy, passing college early and gathering letters after his name like some of us gather flowers. Myles is a illusionist and conman, who grew up in the circus to learn slight of hand and many other skills like throwing knives and lion training and so much more. Both come across as intelligent in their own right, even if their educations were drastically different.

The use of Musterion as a gateway world to Soterion makes some sort of sense, and anyone familiar with C.S. Lewis could climb right on board with that. The requirement to choose a council, and choose right away before you could learn anything about the world, came as a jarring shock to me. I was already committed to finishing the book, but now it got me involved at a deeper level I hadn't thought possible. Up until that point we were learning about a world of tunnels, where the center is full of strange creatures with wondrous qualities and weird features. I didn't count how many different species were introduced in that one chapter, but I could have sworn it was 7 or 8, all with similar names, or similar descriptions. I'm not going to go through them here because, let's be honest here, I'd get them wrong. Now remember how I said I was a Soterling? Well there's about 2 extra peoples in here that I just didn't know about. I liked it, but it may confuse some people. I would suggest that if you want to get even more out of this book, take a note from Omar and write in a journal when you come across new and interesting facts about Musterion and Soterion.

Now I suppose it's time to bring this to a close and so in order to not tell you the ending of the book I wrote this review without reading the end of the book. At this point I would probably stick out my tongue, do a little dance, then run away, but that's childish so, no, I won't do it. I would like to say thank you to Randy Blackwell for inventing this beautiful and rich universe, where we Christian fantasy lovers can revel and frolic, along with the characters and species he's created. I'd say this book definitely passes the mustard.