Expansion Books

The quantity of books that I have read of Alexander the Great are self explanatory in by looking at my comments.
I was born in the first Alexandria that he created and from his dreams. Mixtures of cultures.Italians came centuries ago,hence I was born.
It is very hard to judge Alexander,as all of the papyruses regarding his life and conquest were distroyed when the library of Alexandria was burned down centuries after his death.
However some and other related documents have survived the centuries.It is hard not to admire such a bright kid,who captured the lives of many over the centuries with his astonishing tactics of war.
Many books have been written and I am sure that many more will come.The point however is that nothing new has been discovered,therefore these are all assumptions of his character and megalomaniac attitudes.This book is very well written,with some sections that are new to me.How did these come to be,and not by famous historians I am not sure.
There are more details in this book about Bessus,the women in Darius life,the invasion of Sogdiana,Bactria,the Hindu Khush.Details of the cities that Alexander invaded with the actual modern location is important for the reader.
It is not a stunning book but very well written.
To me Alexander was not born a conqueror instead he was a discoverer.He wanted to discover the world,but in doing so he had to invade in order to go on.He did not seem to be interested in gold and precious things rather he gave them away.
His tactics for war,were cunning and seemed like a little kid playing with tin soldiers with his friends.
I still have not read or heard of anyone in history who has accomplished so much in such a little time in his life.
I liked the maps with the details of the assaults in this book.as well as the maps altogether.I like to follow the trails of the battles.
He certainly was not a God, never the less you can find him in the Bible as well as the Koran.Isn't that strange?
A lot of discoveries and archaeological sights have been discovered in Alexandria Egypt in recent years.Still the mystery remains.Where is Alexander's body? Are we every going to find him? I hope so.
If we do, we may also discover the papyruses that were also buried with him.What a breakthrough in history that would be.

This book is a wonderful chronical both of Alexander the Great's life and conquests. It's primary strength is in the amount of sheer details of Alexander's conquests, his social programs, etc. By reading this book you'll get an excellent understanding of the politics during his time, the practical difficulties that Alexander had conquering such vast regions, and the various ramifications of Alexander's decisions.

However, this book does go a bit politically correct when it gets into the issue of whether Alexander the Great should be called "the great" or "the accursed" (which btw the Iranians seem prefer...seems they haven't gotten over Alexander ending their golden age). Although, to be fair the author does lay out a good case for relabeling Alexander "the accursed"...or at least acknowledging that his legacy was mixed.

This book does an excellent job imparting a comprehensive understanding of Alexander the great, his life and his effect on history, etc. You even learn enough to see how thing could have gone differently (if Alexander had an obvious heir when died, if he accepted the proposal of Darius to accept all land west of the Euphrates, if he had lived longer and conquered Arabia and Carthage which he was planning on doing).

I find it funny and irksome to read the writings of these armchair kings and generals calling themselves "scholars" sitting on some moral high horse they erect for themselves. I'm just curious what they get out of it. Worthington is certainly a noteworthy scholar with great credentials, but why he sits in his den or office and think he could apply the morals of today to those of some 2500 years ago is not something I could fathom. Clearly, there is an agenda of some sort that belie the thoroughly researched materials.

The book is certainly well-written and it's obvious that Worthington knows his stuff, but his obvious undisguised bias towards the negative over the positive gets a little old. It's so easy to exaggerate the negative (which we ALL have) into something monstrous and totally unsavory. This is exactly what Worthington does time and time again, selectively citing sources or leaving them out to make his point as some sort of prosecutor/judge.

I've read many books about Alexander by noted historians and scholars and they do indeed run the gamut from gushing positivity to dark sourpuss vitriol like this book by Worthington. It's fascinating that Alexander means so many different things to different people - kind of like the German opera composer Wagner. The thing about Alexander is that - no matter what - he'll be studied, admired, revered, reviled, debated over for many millennias to come (assuming mankind survives that long), long after irrelevant books like these have disappeared...

Manual of the Planes discusses the other planes of the Dungeons & Dragons world -- the areas of reality beyond the mortal world. Its goal is to allow for adventures set among these other realms -- primarily, the Shadowfell, the Feywild, the Elemental Chaos, and the Astral Sea. It mainly succeeds.

The first chapter of the book, Exploring the Planes, deals mainly with traveling to the planes and the characteristics of the planes. It includes a description of the basic cosmology of the D&D world, some advice for creating alternate cosmologies if you should desire to, and some notes about Sigil, the City of Doors, a location which can be used as a center for planar adventures (among other things).

Those who've played Planescape in earlier editions will recognize Sigil, and it's only one of many references to previous editions of the game. Veterans will notice new treatments of such things as the City of Brass, the Isle of Dread, the Demonweb, the Blood War, and spelljammers. Newer players need not worry; the book sets these elements adequately within 4e, so that no previous experience with them is necessary.

The next four chapters deal with the major planes suitable for adventuring: The Feywild, domain of faerie and preternatural wilderness; the Shadowfell, decayed echo of the mortal world shrouded in gloom; the Elemental Chaos, home to such locations as the City of Brass and the Abyss; and the Astral Sea, in which the domains of the great powers float like islands. Each of these chapters has four sections: traveling to the plane, exploring the plane, sample inhabitants of the plane, and sample locations within the plane.

The writeups about the inhabitants and locations are fairly brief. They're sufficient to give the flavor of the place, and hopefully to inspire a GM to flesh them out and adapt them to his game. They are not, however, fully detailed writeups that are able to simply be dropped right into the game. The book leaves much of the design work to the individual GM. Some people might consider this a weak point; I consider it a strength, because it fits my preferred style.

Chapters six and seven introduce more mechanics. Six is a collection of monsters from the planes for the GM to employ -- a little over a dozen of them, of which half are demons or devils. These are useful as adversaries, but there's nothing outstanding here. Still, nice to have.

Chapter seven is for players -- new paragon paths, rituals, and magic items. Here, too, there's not much that makes me pause and double-take, but nothing that leaps out at me as broken, either. It should serve its purpose well enough.

Overall, I'd say the usefulness of this book will depend on the GM using it -- and it is a book for GMs, with little that's of interest to players.

I think that it's the sort of book that will inspire me, even if I use relatively little of its content as-printed in my game. On the other hand, I wish that there was more: more about the Far Realms, more about some of those locations, more about the anomalous realms like the Plane of Mirrors and the Plane of Dreams. It's probably unfair to expect a 160-page book to cover all of those planes in depth, especially when I'd probably end up cheerfully ignoring most of that depth anyway and using my own creations, personally. Even so, it just feels too brief at times.

I like it, though. I like it a lot. This is a product that makes good use of the history of the game and its lore, without becoming a slave to it. It puts new twists on old friends like the Isle of Dread and the City of Doors, and it fits things like spelljammers into 4e without also bringing along the annoying parts like helm-related bookkeeping, phlogiston, and gravity wells. I've been satisfied with supplements that have done much less.

Let me get my big criticism out of the way first.. When I see a suggested price on a book around $30, I expect it to be worth that much. I was right off put off by how it only has 159 pages. I mean the player's handbook was only $5 more and twice that size.

With that out of the way, I have to say the content if packed and full of fantastic ideas on how to run a planar campaign. It goes over and explains the new Cosmology within 4th edition, it's quite a bit different from previous editions. (however it also has tips on customizing the cosmology, and even examples of past cosmologies)

The details and descriptions in this book are priceless and there's little in the book I didn't ponder about how much fun it would be to have that happen mid game. If your big into dungeons and dragons, I suggest you take the $30 pill and get this book. It's one of the more useful books so far in 4th edition.

Pros:

1. A few clever ideas like the ex-proxy of Vecna, and a backtracking on the Blood War. The 4e designers said it was a flaw in prior editions, but given the lack of cleverness in the book I'm not surprised they came around.

2. Sigil, a passing nod to spelljammers, inclusion of some of the Great Wheel planes.

Cons:

1. Way overpriced.

2. Poor artwork, with a few exceptions entering the acceptable range.

3. Crunch is only at the end, making the legal pdfs of planar supplements a much, much, much better buy.

4. How dull can you get? Most of the good stuff in this book was taken from the supposedly flawed cosmology of the past, and the rest is pretty much stuff you could come with by yourself over a lazy afternoon of brain storming.

The reviews listed with this book are for other books, not this one. You missed a good chance for an order because I couldn't evaluate this book.

Please check the reviews for this book - the last two posted are not for this book! I was just browsing and noticed the error.

MY HUSBAND HAS SERVICED IN THE ARMY FOR 23 YEARS...IT WAS SO WONDERFUL TO FIND OUT ABOUT THIS BRAVE SOUL.

I thought we were all trying very hard to be color blind! This is not for me!

This memoir is noted as being probably the most detailed first-hand account of the destruction of the buffalo herds during the 1870s. After serving in the Kansas Infantry during the Civil War, Cook did some ranching in western Kansas, prospected near Santa Fe, and then moved to the Texas panhandle where he got involved in the buffalo trade, first as a skinner and then as a hunter. Most of the book recounts Cook's experiences during this time period, until by 1879 just about the entire buffalo herd that once roamed the southern plains had been wiped out. Much of the difficulties he faced had to do with Indian encounters; the tribes that relied on the buffalo for their existence naturally rebelled against their wanton slaughter and frequently attacked the whites.

It gets depressing after a while reading about Cook's animal killing - bears, wolves, antelope, even an eagle all get gunned down, not to mention all the buffalo: he shot 88 in one day, his record. The authenticity of some of his stories seems doubtful: he relates a long episode involving a friend aiding "the widow of Kit Carson," but Carson outlived his wife by a month. In more than one place he misidentifies the well-known Dick Wooten, who lived in Raton Pass on the Colorado-New Mexico border, as Dick Hooten. Cook wrote the book while living in Oregon a good two decades after the events he describes occurred (he dictated the text to his wife), which might account for some of the inaccuracies. Zane Grey based his THE THUNDERING HERD on it. It's well written, but the main tale being told is not a heroic one.

Written (dictated to his wife actually) by Mr. Cook in 1907 this book came about due to the author telling his stories and his friends encouraging him to get them in print (one funded the original edition's costs). It tells a little of his Civil War experiences but spends most of the time telling about his buffalo hunting days, mostly down in Texas. I found it to be long winded, sometimes patronizing, but interesting. You will find that he used terms for Blacks, Indians and Mexicans that would get a person in a lot of trouble today but it seems to me that the man generally got along with the races.
The man must've kept some sort of diary the way he recited details 30 years after the fact. I just wish he'd gone into more detail, the numbers/ details quoted do go along with things I've read from other sources. Apparently it wasn't felt necessary to go into fine detail since most readers either had personal experince or knew of those who had but I found myself wanting to know more about weapons, skinning and selling hides and the general details of life as a buffalo hunter.
The book is worth owning if you're interested in the Buffalo hunting period of American History but you'll find yourself wanting more information than is presented here.

Picking Colin McComb for this product was a good choice. The 2 heavy weights of the Planescape Campain our Colin McComb and Monte Cook. The format is a lot better in this Product giving each plane its own book really helps a DM. Why does it get 3 stars if your going to run a Plane Scape Campain on the Outer Planes your going to have to deal with the blood war. In which case this product is ok. It not bad but having Hellbound The blood War and Faces of eveil the fiends will make your job as a DM much easyer.

The Planescape extension on the Planes of Law, is one that was much needed. Previous book's on the plane had always focused more on the Planes of Chaos (Olympus, The Abyss, Ysgard etc...) who were considered more interesting for adventurers. But with this boxed set you will have all the informations you need to make adventuring on the Planes of Law interesting for your players In this set, the planescape staff decided to make a different book to introduce the DM to each of the Planes of Law, unlike the Planes of Chaos set where you only got one book for all of the planes, so that means you get 5 smaller books instead of a larger one. This is a good idea as it makes it a little faster to find the information you need. The amount of information you get however, is the same as in the other sets so don't get mislead by the information on the back of the box. This boxed set suffer from similar drawbacks to those of the other planescape books ( it's disorganised content and overall lack of concision make it look like a draft that is definitively not user friendly), however the fact that there is only very few other places were you will find some information on the subject might make it worth buying this one.

Birthright is a unique and enjoyable campaign centering, this time, on mass combat and diplomacy, rather than hack-and-slash of standart dungeon crawls. Surprisingly, the settings, cultures, and characters are fresh and lifelike, despite the system's overall age ( 25 years). Some of the areas haven't been described in optimal detail, but perhaps this is best for those who want to be able to expand upon store-bought accessories. This campaign is very interesting, with many things going for it, albeit it is somewhat taxing on the role-playing abilities of some beginners.

Birthright uses the battle system rules that are o.k. but they are not as fun as doing a mass battle by group.

It was ok. If you like history fiction then you will love this book.

A rewarding but sometimes confusing read, "Britain's Imperial Century" examines the rise and fall of the British Empire everywhere from North America, to India, Africa, and Australasia. Aimed at students, the book is a good, interesting read compared to most soporific textbooks. It is not however an ideal starting point if you are not familiar with the topic. Prof. Hyam assumes a level of familiarity with the subject I found a bit steep, even as a student of British history. Unfortunately, the organization is a bit tricky as well, and jumps from subject to subject with little order. If you know something about the British Empire and are looking for a scholarly, engaging study, Hyam is your man. If you are just poking around - keep going.

I wanted to read something that would give me a "next chapter" in the big history of Russia following my read of Massie's "Peter the Great", which is dynamite. This title, first released in 1947, last printed in 1967, is a good concise look at C the Great's reign, but it is a little tedious to read. The writing style reminds you of Sir Walter Scott, many overly-comma'd sentences / paragraphs. Thomson was probably one of those exceedingly scholarly writers who thought that was a good style, but it's heavy. The content gives good coverage of C the Great's relationship with Frederick the Great; and especially her moves with Austria & Prussia against Poland and the Turks. It also gives a good quick picture of life in St. Petersburg at the time, as well as a whole chapter devoted to the serf & workers uprising under the rebel leader Pugachev, which is very enlightening. Also covers her relationship with Potemkin, but notably it gives only a passing reference to all her sexual excesses (of which I've read almost nothing, just heard about it). It is devoid of the tabloid approach that appears to occupy a lot of other books on her you'll see in the Amazon lists. This is political history folks. A good auxiliary, and quick, look at her life and times.