Books in July 2026

In July I read 10 books (2,637 pages) which takes me to 59 for the year so far (14,965 pages). I read three roleplaying books, two graphic novels and five novels. No non-fiction this month, which was a surprise, but I'm quite close to finishing one which will appear in August's update.

Roleplaying included the excellent Darkened Hill & Dale and Terminus by Sarah Cole. Both of these are system agnostic horror scenarios which I could easily imagine being used with Liminal or one of the many folk horror or Cthulhu based games. 

Darkened Hill & Dale is an anthology of seven different scenarios, all of which read well and present interesting and difference conundrums to the player characters. There's only one of them that I would be nervous of running, but that's not because of the plot, it's more that I'm not certain that I have the GMing chops to deliver the time loop conundrum it presents well enough. 

Terminus is completely different kettle of fish; a single scenario set in and around Tottenham Court Station which links back the King in Yellow. It is very much a puzzle scenario, and will need players to be thinking through what they are facing or they could come to a nasty end. I could see this one being used for Delta Green quite easily. I recommend both of these books; you can get them here at Sarah's website.

The other roleplaying book that I read was Nathan Russell's Hard City: Noir Roleplaying, which is published by Osprey Games. This has a very workable system - kind of a variation on Forged in the Dark with a bit of FATE.  There's an interesting difficulty approach built into the pool mechanic were negative dice can cancel out positive ones if you get the same results. There's a case generator, and two example scenarios,  each illustrating one of the two types you can use in the game – investigations or capers. Overall, I like it and could easily imagine running with it, but I’m not sure it gives me the GM tingles.

The graphic novels were the two Dreadnaughts collections. These explore the background of how America adopted the use of Judges as seen in Judge Dredd. You can see why it is done, but also how it leads to a slide into a fascist absolutist state. Very much a warning.

M. John Harrison is always a favourite of mine, and I enjoyed the prose of The End of Everything, an end of the world after an alien invasion told from the perspective of the characters involved. Not his best novel, but enjoyable.

I then returned to authors who have featured heavily in my reading in recent years. Christopher Fowler's Ten-Second Staircase was a return to Bryant & May and has the elderly investigators facing threats to their career, a complicated set of murders and almost accidentally solving one of their long open cases. Enjoyable, and I still have another five or six of these in my to-read pile.

I read The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone  St. James. Unlike the other books that I've read from her, this was set in the past after the First World War. A young woman from a temping agency takes a job working for investigators into ghostly phenomena, because the job requires a female to interact with the ghost. This is a ghost story about a suicide, but the underlying mystery needs to be solved to find out what drove the girl involved to kill herself, something that poses real dangers and ramifications for the local community. It was well done.

I read the latest spy novel from Charles Cumming, Icarus 17, which was nicely done and continues the story of Lachlan Kite and Box 88, an Anglo-American spy agency. Kite has a person from his past return seeking help finding her son, and the plot presents the perspective from both Kite and the missing person. 

After reading Icarus 17, I decided to read one of the older Charles Cumming books I had in my to-rread pile, A Spy by Nature. Set around the period that New Labour comes into power, it tells the tale of a young man who ends up involved in a SIS operation and the consequences that he and his friends face. There's a degree of ambiguity on how this is written, and I wasn't certain how much I liked the protagonist, but I empathised with the dilemmas that his choices gave him. Ultimately, he has to face up to the consequences of his actions, and in some ways this reminded me more of le Carré when the less savoury and dangerous aspects of espionage have to be faced, along with the tolls on the characters involved. A very different novel to Icarus 17.

1 July 2026

Why I missed TravCon 2026

I didn’t go to TravCon this year, despite being involved in some of the organisation (although Richard and Andy bore the brunt of that), which was a disappointment, because of the change of venue. However, I had good reason not to, as I was enjoying my Christmas present from my better half.

Some of you may know that, alongside science-fiction, espionage stories are a passion of mine. This passion was borne from discovering John le Carré in our school library during my teenage years. I read everything of his that I could find, then started on the BBC TV and other adaptations; A Perfect Spy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley’s People and The Russia House were all big influences. I’ve enjoyed other authors in the genre, but none so much as le Carré. I did find his work engaged me less, post the collapse of the Soviet bloc, but he returned with a vengeance later in the his career when you could feel the anger in his writing for the way that the West was behaving with renditions and compromised ethics.  

As an aside, I’ve long since searched for the perfect roleplaying game for that theme, but I’ve yet to find one. I do think that the Berlin hack for Cartel (which will never see the light of day now that Magpie have killed all the extras for the project) that I ran at Revelation 8 possibly came closest, perhaps alongside Cold Shadows (despite it’s flawed mechanics) which I ran at Furnace in 2019. 

Anyway, the reason I missed TravCon was that I was in York Grand Opera House watching the theatrical adaptation of  ‘The Spy who came in from the Cold”. This was possibly the first le Carré I read (although it may have been ‘A Small Town in Germany’), and it’s not one I’ve revisited except via the film with Richard Burton, and the audio adaptation that the BBC did. 

It was really rather brilliantly done, with Ralf Little as a very angry Alec Leamas, and Gráinne Dromgoole as Liz Gold. If you like the genre or the story, you’ll enjoy the performance. The story remains sad, of course, with love betraying Leamas’ operation against the Stasi and driving him on a course to meet his fate. 

My only regret on the day was that they didn’t have the T-Shirt with all the espionage related words that le Carré introduced into more common usage in my size, and you don’t seem to be able to order it online.

I wholeheartedly recommend this if you can catch it at a theatre. Fantastic Christmas present too!

18 July 2026

Books in June 2026

A belated post for a variety of reasons. I read slight more pages in June, but less books overall;1,702 pages (12,328 pages in 2026) and 6 books (49 in 2026). This was partly driven by the preparation for LongCon, and partly by work related travel.

Three fiction books, one non-fiction and two roleplaying games. The roleplaying games were all to do with the preparation of my A|State game at LongCon. This included a full re-read of the A|State Core Rules (I probably effectively did this twice over the month but only counted it once) and the first edition sourcebook The Lostfinder's Guide to Mire End.

The non-fiction was Grace Blakeley's Vulture Capitalism, which was enlightening and depressing to read at the same time. Definitely worth the time to read, as it explores how Neo-liberalism took hold across the western world. 

I read three really enjoyable novels in June. Ben Aaronovitch's Stone & Sky was a delightful return to the Rivers of London series, except this story was set in Aberdeen during a holiday for Peter, Bev, the children and Abigail. Oh... and Nightingale! Of course, they're also looking into rumours of a Cryptid. Very enjoyable; not my favourite but great fun.

The First Law of Chaos by Kevin Wignall is an entertaining spy thriller. A university graduate has been recruited into a British Intelligence operation, and things go sideways when he and colleague see something they shouldn't when working cover roles in Slovenia. The story crosses Europe as the protagonists try to find a way out of the mess that they're in and it comes to a satisfying conclusion. Wignall's books are never high literature - this isn't le Carré or Cumming - but they're gripping and well written and I will buy them whenever I see them.

Finally, I read Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel, which is her debut novel. It tells the tale of Lilia, a woman with a mysterious past who can never settle in one place, and Eli, her lover who cannot let her go.  Written in delightful prose, the story explores Lilia's past and the reasons why she moves on. I really enjoyed this; St. John Mandel is one of those authors whose prose just draws me through the story and gives me pleasure from the way that it's constructed. 

I read this rather than Sea of Tranquility, which was the bookclub pick, because I'd read the latter reasonably recently. That's been a thing the last few months as the books being picked are ones that I have read, and that I may not want to return to right now when there's so much out there that I've not read and have in my 'to read' list. 

12 July 2026

7 fiction books I've loved since 2020

I recently took up one of those internet share things over on Facebook, encouraged by my friend Paul. This was to post seven covers of books without comment that have really enjoyed. I've done this before, so I decided to focus this down onto fiction books since 2020, mainly as I decided to discount life pre-COVID. However, I did want to say something about each of them, so here's all seven with a quick comment of why I loved them.

I loved the way that Radio Life was full of hope, despite being set in a post-apocalyptic world. The culture and world building was evocative, and had moments of tension and discovery.

I've read several of Emily St. John Mandel's books now and I think that this is the one that has stuck with me most. She writes delightfully and draws you in deeply.

Prophet Song tells a story of Ireland falling into fascism and answers the question you often see about "Why didn't they leave?" and "Why didn't they do anything". Chilling and well written, but challenging to read at first as the author avoids the use of speech marks. Very much a compelling warning.

Titanium Noir mixes detective noir with science-fiction, and sets the protagonist in a world of 'Titans', oligarchs and their families who are effectively immortal. There's a case to be solved and complicated relationships to explore. Lovely.

I was introduced the author with her book Mexican Gothic but I much prefer this tale of occult horror meshed with film production and history. Delightful and evocative.

A very enjoyable alternative history where one of the Native American nations has survived the arrival of the settlers from the west thanks to having been converted to a form of Catholicism by a Spanish Priest, and is now a state in the USA. It deals with a plot to strip away the rights from native government. Very enjoyable.

This wasn't the Tchaikovsky that came to mind immediately (that was Cage of Souls) but it turns out I read that in 2019. So looking over the other novels from the same author, I picked this one. It's a tale of a city taken over by a scientific-magic led state that literal use the gods and artefacts of other cultures to fuel their conquests. Not quite grim dark, there is something both magical and gripping about the story told here.

Looking back, what would you choose in the same period?

11 July 2026

Books in May 2026

May 2026 saw me read 1,652 pages (10,626 pages in 2026) and 7 books (43 in 2026). This is down on my normal month, mainly driven by roleplaying book reading, plus getting distracted revisiting The Lovecraft Investigations podcast rather than finishing the audiobook I was listening to on journeys. 

On the fiction side, I read the latest Murderbot novella from Martha Wells, Platform Decay, a tale of a corporate extraction from a hostile station. Enjoyable but it didn't groundbreaking. That said, I don't think I was really looking for groundbreaking when I read it. I also read another of my back catalogue of Clarkesworld Magazines, #202, which I enjoyed in little bite size pieces rather than doom-scrolling. 

For the Elle Cordova book club, I belatedly read Ted Chiang's Exhalation collection of short stories. They were great thought experiments but they didn't grip me in the same way that they did in his previous collection Stories of Your Life and Others. I'm skipping this month's choice – Emily St John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility – because it's one that I've read recently. Instead, I'm digging into one of her novels that's been in my 'to read' pile for a while, Last Night in Montreal.

Roleplaying books; I read the Blue Planet Recontact Moderator's Guide for North Star 2026 (as a I was running it), and finished The Laundry: Applied Occult Computing. This is the starter set/book for the roleplaying game and has a complete campaign setting in Milton Keynes. I'd have preferred London, but I can see why Cubicle 7 went this way. The scenario does a great job of introducing the rules. I also read Gallows Corner (about which I will post more once I've finished my review) and Caught in the Rain. The latter is a lovely solo game about solving a mystery; as I picked it up on spec, I was pleased with what I got.

So a quiet month; hopefully I'll do better in June.

2 June 2026

Crowley - The Lovecraft Investigations

I've recently listened to The Lovecraft Investigations - Crowley. This is a bit of a departure from the previous seasons as it wasn't funded by the BBC and it's really a documentary.

The Lovecraft Investigations are the work of Julian Simpson, who has taken Lovecraft's stories and rewritten them into the modern day, with the conceit being that it's an investigative podcast digging into  mysteries (think a more edgy version of Unexplained) that start to reveal an underlying horrific truth about the world. This has grown into a whole setting - Pleasant Green - which may come out as a roleplaying sourcebook in the future. Simpson is currently crowdfunding a new season that will delve into The Call of Cthulhu.

Crowley (the series) is a weird beast. Although I think you could say that about the man himself too. The series explores the highlights and influences in the infamous occultist Aleister Crowley's life. It's not something that I've ever really dug into, although there are references to his life and influence across the horror and occult gaming sphere, and I think that Unexplained has touched on aspects of his life as well.

The production values are great, and it's very listenable to. It is kind of strange; it feels like you're sitting in on production meetings as they're researching and preparing episodes for a podcast documentary rather than it actually being a documentary. I'm so used to the characters involved pulling threads on an investigation which has a plot behind it that I found myself wanting more though the show, only because that's what I'm used to. Overall I found it interesting, informative and well produced, but less compelling than its predecessors because it's a very different beast. I have no regrets backing it during crowdfunding and I will undoubtedly listen to it more than once.

However, right now, I'm starting back on the original four seasons in anticipation of the new crowdfunding being successful.

You can get Crowley here: https://payhip.com/PleasantGreen

Recommended

23 May 2026

Books in April 2026

April saw me read 10 books with a total of 2,157 pages, bringing me to 36 books and 8,989 pages year to date. There were four roleplaying books, 2 non-fiction and the balance of four were fiction.

So, the fiction. I completed re-reading William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy, working through Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive. I've read these multiple times and still get more from them. It's nice to see how they all draw together. I also read William Moore's "The Grimoire of Forgotten Fairy Tales" which is a volume of poems and prose that takes fairy tales and nursery rhymes and twists them darkly. I'd originally seen William performing them on Facebook Reels and liked them enough to revisit. Definitely the kind of text that needs to be read out loud, even if in your head.

I also read Clarkesworld Issue #201, which had a great collection of different stories in. I recently picked up an Xteink e-reader, which is tiny but perfect for taking everywhere. I figured it was a good opportunity to stop doom scrolling and actually read a bit more. As I have a digital pile of deDRMed Azimovs and Clarkesworld magazines, this seemed a perfect match. Rather than get depressed about the world today, dig into a story of the future. So far, it's working. I definitely recommend the Xteink, which I bought direct from the manufacturer.

The non-fiction books began with Believable Lies by Terry Stiastny. At first, this didn't engage me, but by the end I was wanting more. It tells the tale of how Britain carried out political warfare in World War 2, propaganda both black and white. What I found fascinating was the way that it revealed in infighting between politicians and their appointees, something that tends to get brushed over in more traditional histories. I hadn't really understood that politics was just as full throated during the war years as it was in normal times, with jostling for power, briefings and rivalries. Definitely recommended.

I also read If Russia Wins by Carlo Masala, which is sobering. It posits a scenario of Ukraine being forced into humiliating ceasefire, partly by the US, partly by the undermining of European democracies by right wing and left wing populist elements encouraged by Russian disinformation campaigns. Soon after this, Russia occupies a town in one of the Baltic states, and ultimately leads to failure of NATO and a distancing between the USA and Europe. Altogether believable, especially with the present US administration.

My roleplaying reading was mostly focussed around North Star - I read the Blade Runner RPG and the new Replicant Rebellion sourcebook, plus the Blue Planet Recontact Player's Guide. The later was very information dense but has such wonderful world building. The former two capture the feel of the films really well. My final book was The Fractured Library and Other Tales from the Lost Horizon, a scenario collection for Coriolis: The Great Dark. At least one of these scenarios will work itself into my campaign of Flowers of Algorab. 

1 May 2026

Books in March 2026

Seven books in March, with a total of 2,068 pages, which takes me to 26 books and 6,817 pages. A slower pace because of gaming reading and conventions.

A single non-fiction, Polar War by Kenneth R. Rosen. I bought this on the back of an interview with the author and was initially taken aback; I was expecting a technical analysis of the potential threats and conflicts in the Arctic, but the book is more a series of vignettes with different people and places across the arctic circle.  However, there was a thread through the vignettes that showed the threats and conflicts and drew it together. 

Fiction-wise I read Adrian Tchaikovsky's Days of Shattered Faith. It's the third of his Tyrant Philosophers series. This expanded the background and started to explain why particular polities in the series behave the way they do. I enjoyed meeting the characters and it was as intriguing as the other books, and again very different.

I had a bit of a palette cleanse after that with The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James. This is the third of her books I read, and again it blends a murder mystery (in this case across two different timelines) with the supernatural. Quite a satisfying book; I enjoyed the way that the stories intermeshed. 

The final novel was a re-read of William Gibson's Neuromancer, which was as fantastic as ever. As it was a book club read, it was fascinating to hear from people who didn't encounter this when it first came out and who had later references such as The Matrix in their head when they thought about cyberpunk. An enjoyable chance to reflect on a book I love; I've moved onto the next in the Sprawl Trilogy as a result.

I also read three roleplaying game books; a re-read of Deepnight Legacy before I ran it, then the first volume of the Great Rift sourcebook. That was enjoyable, and a bit different. Finally, I read The Laundry Supervisor's Guide. This is a wryly written background lore book for Charles Stross' series. I am tempted to run something with this, but I'll wait until I've read some of the scenarios before I make a final decision.

1 April 2026

Books in February 2026

I read less books than in January, but they were generally longer than those last month, with a total of 7 books and 2,155 pages. That leaves me on 19 books and 4,788 pages so far this year, which is a solid start. Three novels, two non-fiction and two roleplaying books.

The non-fiction books were Ben Macintyre’s excellent “A Spy Among Friends”, which focuses around the Kim Philby betrayal, and Mark Bray’s “Antifa - The Anti-Fascist Handbook”. The Macintyre book was fascinating; I didn’t really know the details behind Philby and the Cambridge spy ring, and this certainly opened my eyes to the level of betrayal involved, and the deaths that resulted from his actions. The blindness of the SIS establishment was also compellingly told, as “he’s one of us” gave so much leeway. Bray’s book, written in response to the first Trump presidency, describes the techniques and tools that have been used against fascist and far right racists and how they’ve evolved. I learnt a lot, and have deeper respect for those who have risked themselves taking direct action in stopping these deeply unpleasant people.

The roleplaying books started with a re-read of “Comrades - A Revolutionary RPG”, which was also written in response to the first Trump presidency, as preparation for Revelation. I also read “The Laundry Operative’s Guide”, which was an impulse purchase following reading the final Laundry book. I do like how Cubicle 7 have evolved this to a D6 dice pool system rather than a version of Call of Cthulhu. It’s very much its own thing now, and all the better for it. The book looks great too. I was reading the PDF as the print copies aren’t released yet.

On the fiction side, I read Charlie Stross’s “The Regicide Report”, which brought the Laundry Series to an end (The New Management books are after this). It’s a series I’ve long loved and it’s slowly evolved from how do we prevent CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN (the rising of the Elder Gods and the end of the world as we know it) to a tale of how the country adapts to living under a living avatar of Nyalathotep as the Prime Minister. The story digs deep into the meaning of the late-Queen to the nation, and drew me through. My favourite book this month.

Andy Weir’s “Project Hail Mary” came next, which felt much more like the “The Martian” than “Artemis” did. It drew me through but overall it was a bit of a miss for me. It was a rushed pick for the Bookclub, mainly as Elle Cordova and her friends have been caught up in all the unpleasantness in the USA. I’d actually bought this a while back, so it was a good reason to actually read it.

I really enjoyed Antti Tuomainen’s “The Winter Job”, which was an impulse buy. A postman takes a delivery job on the side to earn some cash to buy his daughter a Christmas present. He has to deliver a sofa but as he’s driving along events ensue which reveal that everything is more complicated than it seems. There’s a wry sense of humour in how it’s written, and I could imagine this as fun film to watch.

Happy reading!

1 March 2026

Books in January 2026

The new year got off to a good start with 12 books and 2,594 pages read. Unusually, it was quite roleplaying heavy, although I read some fantastic novels, along with perhaps the best non-fiction book that I've read in a long time. This year I've set a target of 52 books again. I hope to beat that, of course.

The roleplaying books were driven by Cairn. This is a game by Yochai Gal that I've often heard of in cross references but never read or played. One of my friends mentioned it as a possible alternative system for a return to Dolmenwood and my ears pricked enough to pick up the core second edition books (Cairn Player's Guide, Cairn Warden's Guide and Cairn Bestiary). The game is very light but, like Mausrítter with which it shares some ancestry, it's surprisingly deep. I think I'll be rereading this and considering using it at some point.

After Cairn, I read both Coriolis: The Great Dark and its campaign set, Flowers of Algorab, in preparation for a campaign that I'll start in February. The fact that I'm planning to run it should tell you everything about my opinion of the game.

As part of my Clarkesworld catch up, I read Issue 226 and Issue 229, both of which were very enjoyable.

The non-fiction book I loved was Duncan Mackay's Echolands: A Journey in Search of Boudica. MacKay is an archaeologist who lives in East Anglia, and the story of Boudica's revolt has long fascinated him. He tells the tale well, sharing what we know of the culture of the Iceni, their Roman overlords, the nature of the Colchester Colonia and the ongoing military operations on the island by the Legions as the rebellion erupted. There's a fascinating exploration of the likely location of the final battle and then discussion of its aftermath, likely mass starvation. I listened to the audiobook which is read by the author and highly recommend this. Of course, growing up near Chester, I've long had a fascination with the Romans in Britain, so this was like catnip for me. It also touched on places I know and have passed through with work.

The Elle Cordova Bookclub pick this month was The Power by Naomi Alderman, which I found hard to put down. The book's caused a lot of discussion in the club Discord and has had mixed responses, but I found it compelling and read it very quickly. It talks about the overturn of the patriarchal nature of society when women start to develop the power to manipulate electrical fields. It's written from the perspective of several thousand years. Challenging but interesting.

I wanted a bit of change of tone after that, so I finally started reading James Ellroy's LA Quartet, starting with The Black Dahlia, which follows the lives of two LAPD cops, both ex-boxers, and the woman they both love as they are at the heart of the investigation of the Black Dahlia murder. Really well done, sunshine, grime, corruption and a fascinating mystery alongside.

The final book of the month was Mayflies by Andrew O'Hagan, which tells the story of two friends from Scotland. The book is split into two parts, one in the 1980s around a mad trip to Manchester to see various bands over a weekend, and the second part set thirty years later when the protagonists are drawn together again by adversity. I found this sad and joyful and enjoyed it. Certainly made me feel reflective about the passing of time.

8 February 2026 

State of the Blog 2025

 

I posted slightly less this year than I did in 2024 (108 vs 125); had I completed #RPGaDay2025 then I suspect that overall the blog would have seen a similar level of posts. Interaction is up with 168k unique views vs 92.8k the year before (double 2023), and I see a lot of traffic from both Mastodon and the Traveller Facebook groups.

Traffic was very spiky and high in the period June to October, but overall levels have crept up. Like last year, Traveller material continues to drive a lot of the traffic. 

My highest traffic post made in 2025 was a #RPGaDay one with the keyword 'Enter'. It was quite a philosophical post on that moment before you commit, but there were references to Tolkien and more so that may have driven some interest.

The next highest was the post where I conceded that I was wrong about my thoughts about Mongoose Traveller 2e, and explained why it had drawn me back into it after a couple of years without Traveller being at the heart of what I played and ran. 

After that, there's a set of Traveller related reviews.

Four of the top ten traffic posts were actually made earlier than 2025. I think that just suggests that people visit and explore or find things on search. Google certainly ranks top on source sites, but bizarrely so does Gizmodo, and the Gaming Tavern remains a stalwart! Chrome dominates the browsers (63%) but platforms run Windows (42%) then Mac (25%) which surprised me in that the Mac is so high.

It was quite interesting that although I do post some OSR related material, I didn't make it into the web of blogs that Xaoseed shared here. Obviously, a parallel track! Then again, I do mainly post SF and reviews. I think First Age found a similar thing for his blog too.

I've kept up with the alt-text habit that Mastodon taught me. It's my main social media now, but I am bridged to Bluesky (but why put the effort into another walled garden)? I do use Facebook (mainly as it's the only social route to some friends and the centre of gravity for Traveller has moved there from the TML) but detest it and Meta as a whole. 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!

I've migrated most of the old blog now, but just need to get some solid time on it to finish it off.

Anyway, 2025 was a fun year blogging, and I had a steady string of interaction on socials when I posted and on the blog itself. See you around, and great to talk to you!

4 January 2025

Books in 2025

StoryGraph summarised my year of reading as: You chased clues down winding paths, chased horizons and daring escapades, and wandered through tales tinged with shadow. That does seem pretty accurate.

I read a total of 119 books (up from 102 the year before) with a total of 32,181 pages (up 5%), so all in all a good improvement (although the page count was very much driven by the two Lucifer graphic novel omnibus editions I read).

I've been pretty steady though the year, although April did see quite a spike upwards.

I'm still using Goodreads, but mainly as my Kindle is linked. That only shows 84 books as it struggles with small press and roleplaying books in many cases.

Martin J Dougherty was my most read author, completely driven by the Deepnight Revelation work for Traveller. 

Martha Wells was the fiction author who I read most of, thanks to the Murderbot Diaries, which were also very short. Adrian Tchaikovsky came next, with five novels with Mick Herron (Slow Horses books and novellas), Samu Rämö (the Hildur series) and Christopher Fowler (Bryant and May) coming in next. 

I really enjoyed the Murderbot Diaries and have preordered the next instalment; I may find myself digging inti the fantasy books that Wells wrote that were also in the Humble Bundle I picked up. Likewise, I suspect that Adrian Tchaikovsky will continue to feature heavily as I picked up most of his fantasy fiction that I haven't read in a Humble bundle. I do intend to continue with Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May series through 2026 as well. There were two notable series I started to re-read but have only read the first book - Michael Scott Rohan's Winter of the World and Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy. I do intend to read more of both of these, and I think that the Pendragon RPG books that are sitting in my to-read pile can only help with the Mary Stewart books.

I joined Elle Cordova's Sci-Fi Book Club this year to try and make sure I didn't get into a rut. I've certainly read a number of books that I wouldn't have otherwise; I've not liked all of them, but they've definitely been worth the time. My favourite so far has been Klara & the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, and the one that I've least liked was Slaughterhouse-5 (which drew me through but wasn't really my thing).

I enjoyed William Boyd's Gabriel spy novels, and will explore more of his work next year. I've found myself reading more thrillers and literature novels than previous years, and hope to keep some of this breadth going forward.

My favourite fiction novel of the year was Derek B Miller's Radio Life, with Nick Harkaway's Sleeper Beach a close second.My favourite non-fiction was a tie between Borderlines (Lewis Baston) and Vertigo (Harald Jähner), both of which taught me new things and were well written.

Tales of the Old West was the best roleplaying game I've read this year (although The Hooded Man deserves a honourable mention). It wins as an extremely playable game set in the period of the Western. It is gritty, focuses on community and avoids the need to draw on horror or the weird. It was a delight at the table.

My reading streak hit 1,088 days at the end of the year.

2 January 2026

Books in December 2025

Final month of the year for the reading challenge. I won't spoil the end of year review with the final results but I managed to beat the targets of reading every day and the book-a-week objective.

December is usually a good month for reading for me with the holiday period. I managed to work my way through thirteen books, and unusually, a chunk of them were roleplaying games. In total, the page count was 3,904 pages, which is significantly up because I read the second Lucifer Omnibus volume.

Digging in, I read one non-fiction book, five roleplaying books, a graphic novel and six fiction books.

The non-fiction book was via Audible again, Vertigo by Harald Jähner. This covers the Weimar Republic in Germany from creation to fall to the Nazis. It's a fascinating blend of history, culture and politics which sadly has echoes that are all too visible today.

The graphic novel was the second volume of the omnibus edition of Lucifer, set in the Sandman universe. I really enjoyed this. It's been a while since I've dived into a longer series in this format, and the story is adjacent to one that I've loved for a long time. Overall, I really enjoyed it and will check out some more of Mike Carey's work.

Roleplaying games included The Hooded Man RPG by Graham Rose, which I reviewed here. I do hope to actually run this one. 

I also read The Lost Mountain Saga, written by Ellinor DiLorenzo. This a short campaign for the Vaesen roleplaying game. There was much to praise in the campaign, but some bits felt a little underwritten and the way the ending is presented in the text is underwhelming. However, I do think that this could be addressed pretty easily and I wouldn't mind running it at some point. 

Grimwild is an abandoned property, as the designer has disappeared and the folks he worked with on the crowdfunding of the project can't get hold of him (or access any of the accounts associated with the project). Fortunately, the PDF version of the game was released, and it's promising. It's a very light narrative take on the kind of fantasy that Dungeons & Dragons does well, and I liked what I read. I do think it would need a couple of read-throughs as the examples in the text don't necessarily cover everything clearly, but there's potential there.

Adventures Book 1 - Tenebrous Cats and Forgotten Tombstones is the adventures compilation of the Edgar Allan Poe inspired roleplaying game, Raven. I'd hoped that reading this would help to me come to a conclusion about the game as to whether it was one to sell or play, but it didn't provide that clarity for me. I'm more in the 'play' space now but I found the scenarios hard to work through. Like those for Vaesen, they have a set structure. Unlike those in Vaesen, they are stripped back so much that they feel like technical writting rather that something evocative. I'm pretty certain that they could be run really well and get the right vibe, but I haven't found the adventure within the collection that gives me the GM tingles and makes me want to crack on and get this to the table. At the moment, Vaesen, Candela Obscura and Old Gods of Appalachia would all come before this in my play preference. Maybe that's the answer for me.

Mark Meredith's Song of the River Prince is delightful. It's set in what appears to be an idyllic setting beside a great river and its tributaries. You take the part of travellers along the river, encountering adventures and carry out missions. The land is touched by the fey and has great beauty, but there are some perils that threaten the cosy, idyllic nature of the river lands. The rules are simple and there are mechanics that make the journey more important. I recommend this - you can get it on Lulu here, and DriveThruRPG here.

Now on to the fiction, which was dominated by thrillers.

The Shadow of the Northern Lights by Satu Rämö is the third part of an Icelandic noir detective series, Hildur. Hildur is an Icelandic police officer in a remote part of the island, and the investigations that she gets involved with link back to elements within her traumatic upbringing. She's assisted by a Finnish detective who is there as a paid intern. I'd really recommend starting at the beginning if you want to read this series as there are revelations throughout it that are relevant to the later stories. I enjoyed this, but I'm already invested in the series.

A Quiet Place by Seichō Matsumoto was an impulse purchase. The author was described as the Japanese Agatha Christie. In this tale, a government official's wife dies in somewhat suspicious circumstances and her husband starts to try and understand if she was having an affair. The story didn't go the way that I expected, and surprised me. It's steeped in Japanese culture so I found it quite alien to me in a way that the Icelandic noir isn't.

The Coworker by Freida McFadden was an impulse 99p purchase on my Kindle, and quite entertaining. I did find myself increasingly disliking the protagonist as I read the book, but it's a good twisty tale of what happens when a colleague that just doesn't quite fit in disappears and the repercussions on those around her.

The Hike by Lucy Clarke was a mistake. That's a mistake in the sense that I had another book of the same name saved in my wish list which I thought this so I bought the wrong novel! However, I only realised that when I saved it on my Storygraph account. This is a story of four childhood friends who have grown apart meeting up and hiking a four-day trail in Norway. They all have their own issues and challenges and events in the local area impinge upon them. I enjoyed this, especially as it avoided the obvious answers and twists.

Halcyon Years by Alastair Reynolds is a noir detective story set on a generation/sleep ship. Yuri Gagarin is hired to investigate two suspicious deaths, something that the authorities seem to by drawing a line under. The novel digs in and Gagarin follows a thread that reveal secrets from the mission's past. I enjoyed it; it's not the best Alastair Reynolds but it was very enjoyable. My book of the month certainly. It's interesting how Reynolds keeps returning to detective and noir themes, they seem to resonate with him.

Finally, I read Slaughterhouse-5, by Kurt Vonnegut. It was the SF Book club choice for the month and I found it strangely compelling and quite dark. It drew me in and along despite my not-quite liking it. Part of the reason I joined the bookclub was to try and read books that I may not have otherwise explored, and that's certainly working.

1 January 2026

When is a Sorcerer not a Sorcerer? - Stranger Things 5 (extremely minor spoilers)

My better half and I have been watching the final season of Stranger Things during the break and generally enjoying it. We're on tenterhooks for the last episode drop on New Year's Day.

Once again, the series draws heavily on D&D, with miniatures, missions into the Upside-Down being called Crawls, and references to the Abyss as a different plane of existence. 

However, there's one reference that is niggling me. A character is described as being more like a sorcerer than a wizard, as they have innate powers. Now, the fifth series is set in 1987, during the halcyon days of the first edition of AD&D. It wasn't until D&D 3rd Edition that Sorcerers became a thing in the game rather than just an alternative name for a wizard.

RPG Stack Exchange has a great article discussing how sorcerers came into the game here. 

I completely get why they use the reference like this; many of the folks introduced to D&D through Stranger Things will only ever have experienced D&D 5e where sorcerers have always been a unique class distinct from wizards. It makes sense to use the analogy to explain what's happening on the screen as the audience will get it. However, when you've been playing the game as long as I have, you get drawn to the anachronism and discrepancy, just like I can never unsee a misplaced apostrophe!

Anyway, I definitely recommend the final season as it weaves strands together from the past. Hopefully the last episode will deliver an appropriate send off; if it doesn't, perhaps it would have been better if Vecna wins.

28 December 2025

 

Facebook, meh.

I don't like Facebook.

I use it because some of the active communities for gaming spaces are there, and also there are family and friends that I find easiest to reach there. The kind of folks who suggesting something like Mastodon or MeWe would get a blank look from.

Messenger has been a key way of communicating with those folks (although I use SMS/RCS/iMessage and WhatsApp much more commonly with the folks I talk to more).

Meta have just killed the desktop version of the Messenger App, meaning you need to go into Facebook to message folks or use the mobile app. Kind of frustrating.

I managed to typo my PIN for encrypted messages when I went to the web interface, so it gives you a 15 min wait before you can try to restore chat history again. And a scary '4 more tries message'.

While I'm waiting, here's a book recommendation:

Sarah Wynn-Williams' autobiography on her time with Facebook is quite revealing and Meta has tried to cancel her as a result. She's not allowed to promote the book due to an injunction. Publisher info on the book here. The first third of the book, I was shocked with her naivety, the rest I was feeling for her and increasingly shocked.

It doesn't make me like Facebook any better.

21 December 2025

Books in November 2025

November 2025 saw me read 8 books, for a total of 3,013 pages, bringing me to a total of 106 books and 28,646 pages for the year. My page count was hugely skewed by the Lucifer graphic novel omnibus which is over a third of those pages.

I finished the final two of Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries, System Collapse and Fugitive Telemetry. I really enjoyed them and I'll be keeping an eye out for the next book in the series when it comes out. Highly recommended.

I also read The Persian by David McCloskey. This is the latest espionage novel from the author of Damascus Station. It's very different to the previous books, as it's exploring the experience of a Persian expatriate with Swedish citizenship who becomes drawn into the conflict between Iran and Israel. Most of the story is told from the perspective of a confession. Quite a hard, but good read.

This month's book club read from Contact by Carl Sagan. I have to confess I've never seen the movie so was going in cold. I struggled with Sagan’s writing style for the first three quarters of the book but the end section lifted it hugely, overall making it worth the time. Some fascinating ideas. Part of the reason I joined the book club was to try and make myself read some of the books I wouldn’t otherwise, which seems to be working out.

I read Raven, which is a gothic horror roleplaying game and very intriguing. I'm not certain about it, so I decided to dig into some Edgar Allan Poe (an author who I haven't touched since I was a teenager), listening to an audio collection of readings of his works by Basil Rathbone and Vincent Price to try and get with the vibe. I'm now reading the scenario book that goes with Raven to try and get a better feel for how the game should go. I like it but the scenarios seem very formally structured which leaves them a little cold in feel.

Before the Poe collection, I had worked my way through Daniela Richterova's Watching the Jackals, which is all about the interactions between the Czechoslovakian Secret Service and Palestinian terrorists and revolutionaries. It's pretty dry with a tendency for long words and repetition (it feels like it was written as a set of essays that have been linked together rather than a whole narrative) but pretty informative and interesting.

I finished the month diving into the first Lucifer Omnibus graphic novel. Weighing in at over 1,000 pages, I enjoyed this a lot. Mike Carey tells a gripping and fascinating tale of the fallen angel, building on what was done in The Sandman by Gaiman. Certainly the longest book in terms of page count that I've read this year!

6 December 2025

Books in October 2025

The start of October looked like it was going to be a very slow month for reading, which wasn't unexpected because I had two roleplaying conventions to prepare for in the time. However, that changed greatly when I started to read Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries.

In the month I read 11 books (although two of those were very, very short) for a total of 2,253 pages. So a fair few novella length stories. This year, I've read 98 books so far, and a total of 25,314 pages. I will read more books this year than last (102), but the page may or may not be higher.

I read one roleplaying game book (Deepnight Legacy for Traveller) in preparation for TravCon, and half of another scenario book (unrecorded) and I've been dipping into Shadowlands Games' Raven, but that will be finished in November.

I didn't finish any non-fiction, but have read/listened to a large chunk of a book about the Czech Secret Service's links to Middle Eastern terrorism. Again, that will mostly likely be completed next month.

I read two novels by William Boyd - Gabriel's Moon and The Predicament - both of which ware about about the same character, Gabriel Dax, a travel writer who ends up working as an occasional MI6 agent and courier. He has a crush on his handler, and a very different outlook on life. I enjoyed these a lot and will keep my eye out if there is another as there certainly was the space to add another book!

I reread Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (probably three decades on from the last time that I read it) and found it underwhelming once again. There are some fascinating ideas but the way it's written doesn't work for me. Now, this was the classic translation from the Polish to French and then to English and I'm told that there's a better translation now, which I may well check out. This was the Elle Cordova SF book club selection, and it was kind of weird as it became apparent that everyone was reading different translations! 

I needed a palate-cleanse after Solaris so I decided to read the first of Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries, All Systems Red. I'd picked most if these up in a bundle having watched the AppleTV series, and very quickly realised that the dry humour, sharp observation and energy of the stories was very much reflected in the TV show. I ended up reading 7 books in the series (although two of them were really short stories) back-to-back (and I've already finished the final two I have at the start of November). I found them hard to put down, and found myself ploughing through the whole series, something that very rarely happens for me(*). These are highly recommended. The title of the series originally put me off, but there's an awful lot to unpack alongside the action, as the stories do a good job of exploring sentient rights! They're mainly novella length, so quick reads.

For reference, after All Systems Red, I followed up with:

Artificial Condition,

Rogue Protocol,

Exit Strategy,

Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy,

Home: Habit, Range, Niche, Territory,

Network Effect.

(*) Finding Iain M Banks' books when I was a university was the most notable example of this for me. I ended up spending a lot of my part-time job's salary burning my way through everything that he'd published in the early 1990s. 

2 November 2025

Books in September 2025

Last month saw my reading step up in pace, with 9 books and 3,251 pages, definitely above average, although a little behind last year. Year-to-date I've read 87 books and 23,011 pages, and I'm coming up on having read for 1,000 days in a row.

This month's mix included one non-fiction, one short-story magazine and seven novels.

The non-fiction book was Sarah Wynn-Williams biography covering her time at Facebook (now Meta). She was a key member of the policy team, and it's a fascinating read about a toxic culture. At the start of the book I found her really naive and annoying, but by mid-way through you see her starting to realise what the place that she really wanted to work in is truly like. The title, Careless People, really says it all and it's no surprise that Meta are trying to suppress this. Definitely worth the time.

The short-story magazine was Clarkesworld. I've been getting this for several years and been very sporadic in how I've read it, so have made a commitment to myself to read it each month. As ever, it's a mixed bag, but there was nothing I disliked in it and much to like.

Speaking of commitments, in an effort to broaden and discover what I'm reading, I joined Elle Cordova's SF Book Club (worth it for the end of the month videos alone) and that led me to read one novel I'd never considered and one that I bought quite some time ago. The one I'd never considered was  Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, a tale about the life of an artificial person (an AI robot designed as a friend for children). There's a note of sadness though this but it was really enjoyable. The book I'd had for a long time was N.K.Jemison's The Fifth Season, which is part of an award winning series that collected Hugos and Nebulas. The latter felt closer to fantasy than science-fiction but it gripped me all the way through. It was fantasy in the sense that the technology involved in some areas was akin to magic (and could well have been magic). However, you need to be prepared for a multiple viewpoint multiple timeline novel that's part of a trilogy. I enjoyed both, and this month it will be Lem's Solaris.

Mick Herron's Clown Town was fun, but not the best of the Slow Horses books, and I felt that there was an element of forced ambiguity at the end which didn't work brilliantly for me. I also read two Kevin Wignall thrillers, The Story Starts Here and These Days Will End. The former starts with a student being expelled from school for 'drug dealing' and escalates rapidly, and the later is best described as being akin to an Agatha Christie story, set in a hotel in Italy. There's a murder, and one of the suspects and residents start to investigate. I like Wignall's writing, it carries me along nicely.

The Gnomes of Lychford is the latest from Paul Cornell, set in a town which has become the gateway between our world and magical realms. The story is really a warning about why you shouldn't have garden gnomes. Fun, but again not the best of the series. I rounded the month out with Christopher Fowler's Seventy Seven Clocks, the third of the Bryant & May mysteries. This was complicated and fun and very enjoyable.

Overall, a good month of reading.

1 October 2025

Books in August 2025

August 2025 saw me read another eight books and 2,234 pages. For reference, this was one book and some 700 pages less than last year, but the data is a little inaccurate as I've actually read a raft of shorter 'In Nomine' supplements in PDF that I didn't bother recording.

So far this year, I've read 78 books and 19,886 pages. I am ahead on numbers of books read.

The mix this month included two roleplaying games, a short story collection and a single non-fiction audiobook. That was Borderlines by Lewis Baston, which was an enjoyable journey through the borders of Europe, illustrating how the interior of the continent has shifted around and the impacts of border changes. 

The roleplaying games were both ones that I hope to run soon - In Nomine and Coriolis: The Great Dark. 

In Nomine gives players the chance to be angels or demons, fighting the battle between heaven and hell on Earth. I will be running this at Furnace in October. I last played this some time back in the late nineties when it first came out, in an excellent game run by Ric based around the Northern Ireland peace process. 

The Coriolis book is the sequel to the previous edition of the game; rather than rebuild the setting (after the three campaign books comprehensively trashed things and put everything up in the air), Fria Ligan decided to follow the story of a refugee/explorer fleet that set out beyond the Third Horizon, hopefully following the course of the Nadir, a lost colony ship. However, when they get to their destination, they find many problems; the setting is one of exploration, dungeoneering (almost) and factional conflict. It's much more slickly done and presented than Coriolis: The Third Horizon, but I still love the original setting. However, I hope to run the campaign set once it's available properly in the new year and I'm looking forward to a game with a very different feel.

The collection of shorts was the latest edition of Clarkesworld Magazine (#227). I've had a subscription for quite some time but rarely read them properly, so I'm trying to get better at that. 

We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker is a twisty tale of small town drama, in which a criminal is released back into the community and not well received. Things escalate, and we follow the chaos that ensues, turning everyone's life upside down. Recommended.

The Hungry Gods by Adrian Tchaikovsky sees several tech entrepreneurs returning to Earth after many years on Mars and beyond, assuming the population has been wiped out with climate change and collapse. However, the survivors have been more tenacious than expected, and become involved in the very real struggle between the three returnees and their very different visions of what the world should be like. These visions don't really involve the survivors, who are an inconvenience. There are hints that the fate of their ventures may not have been as good as they like to make out. I did enjoy this a lot, but I preferred his previous book Bee Speaker, which I read back in June 2025, which has similar themes.

Ben Aaronovitch's Amongst our Weapons is the latest Rivers of London book. This returns back to the main character, Peter Grant, who is about to become a father. He faces some terrifying experiences, including the North of the UK! I really enjoyed this and the pages slipped past effortlessly.

The final book that I read was Richard Adams' classic Watership Down. I read this on a nostalgia trip while on holiday. As a child, my parents used to take us to Devon or Cornwall, and I'd have a pile of books to read (indeed, finding the space to stash them was a key part of holiday packing for the car), and this book was usually there (along with Andre Norton's Solar Queen, some of Rosemary Sutcliff's Eagle of the Ninth books, and others like Sir Arthur C Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama). Anyway, I decided to read it again, and was reminded just how well written it is. Delightful.

Overall, a decent month. It will be interesting to see how September will go, as I'm travelling for work a fair bit, but also have convention preparation to do.

1 September 2025

Books in July 2025

July was a quiet month for reading for me. Lots going on with work and some time spent on writing projects that nearly made me miss my ' read every day' objective.

I read five books, for a total of 1,788 pages. That brings me to 70 books and 17,627 pages for the year. This month I read two non-fiction books, one roleplaying book and two novels.

The non-fiction books were The CIA Book Club by Charlie English and Liftoff by Eric Berger. The former was a fascinating tale of how the CIA funded and helped organise the sharing and sale of literature that was banned in the communist block. The story is focused on Poland, explaining how vital the sharing of literature and ideas was to Solidarity's success. 

Liftoff was a gripping tale of how SpaceX transitioned into becoming the leading provider of rocket launches. It was gripping, tense, and reminded me of why I respected Musk's drive (although I really dislike his management approach and values) and the achievements that were made. Unfortunately, that's all tainted by his foray into politics. However, this book captures the feel of a start-up business really well.

The roleplaying book was Tales of the Old West, which is the first historical take on a Western based roleplaying game. It uses Fria Ligan's Year Zero Engine and is really nicely written. I hope to run this at Furnace in October. Having run and played YZE games before, this looks like a great one.

I revisited the past this month with Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave. This is her Romano-British Arthurian Merlin trilogy's first book. It has a special place in my heart as my Grandmother introduced me to it and I have read it multiple times. This was a return after more than a decade, and it was as wonderful as ever. I recommend this series if you fancy something Arthurian but a bit different. The series definitely influenced the way that I ran the Pendragon roleplaying game in the past.

Finally, I read Paul Vidich's The Poet's Game, a modern day spy story set mostly in Russia and the US. A former spy finds that he cannot escape his past as he's asked to help make contact with a former asset by the CIA. I found this a bit of a page turner, and look forward to the next book from the author.

I'm on holiday in August so the reading rate may accelerate again.

3 August 2025