The Silver Crown

The Silver Crown
Guardians of the Flame #3
Joel Rosenberg
Fantasy
2 Stars
Epub, 216 Pages

six years or so after the previous book. Carl is still the main character and still has a spear up his butt about slavery. He ends up becoming the duke of a country. I don’t like Carl. He is a whiner and a self-pitying fool.

Carl is an idiot. I wish he would die. Then we could get the story from a different character, like the dwarf. Sadly, it is obvious that I won’t be getting my wish.

This book deals with Carl on his continuing crusade to stamp out slavery, even though we aren’t ever sure why slavery is bad, except Carl feels it is bad and goes into mindless rages whenever someone suggests anything otherwise.

The Sword and the Chain

The Sword and the Chain
Guardians of the Flame #2
Joel Rosenberg
Fantasy
3 Stars
DTB, 251 Pages

in which the group is back in the fantasy world. They free some slaves, start their own little village and some of the group go out and encounter what turns out to be Excalibur. and the wizard\professor who sent them there turns out to be Merlin in our world. Lots of dumb crap about freeing slaves and such

A very predictable, yet enjoyable, little sword and sorcery yarn.

That being said, I have to admit, the whole slavery thing is really irking me. To be specific, why in the world do these characters from our world care about freeing slaves? The world view presented by the author doesn’t make that[a world of freedom, of non slaves] viable. Slavery happens because people believe that they are NOT equal. Without a God who created them all, making them of equal worth because of their worth to Him [not to other created beings], people AREN’T equal. To simply “say” that they are denies the differences we all know exists.

The “lets free all the slaves ’cause that would be good” idea is just presented way too simplistically for me to swallow, as well as running counter to the core world beliefs of the main characters.

The Sleeping Dragon

The Sleeping Dragon
Guardians of the Flame #1
Joel Rosenberg
Fantasy
3 Stars
epub, 171 pages

a group of gamers is transported to a fantasy world. There they assume the characteristics and knowledge [or lack thereof] of their characters. An interesting concept. Then one of the characters is gutstabbed in an inn and dies. Let the gamers know this was a real world, and let us readers know that safety and home were not assured for the characters. And there was another instance where the 2 women of the group get gangraped, for hours, while the others are captive. They are avenged, but it just left a bad taste in my mouth. Nothing graphic, and while it made sense within the storyline, it just felt wrong. The survivors make it back to our world, only to go back to the fantasy world to revive a dead companion. Interesting concept, written ok, very disfunctional characters. Will read the next one or two in the series.