Reading, Writing, & Arithmetic

There are few novels from the TSR* era which can be termed "classic" in respect to literature as a whole. But in terms of TSR-only novels, there are a few which really are good reads. Not terribly long ago I re-read the Chronicles and Legends trilogy for the Dragonlance setting. The difference was that I was rediscovering them through the Annotated versions now on the market. If you liked these trilogies, do yourself a favor and pick up the Annotated versions. I don't know about you but I love behind the scenes information and these come packed with just that.

Last night I finished Azure Bonds from 1988 which takes place in the Forgotten Realms setting. It really is just as good as I remember. Grubb and Novak spin a good mystery even if the ending seemed a bit quick for my tastes. For an early Realms novel, it does a good job of introducing new readers to the setting by mentioning a lot of geography and cultures through its 370+ pages. This novel was a standalone until TSR decided to do all books as a trilogy. The next two were not bad, as I recall, but I don't remember the fun involved as I recall having with the first before re-reading it.

I'll likely visit one or two of the early Harpers series and The Crystal Shard before too long just for the heck of it. It's interesting to see if these books still hold the same enjoyment after 15+ years; or am I looking through the rosy-colored glasses of nostalgia?

And then there's finding time to read! I really must stop offering my writing services to people. Maybe then I'll find more time to do things for me. It's not as if writing rakes in the dollars. I was just gathering my freelancing paperwork together for upcoming tax season and, calculating pdf sales and the work from Dark Quest only, I made around $1,600. Now, I think there's another couple hundred from Goodman Games as well but that's still a porr amount for all the time involved. The good news is that pdf sales are really on the increase since the Behind the Spells series debuted. If sales continue to increase as they did from November to December, maybe I'll just write those pdfs...but I doubt it.

*TSR of course is the company that owned the D&D game from the early 1980s until the company's collapse and subsequent sale to WotC in, I believe, 1999.