Blog Archaeology

I mentioned in the State of the Blog 2024 post that I was frustrated because I couldn't find the files to recover the mid-2000s posts due to the issues on the website and with Rapidweaver. 

I've started going through a different route now, having found a full preview build of the website that covers that period on the old MacBook. I've brought it live and the cut and pasting has begun. At the point I've completed migration of 2005 and 2006, which are quite fascinating as the end of 2006 is just before our eldest (who will be eighteen in January) arrived!

I'm quite pleased with this. You'll find the entries under the relevant dates on this blog.

Books in 2024

You set off on thrilling quests, followed cryptic trails of secrets, and explored the shadows of the human psyche. The narratives flowed at a comfortable, engaging tempo.

That quote is the summary from my end of year wrap-up on the StoryGraph and it's pretty much a fair representation of my reading for the year. 

I read a total of 102 books with 30,602 pages which is one less book than 2023 but 2,710 pages more overall (about a month extra). I've continued doing day-to-day tracking with The StoryGraph which tells me I've read every day for 724 days now. It may have only been a page or 1% of a book, but it's been steady. That steady pace really shows on the graph of 'books read' below; there's much less variance. 

It's the second year in a row that I've read more than a hundred books, although my target has remained firmly at 52, one book per week. Twenty-nine of the books were roleplaying games.

My Goodreads account is still live, mainly as my Kindle is linked to it, but only shows 86 books as it's awkward adding small press books.

Most read (non-RPG) authors were Adrian Tchaikovsky (no surprise there as he is so prolific and good at what he does), Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Aliette de Bodard and Len Deighton.

I enjoyed revisiting Len Deighton's Game, Set and Match trilogy as part of my preparation for Revelation. That also drove a block of non-fiction reading and a great way to engage with my eldest who went to the city looking at the Cold War and World War 2 as part of his Modern History A-Level. I finally, after many years of intent, read some more books by Emily St. John Mandel, and didn't regret it. I was delighted when I discovered that two of the stories were very much interlinked very subtly (Sea of Tranquility and The Glass Hotel).

It was with some sadness I read Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The City of Mist, a collection of short stories which will be his last published work as he has passed away, but the tales themselves were delightful. David Mcloskey's Damascus Station and Moscow X brought some new spy fiction with bite. Aliette de Bodard's science fiction novellas remain a delight - my favourite for the year was A Fire Born of Exile.  Alastair Reynolds brought his Prefect Dreyfuss stories to a great conclusion in Machine Vendetta. Adrian Tchaikovsky's Saturation Point was his story that I enjoyed most of the multiple books that I read; very cleverly done hostile environment based story.

The book that haunted me most from the year was Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. Set in modern day Ireland, it depicts a slow slide into fascism and civil war which is absolutely chilling and goes some way to answer the questions people often ask about 'Why didn't you do something?' or 'Why didn't you leave?' when they see a country falling apart.

The book that I found hardest to put down was Murder Road by Simone St James. Bought on impulse, it hooked me and I tore through it. The Curse of Pietro Houdini by Derek B Miller was equally engaging; set around Monte Cassino during the allied assault in the Second World War, it was another impulse purchase which delighted.

I went through a lot of non-fiction this year, again mainly when driving. Two books about the Troubles - Say Nothing (Patrick Radden Keefe) and Killing Thatcher (Rory Carroll) - reminded me just how bad things were. Checkmate in Berlin (by Giles Milton) was a fascinating tale of the occupation of Berlin and the path to the segregation of the city. Empireland (Sathnam Sanghera) and Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race (Reni Eddo-Lodge) made me look hard at myself and the way I see the world. Sort Your Brain Out (Dr Jack Lewis and Adrian Webster) was a fascinating look at how your brain works and influences your behaviour that built nicely on work I've been doing professionally in the safety space. I still try and pick books that I think I'd be unlikely to read normally for the car, as I find that I can work my way through them more easily when listening. Often I'll pick up and skim the books afterwards.

Overall, a great year of reading, and I'm already digging in for the next year!

2 January 2025

Books in December 2024

December 2024 saw me reading 10 books for a total of  2,362 pages. This month saw a spike up in the number of roleplaying books that I read, but there was some excellent fiction and non-fiction along the way.

I read His Majesty, The Worm, which was fascinating as a design exercise. Using tarot driven mechanics it codifies and structures dungeon-crawls in a very interesting way. There's a lot of ideas to unpack in this and I can see myself dipping back into it. It's beautifully presented and structured, but I can't see myself bringing it to the table in the near term. I think that this one was more of an inspiration.

This Ship is a Tomb is a procedurally-generated depth crawl into a starship that has been thoroughly corrupted by evil otherness, very much in the style of the film Event Horizon. Naturally, it's for Mothership but it could easily be hacked to another game engine. I could imagine using this but part of me wonders if One Breath Left (which I reviewed previously) would be a more pragmatic way to scratch this itch.

Metro: Otherscape is the core book for the new game setting from the publishers of City of Mist. It's very well written and the evolution of the game engine makes it much more slick, but I'm not certain that I will love it as much as its predecessor. It will be interesting to get this to the table at Revelation. What I've seen I like, but it will be good to explore this in play.

I also did a complete re-read of Far Horizon as I ran it on 30th December 2024.

The bridge between roleplaying and non-fiction was Shannon Appelcline's excellent history of the Traveller roleplaying game, my forever game, This is Free Trader Beowulf. A Christmas present, I devoured it all in a single day. Recommended if you love Traveller.

The other non-fiction (audio)book I went through was Say Nothing (Patrick Radden Keefe), which was a fascinating and chilling insight on the Troubles. I may watch the Disney+ version if I get a moment, but the book is a skilful journey through how the dynamics of the asymmetric conflict changed and escalated.

I also read several fictional books. Nick Harkaway's Karla's Choice was a worthy new George Smiley story. The style was different, but there were enough echoes of his father's writing and approach to not feel jarring. I loved the way that this was done but I do hope that to doesn't stop Harkaway continuing with his own books, as I find his science-fiction (for example, Titanium Noir) excellent.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia always delights, and Signal to Noise was no exception. A group of teenagers in Mexico find a way to cast magic, which brings consequences. The tale is told looking back some years later and is definitely worth a look.

Devil's Day, by Andrew Michael Hurley engaged me more than Starveacre in the end, but it's a dark tale of life at the edge of civilisation.

The final book was a standalone Polity novella by Neal Asher, Jenny Trapdoor. It's not one to read if you suffer from arachnophobia but otherwise it's quite good fun and was a good page-turner for the end of the year.

Music in 2024

Music in 2024...

So this is what I played most that was released in 2024 according to the Apple Music app. As previous years, I've not managed to work out how to do this for music played in 2024, as I can't see how to filter on play count for only that year. 

I'll rank this by the highest play by release. It's worth saying that singles and EPs can be disproportionately high because they tend to repeat if I'm playing music via my iPhone. If a single is part of an album that was released this year, I will credit the album instead.

1. Hats Off Gentlemen, It's Adequate - Copenhagen

A second year at Number 1 for HOGIA, and no surprise here as this is hauntingly beautiful. This is a single from their album that's forthcoming in 2025. Could they make it 3 years in a row?

2. Pet Shop Boys - Nonetheless

Actually by the Pet Shop Boys was the album that hooked me to them, and I still enjoy listening. This got played a lot when I got it but it hasn't stuck with me quite as well as some of their other albums. The track Loneliness gets this its high placing.

3.  Hats Off Gentlemen, It's Adequate - One Word That Means the World

What, they've got two places in top three? This is the slightly earlier single released by HOGIA which is all about the Soviet Officer who refused to take the Cuban Missile crisis nuclear when his submarine flotilla was under a lot of pressure from the US blockade.

4. Andre Soueid - Al Ein

Soueid is a Lebanese Violinist who I was introduced to at the local cinema which plays music videos rather than adverts. He does do classical music but also more modern, dance-like material. His violin soars gloriously above the rest of the music. Definitely worth checking out. Here's an example on Soundcloud from a concert.

5. Hans Zimmer - Dune: Part Two (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

I found the second soundtrack more approachable than the first and it goes on in the background quite often.

6. Maxïmo Park - Stream of Life

The lead single from this album saw Maxïmo Park back on form, catch but with a sharp edge. Great band, fantastic live too when I saw them.

7. Public Service Broadcasting - The Last Flight

It's not my most played album but it's probably my favourite this year. PSB return with a fantastic themed album about Amelia Eckhart. It's glorious and beautiful and different tracks catch me at different times. I loved the live show so much I'm catching it again at York next year.

8. David Gilmour - Luck and Strange

The track 'Between Two Points', where Gilmour's daughter Romany sings is my favourite on this. You know what you're getting with his music, and the album doesn't disappoint.

9. Faithless (feat. Amelia Fox and LSK) - I'm not alone (Rest Well Maxwell)

Faithless return with a track dedicated to their former frontman. It's catchy and a fitting tribute. I just wish they could give a date for release of  'Champion Sound'. Again, a single so that influences the position.

Overall, a nice mix there. I did buy several Marillion albums, but they've been concerts or the special editions so the play hasn't been as high.

1 January 2025

State of the Blog 2024

Overview for the year

 I've posted more to the blog this year (125 posts vs 95 in 2023) but I've no real explanation why, especially as my posts on Shadows of Atlantis haven't been a numerous as the ones that I did for Curse of Strahd. Interaction is up (92.8k unique views vs 83.6k last year) and I continue to see a lot of interaction around posts on Mastodon (and if I post on various Facebook groups, especially the Traveller RPG one, that often spikes traffic). 

Traffic was particularly high between February and May, then became stable at a low level (even through the RPGaDay hoopla) before jumping up in December. That spike is most likely a combination of holidays and the repeated Traveller posts that I've made.

The top ten posts in 2024...

My most viewed post in 2024 (and now all time) was the review of Wulfwald, which landed before there were many other reviews out there. It was one of my more in-depth walk-throughs and seemed to be attractive to folks out there. It had a lot of traffic via Bluesky and Mastodon.

The second highest was one talking about Dice by pCalc which was boosted by the app's creator on Mastodon and got a lot of views. This was part of RPGaDay 2024, which I did in full.

Reviews of Dragonbane, Outgunned, Cepheus Universal and Orbital 2100 all got a lot of interest, as did the TravCon 2024 after action report. A block of that is the Traveller hard-core!

Eighth place saw a post on GM Screens from November 2023 which was boosted by Xaosseed and somehow stayed popular into 2024. This was closely followed by an RPGaDay post on the A|State Tower screen. Unsure what drives the interest in screens, but fascinating to see.

The last entry in the Top Ten came with this months post on the forthcoming availability for The Encyclopaedia of Dagudashaag in print, a December post, so obviously there's a hunger for new Traveller content.

If I wanted to keep this just to posts from 2024, then I need to bring in the eleventh placed post, where I broke down 17 years of games that I've run at Furnace. 

Overall, I'm still enjoying keeping the blog. 

I've had some frustrations getting the older material migrated; the browser on my old MacBook has been deprecated and I can no longer download a copy of RapidWeaver 7 to put it on the newer MacBook Pro (as Realmac Software have moved to a subscription model and old versions aren't available on the App Store or their site). I have considered subscribing, but I'm not convinced that I'd be able to open the older files easily enough. It may be that I need to use the preview export of the blog and cut and paste from that, but the priority is migrating the remaining data from the MacBook is it's gone very slow and DropBox doesn't support the app anymore (although I can get access via the browser).

One thing that Mastodon has taught me it to take the time to put Alt-text in for images where possible. If you don't do that on the social network there, you get gentle reminders from others!

If you want to catch me on social media, I'm easily findable. The bridged account from the Fediverse drives most of my interaction with Bluesky because I have found I enjoy the engagement quality of Mastodon often better. I don't generally accept Facebook requests from folks I'm not sure I know, so reach out if you're trying to link up that way so I know why!

Anyway, here's to 2025, and another year of blogs.

1 January 2025