Books Received, February 1 to February 7
8 Feb, 2025
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Why Won’t You Love Me? by Boop (February 2025)
Senpai will be yours… no matter what.
In this chaotic micro tabletop game, you play as a yandere, who will stop at nothing to make senpai notice you. Whether they like it or not, you will spend your lives happily ever after together. Even if that means you need to do things you wouldn’t usually do.
Whether through sweet whispers, carefully planned “accidents,” or eliminating the competition, your love story is one of passion, deception, and just a little bit of murder.
Set up the perfect confession – The cherry blossoms will swirl around you both as you hand over your love letter. Approach Senpai at the Fireworks Festival with a sneaky kiss… The day is yours to seize!
Sabotage your rivals - Stop those Senpai’s other admirers who are unworthy of their love. You might have to improvise on the spot — but if there’s food here, there’s a kitchen, and where there’s a kitchen, there’s knives!
Win over Senpai — By any means possible. If that means its only you and them left in this world, so be it. Just, try to avoid (or defeat) law enforcement and others that get in your way
With a very simple ruleset requiring only a d10, “Why won’t you love me!?” lets you and your friends roleplay the classic trope all the way to its dramatic conclusion.
FIYAH No. 33 published by Fiyah Literary Magazine (February 2025)
Witch and Mercenary (Light Novel) Vol. 1 by Chohokiteki Kaeru & Kanase Benchi (Sepember 2024)
Nothing in this world is more dangerous than a witch. The epitome of fear and terror, they can summon floods on a whim, conjure balls of fire out of the air, or even destroy entire countries overnight. Incur their wrath, and no one is safe. At least, that’s what everyone thinks, and it’s the very reason they all want Siasha dead. After yet another violent battle for her life, she teams up with Zig, a mercenary, and they depart for unknown lands to find somewhere she can live in peace. But is the pair any match for the lost magic and vicious monstrosities that lie ahead?
Locus, February 2025 published by Locus Publications (February 2025)
The Magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field.
(I am a bit puzzled to get Locus, as I cancelled most of my subs to yank magazines due to the potential trade war)
Orphan Planet by Madeehah Reza (February 2025)
What if you were the only person living on a planet?
Elif is the warden of Maoira‑I, a planet of interest for the spacefaring remnants of humanity seeking a new home.
But Elif is a child, and the only human inhabiting this world of violent seasons, with just an AI system for company.
The Unkillable Frank Lightning by Josh Rountree (July 2025)
In this adventurous retelling of Frankenstein in the Wild West, a resourceful woman struggles with the man she loved before she made him into a monster.
Catherine Coldbridge is a complicated woman: a doctor, an occultist, and briefly, a widow. In 1879, her husband, Private Frank Humble, was killed in a Sioux attack. Consumed by grief, Catherine used her formidable skills to resurrect her husband. But after the reanimation, Frank lost his soul, becoming a vicious undead monster. Unable to face her failure or its murderous consequences, Catherine fled to grieve her failure. Twenty-five years later, Catherine has decided she must make things right. She travels to Texas with a pair of hired killers ready to destroy Frank.
But Frank is no longer a monster; he is once again the kind man she knew. He has remade himself as the Unkillable Frank Lightning, traveling with the Wild West Show, and even taking on a mysterious young ward. Now Catherine must face a series of moral dilemmas that cannot be resolved without considerable bloodshed.
With his signature lean, clean prose that reads like Raymond Chandler, Josh Rountree (The Legend of Charlie Fish) has penned a Frankenstein-inspired tale unlike any other. With equal parts Cormac McCarthy and Stephen Graham Jones, Rountree coalesces myth and legend into a dramatic tale of love, death, and its terrible aftermath.