I am a longtime gamer who probably has spent more on rolegaming then I can afford since the late 1980's. My shelves are filled with books for dozens of game-systems but Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) remains one of my personal favourites.

This superlative product was originally published by Games Workshop as two separate books: Power Behind the Throne and Warhammer City - Middenheim. This Hogshead version has the full material from both books in one handy volume. The first section of the book, Power Behind the Throne details an extremely intricate conspiracy by the forces of Chaos in the city Middenheim.

A distinct contrast to the wimpy plots so prevalent in the fantasy roleplaying industry, this is a grade-A, master-level investigative scenario for the veteran player. The huge cast of characters each playing a part in the adventure, yet having motivations and plans of their own, make this adventure a real challenge for players and gamemasters.

This book should be on every gamer's shelf, regardless of which game system you play as an example of how it should be done. Be warned though, the deep roleplaying and many conversations required will bore the combat-oriented player to tears. Real roleplayers who fancy themselves as the fantasy equivalent of Poirot or Holmes will have the case of their lives to unravel.

Written by the two leading practitioners of New Historicism, this book is the most valuable reference up to date demonstrating the power, as well as the weaknesses, of this peculiar "method" of reading. The first three chapters on methodology advocate the immanence of (counter)historical particulars and anecdotes, which explains the authors' reluctance to endorse any transcendental abstraction of theory. Paradoxically, the historical sense as well as literary "taste" (the valuation of difference, details, ruptures) that Greenblatt and Gallagher embrace is recognisably shaped by contemporary theoretical interventions, but this debt to theory is obscured as a result of their disavowal of any "methodological directives." This obstinate disavowal, worse still, seems to join force with the conservative current of "Against Theory" in the name of history (the very motto put forward by some critics who are also related to New Historicism). The next four chapters are the "practice" part, where the authors obviously feel more at home. Their close reading and deft montage of a wide variety of discourses or artifices (drama, fiction, paintings, theological and economic debates, medical treatises...) is marvelous and dazzling, testifying how much New Historicism has widened the horizon of literary criticism. The juxtaposition of topics (the Host and the potato, the wicked sons in Hamlet and Great Expectations) also throws unexpected light on the materials. Yet the question remains: how to theorise further such montage or juxtaposition, if it is not entirely governed by whim?

Any book defined as a true classic is likely to be thought of as stultifying and incomprehensible...at best. Yet, there are dozens and dozens of books that are true classics and still manage to speak to today's modern audience. Boccaccio's Decameron is one such book.

The Decameron was written around 1350 during an outbreak of plague in Florence. It is the fictional account of ten young people who flee the city to a country manor house and, in an effort to keep themselves occupied and diverted, begin telling stories.

Ten days pass in the pages of the Decameron (hence its name), and each person tells one story per day, making a total of one hundred stories. These are stories that explore a surprisingly wide range of moral, social and political issues whose wit and candor will probably surprise most modern readers. The topics explored include: problems of corruption in high political office, sexual jealousy and the class differences between the rich and the poor.

The titles themselves are both imaginative and fun. One story is titled, "Masetto da Lamporecchio Pretends to be Deaf and Dumb in Order to Become a Gardener to a Convent of Nuns, Where All the Women Eagerly Lie With Him." And, although the title, itself, is a pretty good summary of the story, even a title such as this cannot adequately convey Boccaccio's humor and wit.

Another story that seems surprisingly modern is, "Two Men are Close Friends, and One Lies With the Other's Wife. The Husband Finds it Out and Makes the Wife Shut Her Lover in a Chest, and While He is Inside, the Husband Lies With the Lover's Own Wife on the Chest." A bit long for today's modern world, perhaps, where popular books are dominated by titles such as John Grisham's The Firm, but the outcome of this story is as socially-relevant today as anything that happened in fourteenth-century Florence.

The Decameron, however, goes far beyond plain, bawdy fun and takes a close look at a society that is unraveling due to the devastating effects of the plague. The people in Boccaccio's time suffered terribly and the book's opening pages show this. The clergy was, at best, inept and, more often than not, corrupt. Those who had the misfortune to fall ill (and this includes just about everyone) were summarily abandoned by both their friends and family.

Those looking for something representative of the social ills of Boccaccio's day will find more than enough interesting tidbits and asides in these stories. Serious students of literature will find the ancestors of several great works of fiction in these pages and readers in general cannot fail to be entertained by the one hundred stories spun by these ten refugees on their ten lonely nights.

It seems almost redundant that I bother to rate this with yet another 5-star review (especially since I didn't buy it from Amazon-- Sshhhh, don't tell anyone), but this is one of the books that changed my life.

As a mind struggling to repair the damage caused by the American education system, I set out to follow other curriculums from times when learning was actually valued. Since many of the so-called "classics" American students today are forced to read in school are thinly-disguised socialist propaganda, I chose to look to much earlier times. I picked up The Decameron by chance, having remembered it from an off-hand statement a high school history teacher had made once. The book had everything, exalting adventure, romance, heroism, virtue, and other things I had been taught were subjective and dangerous. I found it the most refined and tastefully deviant book I had ever read and I have never been able to understand why students are not exposed to it as the basis for the study of literature.

Boccaccio's stories (told one per day, by each of the ten characters over ten days) give great insight into the midieval paradigm while poking fun at its obvious problems. The tales cover the whole of Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor, which was very unique for their time. The rolls of heroes involve characters of every culture, race, religion, and background in the known world-- something unheard of before this book. Boccaccio's great love and understanding of women also shines through, the expression of which tops the list of reasons as to why he was exiled from Florence! Most of the stories are based on actual people and events, though the author takes a great deal of artistic license in some cases. A great many little-known facts can be learned by reading the historical notes (one reason why I chose the Penguin Classic version). Boccaccio surpasses every other man of letters (before him or since) in ability and creativity and will no doubt do so for centuries to come.

Giovanni Boccaccio THE DECAMERON. Second Edition. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by G. H. McWilliam. cli + 909 pages. Penguin Classics. London: Penguin Books, 1995. ISBN 0-14-044629-X (Pbk).

Second-hand opinions can do a lot of harm. Most of us have been given the impression that The Decameron is a lightweight collection of bawdy tales which, though it may appeal to the salacious, sober readers would do well to avoid. The more literate will probably be aware that the book is made up of one hundred stories told on ten consecutive days in 1348 by ten charming young Florentines who have fled to an amply stocked country villa to take refuge from the plague which is ravaging Florence.

Idle tales of love and adventure, then, told merely to pass the time by a group of pampered aristocrats, and written by an author who was quite without the technical equipment of a modern story-teller such as Flannery O'Connor. But how, one wonders, could it have survived for over six hundred years if that's all there were to it? And why has it so often been censored? Why have there always been those who don't want us to read it?

A puritan has been described as someone who has an awful feeling that somebody somewhere may be enjoying themselves, and since The Decameron offers the reader many pleasures it becomes automatically suspect to such minds. In the first place it is a comic masterpiece, a collection of entertaining tales many of which are as genuinely funny as Chaucer's, and it offers us the pleasure of savoring the witty, ironic, and highly refined sensibility of a writer who was also a bit of a rogue. It also provides us with an engaging portrait of the Middle Ages, and one in which we are pleasantly surprised to find that the people of those days were every bit as human as we are, and in some ways considerably more delicate.

We are also given an ongoing hilarious and devastating portrayal of the corruption and hypocrisy of the medieval Church. Another target of Boccaccio's satire is human gullibility in matters religious, since, then as now, most folks could be trusted to believe whatever they were told by authority figures. And for those who have always found Dante to be a crushing bore, the sheer good fun of The Decameron, as Human Comedy, becomes, by implication (since Boccaccio was a personal friend of Dante), a powerful and compassionate counterblast to the solemn and cruel anti-life nonsense of The Divine Comedy.

There is a pagan exuberance to Boccaccio, a frank and wholesome celebration of the flesh; in contrast to medieval Christianity's loathing of woman we find in him what David Denby beautifully describes as "a tribute to the deep-down lovableness of women" (Denby, p.249). And today, when so many women are being taught by anti-sex radical feminists to deny their own bodies and feelings, Boccaccio's celebration of the sexual avidity of the natural woman should come as a very welcome antidote. For Denby, who has written a superb essay on The Decameron that can be strongly recommended, Boccaccio's is a scandalous book, a book that liberates, a book that returns us to "the paradise from which, long ago, we had been expelled" (Denby, p.248).

The present Penguin Classics edition, besides containing Boccaccio's complete text, also includes a 122-page Introduction, a Select Bibliography, 67 pages of Notes, four excellent Maps and two Indexes. McWilliam, who is a Boccaccio scholar, writes in a supple, refined, elegant and truly impressive English which successfully captures the highly sophisticated sensibility of Boccaccio himself. His translation reads not so much as a translation as an original work, though his Introduction (which seems to cover everything except what is most important) should definitely be supplemented by Denby's wonderfully insightful and stimulating essay, details of which follow:

Chapter 17 - 'Boccaccio,' in 'GREAT BOOKS - My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World'
by David Denby. pp.241-249. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. ISBN 0-684-83533-9 (Pbk).

"Nightmare, With Angel" is a 1992 book that obviously didn't receive too warm a welcome, as it is now out of print. If you can find a copy, however, it is a brilliant character study by a gifted English writer.

There are a few plot holes in the plot, and the pace is typically British "slow." However, one cannot deny the power of the characterizations. There are five outstanding examples.

*Marianne Cadogan - the eleven year old protagonist of the story is a complex mix of child and adult. You may at first be irritated with the way she entwines herself in the life of one Ryan O'Donnell, a convicted child molester who rescues her from a certain death in the first chapter. However, once you learn more about Marianne, you can't help but admire the child's tenacity, spunk, and ability to warm the hearts of even the coldest of people. As Marianne leads Ryan on a seemingly futile search for her estranged mother, she develops a maturity way beyond her years, and can only share her desperation and hope as she comes so close to a reunion. *Ryan O'Donnell - a remarkable study in social alienation and heroism. Ryan starts out avoiding Marianne's friendship, but in the end, he is persuaded to assist Marianne in her quest. As we learn more about Ryan, it becomes hard to view him as a hero. He DID commit the crime he was imprisoned for at the age of fifteen. But in journeying with him to Germany, we discover much more about him, and as he does everything he can to help Marianne, he becomes the true hero of the book, and the ending is gutwrenching in its poignancy and sadness. Three other characters well-fleshed out are the mother, Anneliese Cadogan, whose descent into madness and irreparable harm, is chilling; Patrick Cadogan, the father of Marianne, is also expertly drawn, and he too undergoes a metamorphosis that can only be deemed as inevitable, in light of what he must go through to re-unite with his daughter; and finally, the police detective Jennifer is also a sharp characterization, a mix of professional apathy and human sympathy, too.

All in all, this book is worth reading to simply experience the rich characterizations of Gallagher's pen.

I can't agree with the previous critics who found holes in the plot and the pace slow. Given that they didn't cite any holes I can't rebut their claim, but I certainly found none and I am a quite critical reader. My take on Nightmare, With Angel was that it is a terrific thriller, far beyond the norm that takes up so much shelf space today. It is a pity that it is out of print, and I definitely recommend seeking out a used copy to thriller readers everywhere.

What makes Nightmare, With Angel so special is that the reader is never quite certain about the protagonist, Ryan O'Donnell. We first meet him saving the life of a young girl, Marianne Cadogan; but he is a reluctant hero at best. Marianne is drawn to him, but the reader knows him first as little more than a bum, then as a former mental patient, and finally as a convicted child killer. Whether the conviction was justified remains questionable almost to the end.

It is this complexity of characterization that makes the book so very good. Few of the characters are drawn in black or white; even Marianne's father and mother are ultimately revealed as deeply flawed people. As to the identity of the "Angel" of the title, O'Donnell, Marianne, and O'Donnell's psychotic vision are all cast at various times.

After reading Gallagher's Red, Red Robin (also out of print, but see my review here) I ordered this book, and Gallagher is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. Look to him for something more than the standard American serial killer novels that have overwhelmed popular publishing today.

I would also put this in a special category, cop vs. monster. It is solid, fun stuff...up there with that classic 1970's work by Leslie H. Whitten "Progeny of the Adder" and a small cut above the 'Repairman Jack' novels by F. Paul Wilson. Folks, this kind of classic, 'horror pulp' writing is long overdue for a comeback (maybe Harry Shannon's 2002 shriek-fest "Night of the Beast" is the harbinger; let's hope so) and in the meanwhile, we should all be supporting the genre by digging up these older, cooler novels and re-reading them. "Valley of Lights" is cool and classic. Go for it.

The above pretty well sums it up. That's why I don't want to spend too many words on this book. Trust me, if you like cop procedurals and/ or demonic possession stories you're pretty safe buying this.

The cop versus monster story is a somewhat peculiar subgenre (in my opinion anyway). I myself like it and I can think of a few more examples besides VALLEY OF LIGHTS which will be more than worth your time. Think Gary Brandner's CAMERON'S CLOSET and DOOMSTALKER and movies like Denzel Washington's FALLEN and the more obscure, but extremely enjoyable SIXTH POWER starring, above all people; Lou Diamond Phillips.

Anyway, back to VALLEY OF LIGHTS. It's a fast, short read with an adrenaline rush of a pace and some pretty good plottwists. Stephen Gallagher shows that's he's more than capable with the horror and gore elements and you wouldn't know that he's British judging from this Arizona based and a 100 percent American cop story.
I can also understand why he's moved on to more mainstream thriller efforts like RED,RED ROBIN and DOWN RIVER. His style's really accessable. I like him, I like his writing, and not only because he used to be a staffwriter on the original DOCTOR WHO tv-series.

I'll be reading more of his work in the future, meanwhile VALLEY OF LIGHTS is an excellent starting point, if you want to be introduced to this more than excellent writer.

Why would anyone want to listen to dark, dreary stories of the undead, Angels that drink blood, this book was very misrepresented in the title. "Deamon" fantasies is much more appropriate. I was looking forward to a spiritual uplifting, instead I threw all the tapes and box into the trash, right where it belongs.