Evil Ascending (Dark Conspiracy #2) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Evil Ascending
Series: Dark Conspiracy #2
Author: Michael Stackpole
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 259
Words: 90K
Publish: 1991

Another decent story by Stackpole in the Dark Conspiracy rpg gameworld. In the last book, we followed Tycho Caine as he fought the Darklord Fiddleback. In this book, we still follow Caine but we also follow an alien who was created to fight Darklords like Fiddleback as well as a protege of Caine’s as he hunts down the training school Caine came from.

This wasn’t anything I’d recommend to you all now, that’s for sure. It wasn’t bad but it didn’t have that pizazz that Stackpole “could” bring to his own projects. It came across for what it was, a writing project to pay the bills for a year or two. Those kinds of books aren’t necessarily bad nor should they be automatically avoided, but I do think their consumption should be limited, just like cheetos.

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★★★☆☆

From the Publisher & Bookstooge

In this, the second book of the Fiddleback Trilogy, the war of Dark Lords against humanity expands. Rajani, the daughter of an ET, struggles across a ruined Earth to destroy the Dark Lord Fiddleback.

Fiddleback's former puppet, Tycho Caine, assumes the identity of Coyote and takes on his mission: protecting humanity from the creature that created him. Caine's mission leads him to a Tibetan monastery, where the dimension-walking monks help him discover his true nature.

One of Coyote's aides, Sinclair MacNeal, travels to Tokyo to find the enclave of assassins where Fiddleback forged Caine in a very deadly weapon.

Where these three paths converge, Dark Lords class, and reality bends like heated wax.

A Gathering Evil (Dark Conspiracy #1) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: A Gathering Evil
Series: Dark Conspiracy #1
Author: Michael Stackpole
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 276
Words: 98K
Publish: 1991

This is a trilogy by Michael Stackpole. He was a staple for me growing up. He wrote some kickass standalone fantasy novels, he wrote a bunch in the Star Wars Expanded Universe (back when Star Wars’ book were still good, even when they were bad) and he wrote a couple of original series. He also wrote in other universes, what I now call Franchise Fiction. He wrote in the BattleTech series, and really, his Star Wars stuff was franchise fiction too. But it was stuff I grew up on in the 90’s and early ‘00’s and formed what I wanted and looked for in stories. He pretty much stopped by the early ‘Teens and as such, I haven’t seen new stuff from him in years.

So I decided to go back and read some of his older stuff. Stuff I hadn’t read. I wasn’t interested in his Battletech stuff, as I tried to read a couple of books by other authors in that Franchise and didn’t care for it at all. I’d never played the game and had no connection, which meant I wasn’t going to try. That left me with this trilogy, originally called The Fiddleback trilogy and some standalones. I wanted to get a taste and a trilogy is the best way to do so in my opinion. Longer than a standalone book but not a bloated, unfinished monstrosity like Game of Thrones.

Only to find that this trilogy was based on an Role Playing Game (rpg) called Dark Conspiracy. And that this was now known as the Dark Conspiracy trilogy. I found all of this out AFTER reading the book. You might be wondering why I am going on and on and on about this.

That is simple. 

This is Proto-Litrpg and next to the Romance genre, Litrpg is the lowest rung on the ladder. I spit on Litrpg. If I was the hero, Litrpg would be a Nazi Zombie and I would be doing the world a favor by killing it. If Litrpg was a hero, it would be as a pathetic, spineless pos protagonist like Shinji Akari (from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion) and it would be my DUTY to kill him and get a real hero in his place. Needless to say, I don’t like Litrpg. Thus, finding out that this trilogy is proto-litrpg was like drinking a bottle of coke only to find out afterwards that someone had peed in it. GROSS!

And Yet.

Stackpole was still good enough of an author to make me enjoy the story. That’s why it got 3stars. Now that I know he has “pee’d in the Coke bottle” I’m not sure how I’ll feel about the next two books. But that’s another month’s problem, right? I know, I’ll just buy a new, sealed Coke bottle for the next book and call it good enough ;-)

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher & Bookstooge

Tycho Caine is a man with a mission. He's sure of that. But, waking up in a body bag with amnesia, he not sure of much else. Except that someone wants him dead. An exciting adventure novel of a near-future world where technology and occult mysticism merge. Dark forces and hidden masters conspire to control humanity, and Tycho Caine needs to figure out which side he's on.

An interdimensional being wants to invade Earth and Caine was his catspaw. But an opposing Earthly psychic has turned Caine to his side and now it is up to Caine and small group of misfits to stop this Entity from entering their world and devouring it.