The problem with Bella Forrest is that she is, now and again, ‘over-inspired’ by other series. The ‘point-system’ seems to be lifted straight from Harry Potter, and there are other elements that seem… too unoriginal. There’s also a a hint of Mary Sue, and the third book is so driven by love affairs that the story suffers from it.
English
Made some updates to the layout of the site. Minor stuff but I think it looks just a tad slicker. Also removed some stuff from the topics list and modified the landing pages.
Dutch
De layout van de site is een klein beetje aangepast, en de Nederlandstalige D&D pagina's hebben een update gehad. Ook heb ik de labels wat opgeschoond en de landing pages aangepast.
Column / RPG.
6E is upon us. Or One D&D, although there's still little to be found on the WOTC page. Nevertheless... we go full cycle again.
1st edition players didn't need their 2nd edition... 2nd edition didn't need 3e. Nobody needed 4e 😁 though everyone (except 4e players) liked 5e. And now, we get 6e... 5.5e... 5.1e... I mean, One D&D.
I think the guys of Penny Arcade said it so well twelve years ago...
The gods will walk the earth. Quite literal. A more realistic fantasy (is there such a thing) about a kingdom that struggles to fight ‘The Dark Lady’. A former slave escapes the baddies and teams up with the goodies, but not all goodies are good.
No, this isn’t Raymond Feist, but come to think of it… there are some similarities. It’s well written, but I lost interest near the end. Not sure if I’m going to look for book two or not…
Rosario Dawson is becoming one of my favourite actresses. She played ‘the nurse’ in the Netflix' Marvel series, an older Ahsoka in The Mandalorian (and she’s great!) and Zee in the DMZ miniseries.
Zee's a mother who lost her son years earlier, in an alternate reality where the US has been torn in two. Good stuff, more emotionally driven than simplistic action, though at first glance you wouldn't say so.
Ah, good stuff. The final book of the trilogy. Isoka and her princess / lover return to Isoka’s home city Kanzhoka to rescue Isoka’s sister Tori.
What they find is a city set on fire, with the rebels led by nobody but Tori. More first person present tense YA action fantasy with a slice of romance, but not excessively so.
I have set up Balabolka in such a way that it monitors my clipboard. When I do a larger copy / paste it will start reading my text.
Alex Sheppard (https://www.facebook.com/authoralexsheppard/) hasn't been very active since 2018, or so it seems after visiting his / her facebook page. Then again, neither am I 😉
However, this post isn't about productivity, but about this book / series. Let's start with the verdict: nah.
This is one of those wallpapers that only means something to me (and a few former employees of a data center company in Amsterdam). We had a couple of LAN parties at the time (this is around the end of the last century 😉 ) and played a lot of Red Alert 2 online. Our clan name was Lost In Translation, or LiT. We never got anywhere 😅 but I still have the logo as a wallpaper. (Click image to enlarge.)
