Recommended (and otherwise)

I noticed today while ordering a book for research that Amazon.com is does a surprisingly good job with its recommendations system. This would in contrast to, say, Netflix.com which for reasons that aren't entirely clear is under the impression that I'd simply adore the movie Planet B-Boy which "affords viewers exclusive access to the underground world of break dancing."

In general, Amazon points me toward a combination of history, Christian non-fiction, and board games: a sound strategy. Today I was encouraged to investigate the games Small World and Castle Panic, both of which look quite interesting. I'm especially intrigued by the latter since its a cooperative game, which is something we don't have yet. There was I time when I thought about purchasing Shadow's Over Camelot to fill that void, but Shadows is an complex, long, and somewhat dark game, which limits the number of potential fellow-players. Castle Panic is simpler, faster, lighter and (a bonus) cheaper, so I think I'll move it to the top of the 'games to buy' list.

However, the biggest discovery of the day wasn't a board-game so much as a website about board games. I give you Board Games With Scott which offers "video explorations" of a wide variety of games. The author is an avid gamer who tries out various games and, if he likes them, creates a video explaining how they work, showing off the pieces, and letting you see how an actual game might be played. It's something that's difficult to get out of a written review and really impossible to get from the back of a box. It's definitely a site I'll check with regard to all future game purchases. You can see Scott's run-down on Castle Panic here. I recommend it.

In other news, I finished the Scarlet today (I had about 20 pages left after the weekend and really felt the need to get to the end). I can't strongly recommend it. This is the middle book of the King Raven trilogy and, as is often the case with the second part of a trilogy, it was a little unsatisfying. More so than in the first book I found myself occasionally skipping over multiple pages in order to keep the story moving along. Lawhead's striving for historical accuracy (or at least vague resemblance) is praiseworthy, but sometimes he seems to get carried away in describing the historically accurate details of things that don't really matter. He also has one mystical character who tell stories to the other characters; these stories-within-the-story can sometimes go on for a dozen pages. You have to be a really good writer to get away with that and Lawhead doesn't always pull it off. And finally, near the end, the way in which the 'good guys' foil the plans of the 'evil doers' requires that the 'evil doers' behave a manner so incredibly stupid that it was difficult to take seriously.

The book was still fairly enjoyable, and I'll probably pick up the final work in the trilogy if I see it at the library, but I don't think I'll be making any special trips to go looking for it.