Books Received, June 25 — July 1
2 Jul, 2022
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MegaTraveller (DGP) Adventure: Manhunt by Philip Athans
Manhunt is an adventure module for MegaTraveller which takes your players on a quest for the legendary Victory Belt, an asteroid belt consisting entirely of the rare and expensive element onnesium-118. Only the basic three-volume MegaTraveller rules set is required to play Manhunt, and the referee should familiarize herself with both those rules and this module before play begins. Other MegaTraveller supplements and sourcebooks are available that will, though not essential, provide a wealth of further background information. Particularly useful is the Rebellion Sourcebook from GDW. Both of these provide the rich detail that made Traveller famous.
Manhunt was projected for publication in 1990, but its publisher DGP closed their doors before Manhunt saw print. Now, the original manuscript, recovered from a 3.5 inch floppy, has been rehabilitated and polished for publication.
Court of Blades by Shawn & Navi Drake
Court of Blades takes place in the vibrant, fantasy renaissance city-state of Ilrien, in a world populated by scheming nobles, court magicians, and dashing duelists.
As a noble retainer, you will engage in the polite civil warfare of the great families. You will host lavish balls, and manipulate the courts, uncover the plots of your rivals, protect the city from arcane dangers, manage your own intrigues and personal scandals, leverage your reputations, connections, and so much more.
Inspired by infamous warring families like history’s Medicis and Pazzis, Shakespeare’s Montagues and Capulets, or Game of Thrones’ Starks and Lannisters, in Court of Blades you will take on the role of a talented retainer to a newly risen House of the Esultare in the great city of Ilrien. The Esultare, composed of the six Houses Major, are considered to be the most powerful families in the Principalities. Amongst them they have their own pecking order, and every citizen of Ilrien is aware of every house’s position within that order.
We play to find out if our noble retainers can play the Great Game and win it all, or if they’ll fall prey to the machinations of their rivals or their own human failings.
One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig
Elspeth needs a monster. The monster might be her.
For fans of Uprooted and For the Wolf comes a dark, lushly gothic fantasy about a maiden who must unleash the monster within to save her kingdom. But the monster in her head isn’t the only threat lurking.
Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to stay safe in the eerie, mist-locked kingdom of Blunder — she needs a monster. She calls him the Nightmare, an ancient, mercurial spirit trapped in her head. He protects her. He keeps her secrets. But nothing comes for free, especially magic. When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a drastic turn. Thrust into a world of shadow and deception, she joins a dangerous quest to cure Blunder from the dark magic infecting it. Except the highwayman just so happens to be the King’s own nephew, Captain of the most dangerous men in Blunder…and guilty of high treason. He and Elspeth have until Solstice to gather twelve Providence Cards — the keys to the cure. But as the stakes heighten and their undeniable attraction intensifies, Elspeth is forced to face her darkest secret yet: the Nightmare is slowly, darkly, taking over her mind. And she might not be able to stop him
Holiday Heroine by Sarah Kuhn
The sixth book in the smart, snarky, and action-packed Heroine series continues the adventures of Asian-American superheroine Bea Tanaka as she takes on demons in Hawaii.
Nobody loves Christmas like Bea Tanaka — so when her family visits her for a special holiday celebration, she’s beside herself with joy.
After years of chaos, questionable decisions, and flirtations with the supervillain path, Bea is finally thriving. She’s got a sweet, new gig hunting demons in Maui, she’s working hard to hone her powers, and her big sister Evie is proud of her at last. In fact, everyone is soproud of her that she can’t tell them the truth: she’s feeling lost and adrift. She and her boyfriend Sam Fujikawa are struggling to make their long-distance love work, and her powers are displaying some intriguing new elements — elements that could lead her down an evil, mind-controlling path once more.
When her family’s holiday visit is disrupted by otherworldly monsters rising out of the Maui ocean, Bea throws herself into the battle — until she’s suddenly and mysteriously transported to the perfect Christmas back in San Francisco, surrounded by her family and an excess of merrymaking.
As she finds herself trapped in the bizarre holiday rom-com of her nightmares, Bea must unravel a treacherous demon plot, save the world from unspeakable evil, and resist the siren song of a supervillain destiny. And hey, maybe she’ll find time for a little holiday cheer after all.…
Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse
Celeste, a card sharp with a need for justice, takes on the role of advocatus diaboli, to defend her sister Mariel, accused of murdering a Virtue, a member of the ruling class of this mining town, in a new world of dark fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse.
The year is 1883 and the mining town of Goetia is booming as prospectors from near and far come to mine the powerful new element Divinity from the high mountains of Colorado with the help of the pariahs of society known as the Fallen. The Fallen are the descendants of demonkind living amongst the Virtues, the winners in an ancient war, with the descendants of both sides choosing to live alongside Abaddon’s mountain in this tale of the mythological West from the bestselling mastermind Rebecca Roanhorse.
The Future Is Female! Volume Two, the 1970s: More Classic Science Fiction Storie S by Women: A Library of America Special Publication edited by Lisa Yaszek
Go back to the Future Is Female in this all new collection of wildly entertaining stories by the trailblazing feminist writers who transformed American science fiction in the 1970s
In the 1970s, feminist authors created a new mode of science fiction in defiance of the “baboon patriarchy” — Ursula Le Guin’s words — that had long dominated the genre, imagining futures that are still visionary. In this sequel to her groundbreaking 2018 anthology The Future is Female!: 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women from Pulp Pioneers to Ursula K. Le Guin, SF-expert Lisa Yaszek offers a time machine back to the decade when far-sighted rebels changed science fiction forever with stories that made female community, agency, and sexuality central to the American future.
Here are twenty-three wild, witty, and wonderful classics that dramatize the liberating energies of the 1970s.