Monica Valentinelli

To be honest once I started Queen of Crows was a hard sell, mainly because I knew this blond woman was telling the story of an aged and respected Navajo shaman on the eve of a major historical tragedy for the tribe. But by the second page I was sunk. Ms. Valentinelli’s talent won me over. I’ve been known to crack open a Tony Hillerman book for a little light reading. This was particularly true during my teenage years. But I also delighted in Sherman Alexie’s thorough skewering of him show more in Indian Killer. An anglo writing about the indigenous has a tenuous path as far as tone and respect without making their characters too perfect and false. What’s brilliant is that Valentinelli managed this with grace in a short story medium.

I adore short stories particularly in the speculative fiction genre because of their limitations. You’ve got to get in there do some quick and memorable world-building and character sketches and then BAM! You’ve got to get out again after telling some kind of a story ark. This makes for affective storytelling when done right. A good short story should be like a honed diamond right to the midbrain.

The main character Tse reflects about his life and the hard choice he must make to which he has already committed but dreads. He has collaborated with a corpse-witch in learning a forbidden spell for the good of his people and has sent them away ahead of a foreseen calamity at the hands of a U.S. Army moving west now that the Civil War is over. Knowing a tiny bit about the cleanliness beliefs of Navajo in general and particularly shamans this tells me all I need to know about how desperate is his gamble. He is compelled to summon an entity who has been communicating with him, but is it a savior spirit or a force of great evil?

Valentinelli provided enough cultural flavor show us her tale is well-researched and well-intentioned but not to an elaborate S.M. Stirling-like degree what would have seen excessive. One unremarked quirk was how quickly white men barged into Tse’s hogahn, this is a terrible breech of hospitality but she already told us what kind of a guy Tse is an it would have slowed the story down a notch. Also on a personal note as someone who stutters I was impressed by the treatment she gave Captain Maynard who stuttered in a realistic manner. Not many authors get it right and the list of actors who do pretty much starts and ends with Michael Palin.

I liked the facts that the antagonists of the piece were not, aside from one real bastard portrayed as evil bigots. Two of them were merely soldiers doing their unseemly bloody duty and all of them reacted in different three-dimensional ways to the weird bloody conclusion of the story.

I really appreciated the extras such as the artwork and author’s afterward. To be honest I didn’t read the first draft of the story, since Valentinelli had already warned us that is was “a jumble of words” that needed to be rewritten. I’ll leave the polished version fresh in my memory, thank you and await more stories about Mahochepi if you please. And please do. show less

Scenes of the Embrace is an anthology product put out by White Wolf as part of their Storyteller Adventure System which seeks to reduce prep time needed to pull together a World of Darkness story. Each SAS product is presented in landscape format and contains hyperlinks for ease of browseability with a laptop or eBook reader screen. Besides laying out each scene in the main text there are scene cards in the back giving you the shorthand of what happens, the motivations of the players, and show more difficulty modifiers to consider as well as room to add your own notes.

I am used to SAS products being standard, yet non-linear adventures segmented into scenes which can easily be shuffled around on the fly depending on what decision your roleplaying table makes but here Monica Valentinelli presents fourteen stand-alone scenes for detailing the vampiric Embrace in your Requiem chronicle. The Embrace is the act of creating a new vampire and it should not be overlooked in either a character backstory or if a character is siring a childe of her own in play. It should be the defining moment in their existence wherein they surrender their mortality, cease to be a human who eats and drinks food and enjoys the summer sun on their faces and becomes an inhuman thing who is burnt by the Sun, lives off of warm blood and has this spiritual bestial drive to struggle against that now defines their nights. There is also a mechanical component to it as well as the sire must sacrifice a Willpower point to create a new vampire, which is one of the most precious character assets. I liked the sidebar with an optional rule to risk Humanity instead. I thought it was a nice touch.

Valentinelli takes the vice in the World of Darkness Virtue/Vice morality system for as inspiration and offers two scenes for portraying the Embrace for each of the Seven Deadly Sins. This is an important moment for both of the characters involved, there is no guarantee the embraced will survive, so it is nice to get a little more attention and suggestions for creating gripping atmosphere. That is something that made Vampire special from the start, the meditations on what it must be like to become one of these monstrous yet still human creatures. It should not be glossed over in the prelude or a lost opportunity for narrative control as part of a storytelling session. Never miss a good opportunity for great storytelling.

The scenes are pretty generalized so you can adapt them to the specifics of your chronicle. I love the idea of an anthology of scenes that you can plug-and-play into your game. They're kind of like plot hooks or "bangs" as they call them in Sorcerer but a bit more detailed and planned out, with situational modifiers pre-planned and consequences for success or failure. Storytellers will still need to think on their feet when running a scene in their chronicle or adjusting to the infuriating inventiveness of their players and the capricious nature of die rolls but it’s nice to have this foundation to work on, and kind of refreshing to have just one scene to run rather than girding your loins for a whole multi-chapter adventure.

Valentinelli has really set her sights upon moral choices being key to a gripping Vampire game and gives these vices center stage. I can almost hear the Greek chorus off to the side predicting doom in each scene. Care is taken to emphasize the relationship between mortal and sire. There are consequences if the neonate is unwilling or unaware of Kindred society or if the Embrace is not sanctioned by the player's Covenant. I like the fact that consequences of a failed Embrace are not simply the death of the mortal (through an unsuccessful Embrace) but a breakdown of the situation entirely such as the mortal fighting his way out and calling the police. The master-servant dynamic is not always cut and dried. Sometimes the mortal is the one seducing the vampire into doing the deed though sex, money, or power. Sometimes she might not fully know the consequences, but merely sensed the danger and chose the wrong person to seduce.

While this supplement is not essential by any means I do see its utility. It is essentially a toolbox that helps you give a bit more gravitas to the transformation of a human being into a undead monster rather than a meek "Step Five: Apply the Supernatural Template". The only fault I see is that the scenes needed to be very general in order to apply to any situation. I would have liked a bit more color, a bit more horror but I can see where space constraints may have applied. As usual the layout is gorgeous and easy to read and artwork spectacular and up to Requiem standards. I like the fact that they tie in the Vice mechanic as a storytelling technique. From what I can see the Scenes From line are Requiem-only but as a diehard Changeling: the Lost fan I know the act of introducing a mortal to the Hedge and its dangers is one of the few unelaborated areas of the series and I would love to see Ms. Valentinelli or Jess Hartley pen a Scenes of Enchantment. show less

This book was a bit of fresh air to read. A lot of books have become a bit predictable lately, and while not the authors fault as it seems the only the cliche-ish of books seem to get popular (at least to me). I really did enjoy this, but I am really happy that it was short stories as opposed to one long story. I like that I was not able to predict what was going to happen. I was also eager to check out every new story to see where the author would take it.

Of course you know that when you show more have a anthology filled with stories not all of them could be great and I did not like every single one of them. I wont list them here but I will list a couple of my favorite stories

On Loving Bad Boys: A Villainelle by: Valya Dudycz Lipescu
Single, Singularity by: John Hornor Jacobs
Chosen by: Anton Strout
Santa CIS (Episode 1: No Saint) by: Alethea Kontis
The First Blood of Poppy Dupree by: Deliah S. Dawson

While there were much more I like, these were the stories I wish the author would expand upon. I would love full books on this especially the Santa CIS. The stories I did like far out-weighed the stories I didn't like. I recommend this book for anyone who is tired of the everyday fairy tale and needs something new show less

This book was a bit of fresh air to read. A lot of books have become a bit predictable lately, and while not the authors fault as it seems the only the cliche-ish of books seem to get popular (at least to me). I really did enjoy this, but I am really happy that it was short stories as opposed to one long story. I like that I was not able to predict what was going to happen. I was also eager to check out every new story to see where the author would take it.

Of course you know that when you show more have a anthology filled with stories not all of them could be great and I did not like every single one of them. I wont list them here but I will list a couple of my favorite stories

On Loving Bad Boys: A Villainelle by: Valya Dudycz Lipescu
Single, Singularity by: John Hornor Jacobs
Chosen by: Anton Strout
Santa CIS (Episode 1: No Saint) by: Alethea Kontis
The First Blood of Poppy Dupree by: Deliah S. Dawson

While there were much more I like, these were the stories I wish the author would expand upon. I would love full books on this especially the Santa CIS. The stories I did like far out-weighed the stories I didn't like. I recommend this book for anyone who is tired of the everyday fairy tale and needs something new show less