The Wertzone

News has sadly broken that fantasy author and tabletop RPG legend Jean Rabe has passed away at the age of 68. She is best-known for her contributions to the Dragonlance fantasy setting and Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game.

Born in Ottawa, Illinois, Rabe was a keen gamer as a child, starting with checkers and chess and moving up to wargames as a teenager. In 1974 she was introduced to the newly-launched Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. She worked in journalism through the 1980s before leaving the field to join TSR, the publishers of Dungeons & Dragons, in 1987.

At TSR she ran the RPGA Network, wrote articles for Dragon Magazine and penned novels and adventure modules for D&D and Gamma World. She became particularly noted for her contributions to the Dragonlance series. In 1996 she penned the books marking the start of the Dragonlance Fifth Age gaming era.

She also edited a BattleTech magazine, MechForce Quarterly, worked for Imperium Games and wrote fiction in other D&D settings as well as the Star Wars and Shadowrun universes. In 2005 she served as a juror for the Andre Norton Award for YA Fiction; she knew Norton and had co-written multiple works with her. Rabe also was the business manager and editor of the SFWA Bulletin until 2013.

After a hiatus in the early 2010s, Rabe returned to writing and publishing with the successful Piper Blackwell Mysteries urban fantasy series, which extended to six novels published from 2018 to 2023. Her last novel was The Love-Haight Case Files, cowritten with Donald J. Bingle, published in 2024.

Rabe's Dragonlance novels include the Dragons of a New Age trilogy, Maquesta Kar-Thon (with Tina Daniell), the Dhamon Saga and The Stonetellers series. She also wrote the Forgotten Realms novel Red Magic, three Endless Quest novels, the Shadowrun novel Aftershock, and multiple books with Andre Norton, including Return to Quag Keep, a sequel to the very first D&D-based work of fiction.

Rabe was also a prolific editor, editing sixteen anthologies from 2001 to 2013, mostly for DAW.

As well as gaming and journalism, Rabe was a keen animal-lover. She is survived by her husband Bruce Rabe. She will be very much missed.

It's that time of the decade when somebody decides to try to resurrect classic dystopian British space opera Blake's 7. Blake's 7 ran for four seasons and 52 episodes from 1978 to 1981 and attracted a cult fanbase and critical acclaim for its dark themes, ruthlessness to characters and endlessly quotable dialogue. The show has recently been reissued in a remastered format on Blu-Ray, with new visual effects.

Since the show ended - on a famously apocalyptic note - various attempts have been made to relaunch the show. James Bond director Martin Campbell helmed an attempt in 2013, though that petered out. Based on their plot synopsis (which turned Blake from an engineer into a generic soldier), it appears they didn't entirely "get" the property in the first place, so that may have been for the best.

This new attempt is being led by Peter Hoar, best-known for directing the Last of Us episode Long, Long Time, and producers Matthew Bouch and Jason Haigh-Ellery. They have set up a new company Multitude Productions to get various projects onto the screen. Intriguingly, they suggest they are targeting a low-budget model to attract UK and European funding, and also want to dispense with the showrunner model, which they feel has not worked as well in UK television production as it has in American.

Multitude plan to develop some scripts and then seek international partners. However, Hoar in particular is keen to see the show air on the BBC in the UK, as the original did.

The project is in its very early stages.

Legacies of Betrayal, the third Tales of Witness book in the Malazan world by Steven Erikson, has received a tentative release date of 1 October 2026. The book is the second half of No Life Forsaken, the two books being planned as one novel and then split in two for length when Erikson went long (not an uncommon occurrence).

Meanwhile, Erikson's collaborator Ian Cameron Esslemont is writing the fifth Path to Ascendancy prequel novel in the same world, The Last Guardian, which does not have a release date as yet.

After fourteen years, Kathleen Kennedy has stepped down as the head of Lucasfilm, passing the reigns to Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan.

She worked closely with Spielberg on most of his movies, and some with husband Marshall. In early 2012 she was recruited by George Lucas to become co-chair of Lucasfilm Ltd. when it was still an independent company. On 30 October that year, Lucas sold the company to Disney and retired, with Kennedy becoming President.

Charged with succeeding George Lucas and revitalising the success of Star Wars, her approach of identifying talented film-makers and giving them creative freedom initially achieved success: The Force Awakens (2015) and The Last Jedi (2017) were smash hits at the box office (the former still being the biggest movie ever at the American box office), and the former received critical acclaim (despite concerns over its conservative approach to the Star Wars greatest hits). The Last Jedi took much bigger creative swings but only achieved mixed critical success, becoming the most divisive of all Star Wars films. Rogue One (2016) was a success on both fronts, and the first live-action Star Wars TV series, The Mandalorian (2019 - present) was also a hit on her watch and helped launch the Disney+ streaming service to great success.

Unfortunately, The Rise of Skywalker (2019) received a critical drubbing and the film only achieved half the box office of The Force Awakens. Even worse, Solo (2018) had already become the first Star Wars movie to lose money at the box office. TV shows The Book of Boba Fett (2021), Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022) and The Acolyte (2024) also all underwhelmed. Outside of Star Wars, other Lucasfilm properties stumbled: the TV series Willow (2022) was written off as a tax exercise and removed from Disney+ altogether just a few weeks after release, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) underwhelmed at the box office, despite a reasonable critical reception.

To what degree Kennedy should be blamed for these failures remains a fierce point of contention among fans, with it being pointed out that changes in leadership at Disney with wildly different demands for the amount of content caused problems for not just Lucasfilm but also Marvel. More recent Star Wars projects have also been more successful: Andor (2022-25) has been critically lauded as the best Star Wars work of all time in some quarters, whilst Skeleton Crew (2024) was also warmly received critically, though its viewership on Disney+ was not strong (but at least it hasn't been removed from it).

Kennedy confirmed the transition period actually began two years ago, with the plan being to split her role in two: Dave Filoni will take over creative control of the franchise and Lynwen Brennan, formerly of ILM, will handle business affairs. Filoni started work on Star Wars on the Clone Wars TV show (2008-14, 2020) and Star Wars: Rebels (2014-18) before moving over to live-action as a writer, producer (and sometimes actor) on The Mandalorian.

Kennedy also has a foot in the door on forthcoming projects: she is a producer on The Mandalorian & Grogu, a movie spin-off from The Mandalorian due out this May, and Star Wars: Starfighter, due in 2027.

During her departure interview with Deadline, Kennedy also gave a brief update on other percolating projects. James Mangold's is on hold, apparently taking a wild swing with the Star Wars universe. His script is rumoured to be the Jedi origin story, set tens of thousands of years before the rest of the franchise. Taika Waititi has submitted a comedic script but the greenlight has not been given. Donald Glover has also submitted a script, and Steve Soderbergh and Adam Driver are pushing a script written by Scott Burns expanding on Kylo Ren, although this project is believed to be on hold. Simon Kinberg's project is still in active development, with a recent total rewrite of the treatment. More intriguingly, Kennedy confirmed that conversations have happened with David Fincher and Vince Gilligan over them doing takes on the franchise.

Over a century ago, the changelings overran the known world, destroying the ten great empires. Their survivors fled west, finding refuge in the small nation of Semilla, erecting the great Salt Wall behind them to prevent the changelings from following. Behind the Wall, the refugees have built a new civilisation, but have brought some of their old problems with them. A generation ago, a devastating civil war shattered the fragile peace and the pains of that conflict have not been fully resolved.

The memories of that war are stirred when a cold-blooded murder takes place in front of a dozen witnesses, with the killer taking his own life. The killer's best friend, the scribe Quill, is adamant that his friend would not be able to hurt a fly, and his actions have to be the result of outside influence. His investigation, pressing against tides of scepticism, starts exposing secrets many wish had been left untouched...and hinting of a greater threat to all of Semilla.

It's been some time since I sat down and enjoyed a new epic fantasy series. The subgenre had felt oversaturated for a while. Empire of Exiles, the first novel in The Books of the Usurper, helps overcome that genre-ennui by bringing enough fresh ideas to the table whilst still retaining that core appeal of a group of characters coming together to face a threat in a well-realised secondary world.

It helps that the author, Erin Evans, is neither a newcomer nor a slouch. Her six-volume Brimstone Angels series was one of the brightest rays of sunshine to emerge from the otherwise highly troubled 4th Edition period of the Forgotten Realms shared world, and she brings that experience to bear here. Empire of Exiles lands with a bang (a brutal murder, with a clear culprit), immediately complicates things (the murderer has no motive or prior history to suggest why he would do such a thing) and then gradually builds up the story and the world around it in impressive complexity.

We have two primary POV characters. Sesquillio Haigu-lan Seupu-lai, or Quill, starts off feeling like the traditional "callow youth who grows into being a world-saving champion," but what he lacks in experience is made up for by his intelligence and his impressive tenacity. His refusal to believe in a simply illogical situation - his best friend of a decade suddenly turning into a killer for no reason - becomes infectious and causes other people to start doubting the sequence of events. His confidence is also generally well-earned, and it's nice to see a character like this who isn't immediately dismissed as a total lunatic and his arguments are engaged with seriously.

The second major POV is Amadea Gintanas, Archivist Superior at the Imperial Archives, who is in charge of the records and lore of Semilla. Amadea is the older, more no-nonsense, take-charge kind of character who cuts through BS and keeps the plot on track, but she is also harbouring trauma from the civil war twenty-plus years earlier, in which she played a very reluctant part. She is also in charge of a collection of novices and students who are gifted, able to wield magic.

Magic in this setting is original and interesting. Some people - specialists - have affinities for certain substances, like ink, bronze or glass, and can manipulate that substance: one character uses her ability to manipulate ink to "pull" sensitive information out of a letter and hide it under her skin whilst it's shown to someone else, and return it later on. They can also manipulate the constituent parts of those substances, so glass-sensitives also have power over sand. The problem is that they can also become addicted to their powers, and even overdose on them to their own destruction (or those around them). Such a risk is heightened during certain times of year, which vary by substance; this is known as coming into alignment. One of Amadea's jobs is keeping her students on the straight and narrow and out of harm's way when using their powers. It's an intriguing form of magic, only lightly explored in this first book.

There are also smaller POV roles. Richa Langyun, the investigator assigned to the murderers, is refreshingly standard for such a character: he is committed to finding out the truth, no matter how many important toes he steps on in the process, and is gruff but seems to have a heart of gold. Fortunately he doesn't start the story four days from retirement. Yinii Six-Owl ul-Benturan is a specialist in ink and one of Amadea's students, who also allies with Quill early in his investigation, and provides a valuable POV on the use of magic in the setting.

The book also strikes a good balance between dropping us into the action and getting on with business - the book is just 340 pages long but packs in more worldbuilding, character and thematic development, and plot than some volumes twice that size - and explaining what is going on. Exposition is brief, pertinent and usually only delivered where necessary, which is a good balance between the Eriksonian "what the hell is happening?" in media res approach and the alternative of stopping the action every few chapters for a TED Talk on magic, religion and history.

The world is fascinating, and it's interesting that we get two large maps, one of the entire explored world and one of Semilla, but almost the whole story happens in the city of Arlabecca by itself (and a lot of it in just one building, the Imperial Archives). The world map at first feels useless, but as the backstory is revealed and the true horror of what happened to the old civilisations becomes clear, the map shows the sheer odyssey some of the refugee columns had to endure to get to safety. It's a good use of a map to enhance the storytelling rather than just existing as a reference.

With a rich world, solid characters, interesting-but-not-overwrought magic system and an enjoyable mystery plot (expanding into something grander later on), this is a compelling novel. It does have a few weaknesses. One is that it feels like the author was trying hard not to let the book become too dark, so sometime the tone feels a little unsteady with some humour appearing where it doesn't feel apt. Some of the less-well-drawn students in the Archives feel a bit whimsical or comic relief even when it's not really logical to be so. Another issue is that the ten civilisations aren't entirely human, or some were hybrids of humans and other things, so some of the people in the book appear to be entirely human, some have ram's horns coming out of their head and the most alien have tons of octopus-like tentacles. This is mentioned early on and doesn't really come up again, to the point that two characters might be having a conversation with the reader entirely unaware that one of them is not fully human until they casually use their tentacles to pick something up, which can be a little jarring (there being a quick reference to confirm which species is which would have helped).

The maps by Francesa Baerald are also beautiful but designed to be seen in colour; the black-and-white reproductions in the physical books aren't very readable, so I had to download copies from her website to read them better.

But these issues are mostly ignorable. Empire of Exiles (****) is a solidly enjoyable opening to this series, with an interesting world that seems ripe for further exploration. A sequel, Relics of Ruin, is available now and a third book is on its way.

June 1942, North Africa. The Germans have taken Tobruk, but American sniper Karl Fairburne distinguishes himself on the battlefield. A skilled marksman who works best alone, Karl is recruited to help Allied intelligence track down General Franz Vahlen, a German engineer who is working on a rumoured "superweapon" to help the Axis win the war. Fairburne has to fight his way across several German strongholds in the northern Sahara and along the Mediterranean coast to track down and destroy Vahlen's project.

Defying traditional chronology, Sniper Elite 3 is the chronologically earliest game in the Sniper Elite series, but the developers eschew the chance to give its square-jawed, squared-headed, testosterone -embodied hero any kind of origin story. Karl Fairburne is a good sniper and is given a frankly preposterous set of missions to single-handedly infiltrate a bunch of Nazi fortresses to discover what's going with a secret project. Karl just says "okay," and that's about it. The game is basically about you killing many, many Nazis, and has no interest in putting anything in the way of that.

I had previously played Sniper Elite 4, which was solidly enjoyable, and had been planning to visit the rest of the series, but as usual plans were somewhat delayed. Going back to the previous game in the series is an interesting experience. Sniper Elite 3 was released in 2014, three years before its successor, and was designed to work on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, meaning it had to work with much greater limitations of memory. This means the maps are smaller, the set-pieces less impressive and the graphics less accomplished.

However, for an eleven-year-old game, it scales nicely on modern hardware and is still very much a good time. The smaller maps do mean a more focused game, with a faster completion time (this game can be put away in under 8 hours, about two-thirds the length of Sniper Elite 4, so if you do check it out, make sure you get it on sale). Large-scale sniper duels across immense maps aren't so much the order of the day here, with the closer quarters instead requiring players to more freely mix and match long-range and close-quarters combat on the fly, moving from stealth to head-on confrontations more liberally. The game generally does a good job of dealing with this, even if some of its tricks become a bit predictable (like the end of every mission - the exfiltration bit - usually being accompanied by the arrival of large numbers of enemy reinforcements between you and the exit).

The game's selling point is its ridiculously gory "kill-cam," which shows your bullet tearing up the internal organs of the bad guys in unnecessary, but sometimes comical, detail. Setting up trick shots, trying to shoot three enemies in a line with the same bullet etc can yield more experience points (allowing you to requisition better equipment between missions) and achievements. Sniping is entertaining, moreso as close-quarters combat can be more hit or miss: using your silenced sidearm can only guarantee kills on headshots and the various submachine guns have the accuracy of a drunk camel trying to perfectly touch down a moon lander.

The map design is pretty strong, given the technical constraints they were under, and the tension in the game can revolve around the effort expended to get into a good sniping positions versus that enemies will generally locate you within two to three kills and start swarming your location. Your character is more fragile than most video game protagonists so preserving your own life becomes a major priority when considering avenues of attack.

The plot is entertaining bobbins (and is actually based on a real German plan, though it didn't develop as far as during the game), character development is non-existent but also not required, but the game is graphically solid with some excellent sound design. If you want to while away two afternoons or so dispatching ludicrous numbers of bad guys with a chunky array of weapons, Sniper Elite 3 ticks the box quite nicely.

On the negative side, the game's AI is not always the best (and is particularly poor at counter-sniping), and a plethora of bugs remain in the game. Attempting to assassinate one high-priority target proved redundant when he instead fell through the ground and plunged screaming to die on the bottom of the map. Getting caught on the edges of object geometry, usually at the worst possible moment, is depressingly common. This is not the most polished game in history, though I've certainly experienced far worse.

Sniper Elite 3 (***½) executes well what it set out to do: a series of interesting, challenging sniper missions, with a dark sense of humour and some satisfying action, but is showing its age with limited map sizes and some minor jank. Just try not to pay too much for it.