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Tag Archive: Ten Speed Press


Younger readers can jump into Dungeons & Dragons adventures with new book series

Filed under: Comics & Books, Con Culture, Fantasy Realms — Leave a comment
September 9, 2019

  

Review by C.J. Bunce

Ten Speed Press has partnered with Wizards of the Coast to begin a new series of adventurer books to get young readers involved with storytelling, fantasy worlds, and role playing games.  The Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guide books have everything you need to create your own characters and stories, perfect for kids who aren’t advanced enough in their reading yet or readers not familiar with what D&D fantasy games have to offer.  Each lavishly illustrated guide is a primer on the key segments of gameplay or telling any kind of fictional story with friends.  About half the dimensions of the traditional D&D books and nearly as thick, these deluxe hardcover editions will fit right along with your 5th Edition books on the shelf should you decide to continue with D&D.

You can start off with Warriors & Weapons, where you’ll learn how to create your own hero and band of adventurers.  Begin with one of the fantasy races: robust dwarf, graceful elf, industrious gnome, charismatic half-elf, menacing half-orc, nimble halfling, powerful dragonborn, furtive beaked kenku, agile feline tabaxi, proud tiefling, reptilian tortle–or human.  Then learn about the classes: barbarian, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, or rogue.  Finally, you’ll assemble your outfit, armor, weaponry, and pack of gear that will help you as you head out into the unknown.  Along the way, the authors (Jim Zub, with Stacy King and Andrew Wheeler) describe what you’re doing, how to do it, and why it fits into the story, all spelled out so nearly any level of reader can understand.  And you’ll meet classic D&D characters for each of the races and learn what makes them tick.

Fans of the D&D Endless Quest books introduced last year (and reviewed here at borg) will find these new books a few steps more advanced.  With each volume of the Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guide you’ll be asked to consider for your story key worldbuilding elements:  Who? What? Where? How? When? and Why?  The adventure continues in the second volume, Monsters & Creatures.  What dangers will your party of heroes face?  One-eyed beholder, vampire, owlbear, or sprite?  Frost giant, banshee, or dragon?  If you’re introducing someone to gaming with these books, think of this volume as a miniature edition of the Monster Manual or Volo’s Guide to Monsters.

Below, take a look at previews of each of the first two volumes in the Adventurer’s Guide series, and a first look at the next volume, Dungeons & Tombs, courtesy of Ten Speed Press:

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Happy Arbor Day! Plant a tree, and check out these three great nature books

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April 26, 2019

 

It’s Arbor Day, so let’s revisit three books we’ve looked at previously at borg that remind us of the fragility and wonder of the magnificent tree.

If the Scots abandoned Scotland to nature, it would be the birch that would be the first tree to seize its chance, and a birch forest would walk the streets of Edinburgh.

Thomas Pakenham was referring to a gigantic pioneer birch tree in Rothiemarchus, Scotland, but he may have well been writing about the Ents, the grand, wise, old leafed characters of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth.  In his book Meetings with Remarkable Trees, Pakenham reproduces his real-life journey across continents meeting some of the oldest inhabitants of the planet, even if they never actually “walked” the Earth.  In beautiful photographs and stories, he introduces readers to the most noble of Earth’s elders, a chance to marvel in awe at their enormous height, or breadth, of their obvious beauty or strikingly twisted, meandering, slim, or expansive forms.  Pakenham, the 8th Earl of Longford, an Anglo-Irish writer, historian, and tree enthusiast, selected trees “mostly very large, and mainly very ancient, and all with a strong personality,” highlighting the unique qualities unique to each remarkable individual.  His folksy speech and storytelling is refreshingly regional, providing an herbivorous mirror to fellow Brit James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small.

To visit these trees, to step beneath their domes and vaults, is to pay homage at a mysterious shrine.  But tread lightly. Even these giants have delicate roots.  And be warned that this may be your farewell visit.  No one can say if this prodigious trunk will survive the next Atlantic storm–or outlive us all by centuries.

Thomas Pakenham’s photograph of the great Fredville oak, named “Majesty” at least as early as 1820 when it was sketched by artist Jacob Strutt.

And, indeed, even some of the trees pictured in Meetings with Remarkable Trees are no longer around, having succumbed to storm or man-made destruction.  Pakenham’s tome is something profoundly sacred or spiritual.  It’s peppered with historical references, literary allusions to specific trees, and including some very famous trees, whether a thousand years old or more than 200 feet tall.  It seems preposterous humans travel the globe to see manmade creations when we could be on pilgrimages to commune with these ancient living beings.  Sixty trees are grouped by personality: Natives, Travellers, Shrines, Fantasies, and Survivors.  Once you’ve met Pakenham and his craggy acquaintances in this book, you’ll want to move on to accompany the champion of trees on a year in his life in his book, The Company of Trees: A Year in a Lifetime’s Quest.

A different approach to individual trees can be found in photographer Diane Cook and Len Jenshel’s Wise Trees (a preview is below).  Some ancient and many not so ancient, the trees in this book include 50 selected from five continents and identified for their historic or inspirational stories.

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New year? New guide provides a road map for personal activism and change

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January 13, 2019

Review by C.J. Bunce

It’s a new year.  Have you made any resolutions yet?  If you’ve ever wanted to support a cause and couldn’t figure out a practical way to actually make a difference, a new field guide will get you started.  It’s Road Map for Revolutionaries, a step-by-step approach to getting from an idea to actually having an impact.  If you’re tired of inaction and just talk, you need to know the rules of change and how to navigate them.  Pick a cause–anything you view strongly–then read through the book with an eye toward getting more involved.  Written by cause advocates Elisa Camahort Page, Carolyn Gerin, and Jamia Wilson, readers can approach their participation from any number of strategic angles.

Knowing the laws and regulations that apply is a key first step.  The authors provide an extensive section on protests and civil disobedience, where your rights extend and the limits of those rights–how to raise awareness, how to meet, lobby, and influence representatives, basics on asserting economic pressure to achieve change via boycotts, buycotts, and divestments, and understanding the role shareholders can take to influence corporate responsibility.  Roughly a third of the book keys in on how you can work to update institutions that are not keeping up with changing times.

For some Road Map for Revolutionaries will be a refresher on high school Government and Economics classes, for others it can be a first step into navigating into a more civic role personally.  Understanding the role of social media today, understanding modern terms that weren’t used even a few years ago–all of these ideas will update even those who consider themselves lifelong policy advocates.  It would make a good companion to last year’s The Encyclopedia of Misinformation (reviewed here at borg), another handbook for navigating a quick-paced, tech driven world.

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New guide to Planet Earth is the ultimate ecology book

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January 2, 2019

Review by C.J. Bunce

If you’re thinking about how you can change the world for the better in 2019, one step in the right direction would be reading writer/artist Rachel Ignotofsky‘s latest science book, The Wondrous Workings of Planet Earth: Understanding Our World and Ecosystems, an easy to understand guide to the elements of science that converge to tell us about the inter-relationships of all life on Earth.  Ecosystems and organisms, wastelands to deserts and the oceans, from lichen to predators, with some -isms to learn or re-learn (like commensalism and mutualism), concepts you might learn in grade school natural science and geography, high school biology, and college geology and environmental studies.  In a word, it’s what everyone should know about Earth’s ecology.

One of my own proudest achievements was belonging to my grade school’s ecology club between 1975 and 1982, learning about the natural world, planting trees, and making the area better for wildlife.  Many concepts I learned then and supplemented in junior high, high school, and college, are peppered throughout this brightly illustrated volume.  Readers will examine some benefits of particular ecosystems (and threats to them), including the Redwood Forest, the Mangrove Swamp, the Mojave Desert, the Amazon Rainforest, the Atacama Desert, the Pampas, the Andes, the British Moors, the Alps, the Siberian Taiga, the Mongolian Steppe, the Himalayan mountains, the Congo rainforests, the Savannas, the Sahara, the Great Barrier Reef, the Tundra, and more.  The classification of lifeforms and cycles of life are detailed, including the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the phosphorous cycle, the water cycle, and plant cycle.  Deforestation, invasive species, desertification, and pollution are identified as just some of the threats the Earth faces.

Writer/artists Rachel Ignotofsky offers through her unique style charts, diagrams, and pictures, all as explanations of how the world’s piece parts interplay to create the global ecosystem.  Key to all of it is how humans can act to protect the planet.

Take a look at this preview of ten pages from Ignotofsky’s book, courtesy of Ten Speed Press:

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Learn to write better with “That Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means” and “Save the Cat!”

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December 6, 2018

 

Review by C.J. Bunce

Two new book releases will get you (or your favorite writer) back on track, whether you’re trying to write a novel or communicate any other way.  “Words have meaning” is the theme of That Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means, a look at the most incorrectly used words in the English language–and how to turn around your usage if you’re doing it wrong.  The second book is a new look at a classic work on writing, Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book on Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need, a step by step approach to address the writing process if your goal is to write the next Great American Novel.

It’s not just a good paraphrased line from Inigo Montoya.  For That Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means, sister and brother writers Kathryn Petras and Ross Petras (authors of You’re Saying It Wrong) researched surveys, dictionaries, language usage panels, and language experts to identify the 150 most commonly confused, abused, questioned, and misused words and phrases in the English language.  It’s a small but jam-packed book that should go next to your copies of Strunk & White, The Chicago Manual of Style, and The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage.  It also will help anyone preparing for their SATs, as words on this list have been commonly used in past tests.  The handy pocket-size also might make this a good choice for stocking stuffer.

Each word or phrase is listed by its frequent mistaken usage followed by quotes by celebrities, periodicals, or online articles getting it all wrong.  Even the most critical writer will agree with the authors’ selections of the way you should or shouldn’t use the term, although you might disagree with one or two along the way and purists may think a few times the writers have caved to modern usage choices.  The authors will reinforce, remind, or educate readers about many traps.  Can anything ever reach a crescendo?  No.  Is “contiguous United States” almost always used incorrectly by nearly everyone?  Yes.  If you regularly use words or phrases (or non-words in some cases) like chronic, begs the question, cliché, alright, in regards to, just desserts, from whence, peruse, verbal, verbiage, and utilize, and you’re not sure of what you’re doing, you probably need this book.   The Petras’ book should be required reading in every high school senior English or first year college English class.

An excerpt from That Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means.

Writers of screenplays and novels may have already heard about one of the handful of books on writing for film, Blake Snyder’s 2005 book Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need, one way to approach writing for movies.  In Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, author Jessica Brody takes Snyder’s original book and tweaks it for novel writing, arguing the same basic rules for storytelling apply for novels and film.  If you’ve read the original you’ll be familiar with the approach taken here: the best stories include 15 basic “beats” or plot points.  The theory is that if your novel includes these beats and applies them correctly and in the right places, you’re more likely to have a story that agents, publishers, and readers will take note of.

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Review–Find a treasure trove of Dungeons and Dragons’ past in new Art and Arcana visual guide

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Con Culture, Fantasy Realms, Retro Fix — Leave a comment
November 2, 2018

Review by C.J. Bunce

If you’re not a player of Dungeons & Dragons, a new journey through the hills and valleys of the roleplay game that started it all will get you up to speed quickly.  Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History is a comprehensive, authoritative, and licensed look back at nearly 50 years of gaming, storytelling, and artwork.  If you grew up with the game you are certain to find both nostalgia and page-after-page of new information in its more than 700 color images from the past, images of heroes and villains, monsters and other creatures, that brought in some 40 million players over the years.  Boasting some 10-15 million active players today, D&D now features the results of writers/D&D celebrity fans Michael Witwer (D&D historian), Kyle Newman (director of the movie Fanboys), Jon Peterson (game historian) and Sam Witwer (actor, Being Human, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica) pulling together published images and source art from each edition of D&D’s core books, supplements, and modules, magazines, advertisements, tie-in products, sketches, and draft rules.  Their sources include the archives at Wizards of the Coast, private collectors, and more than 40 designers and artists from every era of the game’s history.  Released in two editions, fans old and new can choose from the standard 448-page hardcover alone or a special edition Hydro74-designed boxed set with some intriguing extras.  You’ll find a 14-page preview below courtesy of publisher Ten Speed Press.

This… treatise… this behemoth of a book is smartly designed so readers can approach it for a quick burst of throwback fun or a detailed dive behind the creation and many changes of the game and the companies behind it.  You can find a side-by-side evolution and comparison of monsters and other characters, soak in old maps and character sheets, and compare the covers and key art across all editions.  Possibly the best contribution is comparative images showing specific pop culture sources for many of the designs that made it into the early books and supplements, everything from Frank Frazetta Conan the Barbarian paintings to panels of comic book art from Marvel Comics’ Strange Tales.

From Guidon Games’ Chainmail to TSR to Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro and the latest 5th Edition rule books, the D&D story is one of corporate takeovers, failures, successes and strategies, all to survive and ultimately consolidate with games including Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, World of Warcraft, and the entire Milton Bradley tabletop game catalog, all under one umbrella.  It all started with creators Gary Gygax and David Arneson, and their efforts to build on miniature figure battle games from centuries past, and modern rules for gaming that had a historic source:  sci-fi/fantasy author H.G. Wells first penned a gaming rulebook for miniatures titled Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys’ games and books, an influential book inspiring gaming to this day.  The founders would pull in amateur artists and eventually professional artists, sprouting from a small headquarters in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, ultimately the source of Gen Con, the gaming convention that has been tied to D&D since the beginning.

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