26 Apr, 2021
Inspired by Aaron de Orive’s 2020 First Ten RPGs, a brief account of the roleplaying games I have played most recently, beginning with the most recent and working backwards. Number three: Steve Kenson’s Silver Age Superhero RPG Icons.
24 Apr, 2021
Who will take up the mantle and slay the evil in the Frozen North, saving all from death and destruction? Not Kell Kressia, he’s done his part…
Kell Kressia is a legend, a celebrity, a hero. Aged just seventeen he set out on an epic quest with a band of wizened fighters to slay the Ice Lich and save the world, but only he returned victorious. The Lich was dead, the ice receded and the Five Kingdoms were safe.
Ten years have passed Kell lives a quiet farmer’s life, while stories about his heroism are told in every tavern across the length and breadth of the land. But now a new terror has arisen in the north. Beyond the frozen circle, north of the Frostrunner clans, something has taken up residence in the Lich’s abandoned castle. And the ice is beginning to creep south once more.
For the second time, Kell is called upon to take up his famous sword, Slayer, and battle the forces of darkness. But he has a terrible secret that nobody knows. He’s not a hero — he was just lucky. Everyone puts their faith in Kell the Legend, but he’s a coward who has no intention of risking his life for anyone… **
22 Apr, 2021
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Having decided it would be a lark to review worthy books reprinted after being out of print, I posted to my Livejournal the first Rediscovery review. Various events transpired, and what was supposed to be a hobby turned into an occupation. Once James Nicoll Reviews came along some months later, that review was the first review on this site.
What review was that? I am so happy you asked.
19 Apr, 2021
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My Ten Most Recent Roleplaying Games 2: Third Edition Mutants and Masterminds.
Inspired by Aaron de Orive's 2020 First Ten RPGs, a brief account of the roleplaying games [RPGs] I have played most recently, beginning with the most recent and working backwards. Number two: Green Ronin’s super-hero roleplaying game, Mutants & Masterminds (M&M).
17 Apr, 2021
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In When the Goddess Wakes , the final book of the Ring-Sworn trilogy, Howard Andrew Jones returns to the five realms of the Dendressi to conclude his heroic, adventure-filled epic fantasy trilogy.
The Naor hordes have been driven from the walls, but the Dendressi forces are scattered and fragmented, and their gravest threat lies before them. For their queen has slain the ruling council and fled with the magical artifacts known as the hearthstones, and she is only a few days from turning them to her mad ends.
The Altenerai corps has suffered grievous casualties, and Elenai’s hearthstone and her source of sorcerous power has been shattered. She and her friends have no choice but to join with the most unlikely of allies.
Their goal: to find the queen’s hiding place and somehow stop her before she wakes the goddess who will destroy them all…
Praised for his ability to write modern epic fantasy that engrosses and entertains, Howard Andrews Jones delivers a finale to his trilogy that reveals the dark secrets and resolves the mysteries and conflicts introduced in the first two books of this series.
12 Apr, 2021
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Inspired by Aaron de Orive's 2020 First Ten RPGs, a brief account of the roleplaying games [RPGs] I have played most recently, beginning with the most recent and working backwards1. Number one, the Windows of roleplaying games: 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons.
As previously established, I only played AD&D once; I thought the mechanics were silly. I did play 3rd edition briefly (still not my thing), and an entire campaign of 4th (although arguably, whatever 4th was, it was not D&D). I've played two and three quarter 5th edition campaigns.
The current version is a decent updating of the venerable RPG, retaining enough of the core elements of the original game--character classes, for example--while vastly improving the mechanics and presentation of Gygax and Arneson's idiosyncratic, sometimes slapdash creation. There are enough crunchy bits for people who like crunchy bits to fiddle with, but it's also playable2. There are enough supplements for to beggar the wealthy buying them all, but the core rule books are sufficient for creative DMs to run their own home-made campaigns. It's also more inclusive than Gygax's version.
After three campaigns, I think I have a decent feel for the system, which of course means the Waterloo Gamers will no doubt be moving on to something else.
I have no idea why comments are off for this or how to turn them on. You are welcome to comment over on Dreamwidth until this gets sorted.
1: Unlike last year's effort, this will be a weekly, not daily, project.
2: Many early roleplaying games were strangely unaware of the utility of playability.
3 Apr, 2021
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Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in Ryka Aoki’s Light From Uncommon Stars, a defiantly joyful adventure set in California’s San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts.Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka’s ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She’s found her final candidate. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn’t have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan’s kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul’s worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.
31 Mar, 2021
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March 2021
22 works reviewed. 13 by women (59%), 9 by men (41%), and 10 works by POC (45%)
Year to Date
64 works reviewed. 37.5 by women (58%), 25.5 by men (37%), one by an author whose gender is unknown (2%) and 27 works by POC (40%)
Grand Total to Date
1812 works reviewed. 1020 by women (56%), 755 by men (42%), 21 by non-binary authors (2%), 16 by gender unknown (2%), 506.75 by POC (28%)
27 Mar, 2021
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“Her fiction is a breath-taking piece of a cinematic art itself. Reminiscent of the world we experienced in Matrix, Inception, and Dark City, still it leads us to this entirely original structure, which is a ground-breaking, mystic literary and cinematic experience. Indeed, powerful and graceful.” — Bong Joon-ho, Oscar-winning director of Parasite
In this mind-expanding work of speculative fiction, available in English for the first time, one of South Korea’s most treasured writers explores the driving forces of humanity — love, hope, creation, destruction, and the very meaning of existence — in two pairs of thematically interconnected stories.
Two worlds, four stories, infinite possibilities In “I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way,” an engaged couple coordinate their separate missions to distant corners of the galaxy to ensure — through relativity — they can arrive back on Earth simultaneously to make it down the aisle. But small incidents wreak havoc on space and time, driving their wedding date further away. As centuries on Earth pass and the land and climate change, one thing is constant: the desire of the lovers to be together. In two separate yet linked stories, Kim Bo-Young cleverly demonstrate the idea love that is timeless and hope springs eternal, despite seemingly insurmountable challenges and the deepest despair.In “The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life,” humanity is viewed through the eyes of its creators: godlike beings for which everything on Earth — from the richest woman to a speck of dirt — is an extension of their will. When one of the creations questions the righteousness of this arrangement, it is deemed a perversion — a disease — that must be excised and cured. Yet the Prophet Naban, whose “child” is rebelling, isn’t sure the rebellion is bad. What if that which is considered criminal is instead the natural order — and those who condemn it corrupt? Exploring the dichotomy between the philosophical and the corporeal, Kim ponders the fate of free-will, as she considers the most basic of questions: who am I?
20 Mar, 2021
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All Hiroto has ever known is a life on a tiny coastal speck of Japan. Much of the country has been swallowed by Yokohama Station, a mysterious, ever-growing series of buildings that’s been around for as long as anyone can remember. The few who live outside its many entrances have never seen Inside and know only rumors and legends of the station’s interior. That all changes when Hiroto is given an 18 Ticket, a mysterious item that lets him enter the massive complex for five days. The young man has always sought a purpose, but the one he finds may not be the sort he’d hoped for…