Art: Greg Call

We've had plenty of interest in our review of, and excerpt from, J.V. Jones' great new novel, The Cavern of Black Ice. But so far only two careful readers -- John LeDrew, and Morten Hansen of Norway -- managed to locate and correctly answer all four questions in our hidden Black Ice quiz. For their sharp eyes and quick efforts, they've both been awarded with a copy of the novel. There are still two copies of The Cavern of Black Ice to give away, and they'll go to the next two readers who do the same. Good luck!

A Little War on Chaos

From: David A. Weiss

The Puppet King by Douglas Niles

I have a question as to the whole of the Chaos War series of novels. I just recently bought Dawning of a New Age and while in the store I saw the Puppet King which said it was a part of the Chaos War series. How many other books are in the series and how do they relate to the Fifth Age series? A little clarification please.

Senior Editor Wayne MacLaurin replies:

David,
Unfortunately, its been a while since I've been able to follow EVERYTHING TSR is publishing, but the Chaos War series is part of what is generally considered "The Fifth Age" in the Dragonlance setting. There are currently three sets of books being published under this banner:

Dragons of a New Age Trilogy:
The Dawning of a New Age
The Day of the Tempest
The Eve of the Maelstrom

Tales of the Fifth Age Anthology Series
Relics and Omens

The Chaos War Novel Series
The Doom Brigade
The Last Thane
Tears of the Night Sky
The Puppet King
The Silver Stair

From: Franklin Turner

I was very excited when you first began reviewing SF&F games. However your coverage has been extremely limited - AD&D, Vampire: the Masquerade. During the time period in which you have been reviewing games there have been several

GURPS Technomancer

major developments in SF&F role playing games -- Marc Miller published Traveller 4, issued 4 or 5 expansions/sourcebooks and went out of publication; Steve Jackson Games picked up the rights to Traveller and converted it to the GURPS system, and issued several major releases for GURPS (Technomancer, Biotech, Undead, GURPS versions of all that White Wolf stuff for people who like that universe but want traditional dice rolling instead of scissors paper stone); Games Workshop came out with a deep space combat miniatures game for the Warhammer 40k universe and a new edition of

FASA's Crimson Skies

40k which brings in a new race (Dark Eldar); Iron Crown Enterprises has put out a miniature space combat game with several expansions (Silent Death); FASA has put out a new rulebook and several house/clan books for Battletech and an entire new game set in an airplane crazy alternative 1930's (Crimson Skies); TSR has issued a new science fiction roleplaying universe with several sourcebooks (Alternity).

Almost none of this has appeared in your pages. Have you become White Wolf's house organ?

Franklin,
Thanks for the note. And that's probably a fair question, given the level of excitement in our pages for some of White Wolf's and TSR's recent output.

In all fairness, if you haven't seen us cover much beyond those companies, perhaps it's because you haven't been with us long. Over the last year or so we've had extensive multi-part survey articles on such gaming lines as FASA's Battletech and Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu as well as early reviews of some of the Alternity and Traveller materials you mentioned. But we can't argue with the fact that White Wolf, and to a lesser extent TSR, have dominated our attention recently.

Why? The answer is probably simpler than you think: White Wolf (and TSR) have been more vigourous about getting material out to online zines (such as the SF Site) than any other publishers in the industry. White Wolf in particular has really taken the online community seriously, and is extremely energetic in making sure it gets press materials and advance copies out. This kind of energy pays off. Frankly, we can only review what we've seen, and we're more likely to review what we get excited about. White Wolf makes certain of both.

Pagan Publishing's Delta Green

More and more publishers are waking up to the online industry, however. In recent months we've seen mounting interest and energy from a number of top-notch publishers. This issues marks our first coverage of Pagan Publishing, and their terrific Delta Green supplement for Call of Cthulhu. In coming issues you'll also see reviews of Shadowrun, Alternity, and many other gaming lines. Stick with us, and we think you'll be pleased.

Robin McKinley Makes it Official

From: Vonda McIntyre

Hi -- wanted to let you know of a new link: I've written a web page for Robin McKinley (under her direction). It's her official page, and includes an email link. The URL is www.sff.net/people/Vonda/McKinley. If you could add it to the pages on which you have reviews of Robin's work, such as www.sfsite.com/02a/rose50.htm, that would be great.

Thanks in advance.

We'd be glad to.

Next Issue

Art: Tim O'Brien

Predicting exactly what will be in the next issue of the SF Site is something of an inexact science. But we currently have reviews of many exciting recent releases in house, including:

Colonization: Second Contact by Harry Turtledove
Riddle-Master: The Complete Trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip
Choice of Evil by Andrew Vachss
Into the Darkness by Harry Turtledove
The Extremes by Christopher Priest

and many others. Plus our usual columns and detailed New Arrivals features. Be sure to join us on May 1st. We'll be here.