Quite a few books, boosted by a holiday for 10 days.
Suldrun’s Garden (Jack Vance)
The Green Pearl (Jack Vance)
Madouc (Jack Vance)
More of a skim read this time, but I went back through the whole of Lyonesse to tag out the elements I’m responsible for writing about using a textual analysis tool called CATMA. Every time I read this trilogy I love it more and more.
Cthulhu City (Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan)
I enjoyed this; the ideas are different and evocative but ultimately the book doesn’t deliver what I expected. It’s very much a gazetteer of Great Arkham and details the individuals that tie it together. Every individual has three options; victim, sinister or stalwart, and each location can be masked or unmasked. Cults are detailed with some motivations and frictions. It’s a toolkit to build a sandbox.
I’d have liked to have seen some more guidance on running a Cthulhu City campaign and how to make it distinctive, perhaps with some ideas for plot arcs and using the noir/pulp feel within the setting. The introductory adventure is good, but it doesn’t really feel tied to the themes within the text. I expected to see more that keys into the backstory and the characters arrival into the city.
The cover art is great but the internals less so.
All in all, I liked this book and will run something set in it, but it didn’t quite hit the mark for me.
Surviving AI: The promise and peril of artificial intelligence (Calum Chace)
A reasonable short overview of artificial intelligence including the work that has been done so far, current fields of study and then extrapolation on what the consequences could be. A good primer.
Runcible Tales (Neal Asher)
A collection of short stories set in Asher’s Polity Universe. Good fun. I read a paper copy four years back, Goodreads tells me.
Mason’s Rats (Neal Asher)
Three short stories about how a farmer deals with the situation when he encounters super-intelligent rats. This amused me.
The Parasite (Neal Asher)
A novella by Asher set in the future. A comet miner comes back with something in him, and the corporation he works for tries to dispose of the awkward and financially damaging evidence. This is classic Asher, black and white, Bond-flavoured action thriller full of technology, space, sex and violence. Hints of the Polity, even if it’s not part of that series. I enjoyed this a lot. Fast paced action thrills.
Collected Folk Tales (Alan Garner)
A pot-pouri of folk tales and poems brought together by an author I love. I enjoyed the collection, and all along the way was seeing the potential of some of the plots and creatures for roleplaying scenarios. It is a mixture - some of the stories evoked more of a response with my than others - but overall worth the time.
The Expert System’s Brother (Nicolas Tchaikovski)
I like Tchaikovski’s work, and this is a cleverly written and plotted story of humanity colonising another planet. However, it didn’t really land with me as I found myself very detached from the protagonist. That may have been deliberate, based on the plot, but it doesn’t draw me to read it again. I may reconsider the 3 stars I gave it on Goodreads though.
The Lost Child of Lychford (Paul Cornell)
I enjoyed the first in this series so have come back for more. This didn’t disappoint. A short/novella length piece, this has similar vibes to the Rivers of London series, with the supernatural touching the real world. It’s just before Christmas at Lychford and foul deeds are afoot. The three witches have to find a way to understand the threat, defend themselves and reality, and save the life of a young child. Good fun.
A Long Day in Lychford (Paul Cornell)
The third book has trouble caused by disagreements between the witches, threatening the threads that bind reality and Lychford together. This accelerates rapidly from one of the witches having a serious disagreement with a local over Brexit triggered by the colour of her skin. Enjoyable, if there are more, I’ll read them.
The Sword, the Crown and the Unspeakable Power (Wheel Tree Press)
A re-read in depth of the PbtA game that I’ll be running at Furnace this year. Good stuff.
Owning the Future: Short Stories (Neal Asher)
The last of the short story collections that I bought recently. I enjoyed this most of the selection we had, especially the expansions on the Owner universe.
Wyntertide (Andrew Caldecott)
This is the sequel to Rotherweird and it works very well. It could have done with a plot summary at the start for what has gone before but it came back to me as I plunged in. The story escalates nicely, but ends in a very Empire Strikes Back moment with the forces of good at a low point. And I need to wait until June 2019 to find how this ends. Great book.
Noumenon Infinity (Marina J. Lostetter)
This is the sequel to Noumenon which I read earlier in the year. It takes the story of the original Noumenon multi-generation mission forward with its return to the web, and adds in the story of another Convoy Mission. Three separate threads twist around each other and then finally meet in a slightly confused ending. It works, but it was a little complicated at the end (even though I’d guessed one of the reveals a while earlier. I’ll look for more by Lostetter in the future.
01 September 2018
06 August 2018
The One Ring - Season 6 -The Passing of Beorn
 |
| The End of Season 6 |
We finished the sixth season of our One Ring campaign run by Paul Mitchener tonight. After a quiet fifth season, this saw our fellowship of four hunting down the Werewolf of Mirkwood, and entrapping its spirit in the body of our Wood Elf.
We travelled to take advice from Beorn, as a shapechanger and ended up travelling high into the Misty Mountains where the shapeshifting spirit of the Werewolf was taken away by the Hunter as he crossed Middle Earth. Unfortunately, Beorn disappeared at the same time (Eye of Sauron), sacrificing himself to free the world from an ancient evil.
We started back down to tell the Beornings the sad news, and quickly stumbled into a large patrol of orcs, led by an Orc Captain, two Uruk-hai from Mordor, a Mountain Troll and about two hundred orc soldiers and archers. On the plains below we saw a Nazgul riding towards the Beornings. Improvising, we split the vanguard from the main body by means of an avalanche (stonecraft use) which partly blocked the route down from the High Pass. My Dwarf despatched his Raven friend to warn the Beornings and we prepared to fight a desperate battle. We killed the orcs, but constant arrow fire and the Troll battered us back, and our Ranger collapsed unconscious from his wounds, to be saved by our Woodswoman. The whole fellowship was weary by now and had very little endurance left.
Fleeing down the mountain, we hid and rested in a cave, securing the entrance and then breaking into the orc tunnels behind as the troll broke through. A challenging scramble through the dark got us outside on the Eastern side and we made it to the resting house by the Old Ford. Use of Courtesy and Song inspired our Beorning hosts, and drove off the dire influence of the Nazgul. We rested our weary bodies, drinking ale and filling our pipes. The Raven returned, having warned the Beornings and also travelled to inform Radagast, who was on his way...
---
We really thought we were going to have character fatalities tonight. Far too many Eyes of Sauron! The troll was nearly our undoing. This season felt really epic.
The good news is that the campaign will return in October, for Season 7. We're really loving the Darkening of Mirkwood...
The One Ring image - By Xander - own work, (not derivative from the movies), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1953341
02 August 2018
Books in July 2018
Dark Albion: The Rose Wars
This is RPGPundit’s take on the War of the Roses, effectively giving a Dark Fantasy Game of Thrones type setting for D&D. I’ve been impressed because it walks that line between too much and too little detail. It does need a good proof read and perhaps some light editing, but I could easily imagine playing or running this. There are some subtle jokes in the text as well, but they don’t harm the feel. It’s presented with a minimal of unique rules and could easily be run for any version of D&D.
A Brief History of Time (Professor Stephen Hawking)
I had never read Hawking’s book, having started with Kip Thorne’s Black Holes and Time Warps but decided that I need to correct that after the announcement of his death. I picked up a copy on my Kindle, and then the audiobook from Audible as a cheap upgrade, so I listened to the unabridged edition on the commute. It was fascinating; initially, I was let down by the delivery of the narrator but eventually started to appreciate his style which fitted the book. Definitely worth checking out if you haven’t dipped into it.
Bridging Infinity (Ed. Jonathan Strahan)
The fifth in the Infinity short story collection, this one presented views of the future for humanity. A number of them were climate change scenarios, but there was a good deal of variety. I only found one story that was a struggle but it was worth it once I pushed into the main thread. I’d definitely recommend this sequence of books.
The Storm before the Storm (Mike Duncan)
This was the unabridged audiobook version of the book covering the period of Roman history from the Gracchi Brothers through to the death of Sulla by the presenter of the History of Rome podcast12. It is read by the author, so feels like a more formal version of the podcast. This is a deep dive into the Roman politics and the conflicts that set the stage for Pompey, Crassus and Caesar’s wars and then the collapse of the Republic into an Empire. There are really scary parallels to some of the things happening in politics in the UK and USA right now. I enjoyed this book a lot. It would be a good period to set a historical RPG scenario in with chaos, conflict, confusion, greed and rivalries both individual and political.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
1 Run, do not walk, to listen to the 170 odd episodes of this. It is truly excellent.
2 As is the Revolutions podcast series he has followed The History of Rome up with.
This is RPGPundit’s take on the War of the Roses, effectively giving a Dark Fantasy Game of Thrones type setting for D&D. I’ve been impressed because it walks that line between too much and too little detail. It does need a good proof read and perhaps some light editing, but I could easily imagine playing or running this. There are some subtle jokes in the text as well, but they don’t harm the feel. It’s presented with a minimal of unique rules and could easily be run for any version of D&D.
A Brief History of Time (Professor Stephen Hawking)
I had never read Hawking’s book, having started with Kip Thorne’s Black Holes and Time Warps but decided that I need to correct that after the announcement of his death. I picked up a copy on my Kindle, and then the audiobook from Audible as a cheap upgrade, so I listened to the unabridged edition on the commute. It was fascinating; initially, I was let down by the delivery of the narrator but eventually started to appreciate his style which fitted the book. Definitely worth checking out if you haven’t dipped into it.
Bridging Infinity (Ed. Jonathan Strahan)
The fifth in the Infinity short story collection, this one presented views of the future for humanity. A number of them were climate change scenarios, but there was a good deal of variety. I only found one story that was a struggle but it was worth it once I pushed into the main thread. I’d definitely recommend this sequence of books.
The Storm before the Storm (Mike Duncan)
This was the unabridged audiobook version of the book covering the period of Roman history from the Gracchi Brothers through to the death of Sulla by the presenter of the History of Rome podcast12. It is read by the author, so feels like a more formal version of the podcast. This is a deep dive into the Roman politics and the conflicts that set the stage for Pompey, Crassus and Caesar’s wars and then the collapse of the Republic into an Empire. There are really scary parallels to some of the things happening in politics in the UK and USA right now. I enjoyed this book a lot. It would be a good period to set a historical RPG scenario in with chaos, conflict, confusion, greed and rivalries both individual and political.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
1 Run, do not walk, to listen to the 170 odd episodes of this. It is truly excellent.
2 As is the Revolutions podcast series he has followed The History of Rome up with.
07 July 2018
Books in April, May and June 2018
This has been a busy few months so here’s an amalgamated set of books that I’ve read. I’ve also included a couple of audiobooks which I’ve enjoyed.
Reservoir 13 (Jon McGregor)
This effectively picks up where The Reservoir Tapes – which I read last month – finishes. It’s a very different book; the former comprised fifteen different points of view about the disappearance of Becky Shaw, a 13 year old girl, with the conceit that they were all stories told to a reporter in the immediate aftermath of her disappearance. There is no denouement; instead, you have to piece together connections to try and work out what was going on. This book takes a different form; it is a tale of the years for the village that the girl was staying at when she disappears. We are voyeurs who see the changes and ripples of the event going forward as the seasons remorselessly change. The people of the village are transient compared to the reservoirs and hills of landscape.
Structurally, the book has no chapters as such. Text runs together over periods of time, like a series of notes. It’s not stream of consciousness, but rather a stream of events. We can pick up on an individual for a line, a number of sentences or even a page, but then the text - rejecting conventional paragraphs - just flows into the next event. When you reach a break, it’s always at some natural pause. The structure draws you through and I found it very effective. You also feel the rhythm of the seasons, with the repeated events and the changes that come through as people grow old, move away, fall in and out of love, or die. It’s all set in the context of Bex, or Becky or Rebecca Shaw’s disappearance and the impact that it has on the lives of everyone in the village.
I really enjoyed this book; you are drawn into the lives of the people in it, a passive voyeur, all the while hoping, just hoping, that some kind of conclusion will be found. But eventually, whether or not it is ceases to be a real concern as you find yourself caring more for the lives of the people left behind as they live on set against the slow time of landscape.
Delta Green Handler’s Guide (Dennis Detwiller)
I printed out a copy of the Handler’s Guide to read as part of my preparation for North Star. I’m really impressed with the quality of the book; it’s very usable, well written and beautifully laid out. This is in effect the setting book for Delta Green.
Stranger Things - The Ultimate Guide (Stephen Smith)
Reading in preparation for North Star. This was a very usable reference while I was preparing the game to run.
Delta Green - The Way it Went Down (Dennis Detwiller)
Flash fiction set in the Delta Green universe, much of it culled from mood pieces in the game material. Lots of flavour that leaves you wanting more.
Delta Green Agent’s Handbook (Dennis Detailer)
I re-read the player’s book (which contains much of the rules) for Delta Green just before North Star. Very well done.
The Trinity Six (Charles Cumming)
The story tells about an academic who has stumbled into evidence that there may well have been a sixth agent in the Cambridge Spy Ring, one who has been protected by the UK Government. The discover places him at risk as he searches to discover the truth. I found this an enjoyable read; Cumming definitely has a claim to be trying to be a successor to le Carré.
The Forbidden Lands Player’s Guide (Beta)
This is the retro-styled fantasy heartbreaker from Fria Ligan. I’m impressed with what I’ve read; it definitely lifts from other sources such as the resources dice in the Black Hack along with shades of Dungeon World’s play agendas. It may be a little on the lethal side; I need to explore this a bit more and maybe play it.
The Letter for the King (Tonke Dragt)
This is a Danish Young Adult classic. A young squire is called to adventure the night that he should be completing his vigil to become a knight. It’s a simple story, told well, one that I would have appreciated more when I was younger.
Dogs of War (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
Rex is a Good Dog, a bioengineered corporate soldier who leads a team with a bioengineered crocodile (‘Dragon’), bear (‘Honey’) and Bee Swarm (‘Bees’). Master is a corporate troubleshooter, deployed to fight a war in Mexico against insurgents. Atrocities have been committed and Rex and his team have to deal with the conflict between morality, feedback chips and the fact that although they are sentient yet property. I enjoyed this.
Rupture (Dark Iceland #4) (Ragnar Jónasson)
I had an urge for some more Icelandic noir for the minimalist difference so I decided to read the Ragnar Jónasson books that are sitting on my Kindle waiting for the right mood. The fourth of the books with Ari Thór in, this sees Siglufjördour isolated and quarantined because of a dangerous ‘flu case. Thór spends part of the time digging into a closed case from the 1950s when new evidence is brought to him. In the mean time, a reporter contact in Reykjavik helps him out by checking details, and also gets drawn into a separate, brutal investigation. Again, enjoyable, but perhaps failing to land the feel of the quarantine’s isolation and the fear of disease fully.
Whiteout (Dark Iceland #5) (Ragnar Jónasson)
There’s a shift in the style of the series with this book, as it spends more time at the start in the set up to the story without the protagonists. Ari Thór is called in to support his former boss investigating a suicide with suspicious circumstances just before Christmas. Set on an isolated headland with a lighthouse, a farm and a well-to-do family home, you can really feel the remoteness of the place. I really enjoyed this one; the atmosphere builds well.
Noumenon (Marina J. Lostetter)
A SF novel about the journey to another star which has shown anomalous readings to astronomers. Is it an unusual Oort Cloud, an alien mega-structure or something else? Earth is sending of multiple missions into space to explore the galaxy, and this is one of them. It starts with the pitch for a slot in the mission rosters and ends thousands of years later. This is a generation ship tale with a twist; it follows the mission from its inception to its arrival at the target star, but then goes further to explore the changes in society that two thousand observed years of travel brings to both on the ship and Earth itself. Another slight variation to the genre is that, although this is a generation ship, each new generation is born artificially from clones of the first generation. I really enjoyed this; it reminded me of some of the great thought experiments and extrapolations of early SF.
Lifeboat (Marina J. Lostetter)
A collection of three short stories from the author of Noumenon. I enjoyed them, but not as much as the main novel.
The Cthulhu Hack (Paul Baldowski)
Sixth revision printing of the Cthulhu Hack, which features a significantly improved layout with a new font that makes it far more readable with a cleaner look. I think that this is one of the cleverest evolutions of The Black Hack and well worth the time. I need to get this to the table.
The Dark Brood (Paul Baldowski)
A new supplement for the Cthulhu Hack, focussing around the mythos of Shub Niggurath. This gives plenty of interesting material, plot ideas and options for you game. It would be usable with other Cthulhu games and more Lovecraftian D&D. It does link back to an earlier book, From Unformed Realms.
Lyonesse 1: Suldrun’s Garden (Jack Vance)
Lyonesse 2: The Green Pearl) (Jack Vance)
Lyonesse 3: Madouc (Jack Vance)
I spent the best part of two months listening to the audiobook versions of the Lyonesse trilogy by Jack Vance as published by Audible. These are really well done (although the narrator does have some affectation in how he says a few of the words) and listening to the whole - unabridged - work in one fell swoop as definitely worth it. Recommended
Reservoir 13 (Jon McGregor)
This effectively picks up where The Reservoir Tapes – which I read last month – finishes. It’s a very different book; the former comprised fifteen different points of view about the disappearance of Becky Shaw, a 13 year old girl, with the conceit that they were all stories told to a reporter in the immediate aftermath of her disappearance. There is no denouement; instead, you have to piece together connections to try and work out what was going on. This book takes a different form; it is a tale of the years for the village that the girl was staying at when she disappears. We are voyeurs who see the changes and ripples of the event going forward as the seasons remorselessly change. The people of the village are transient compared to the reservoirs and hills of landscape.
Structurally, the book has no chapters as such. Text runs together over periods of time, like a series of notes. It’s not stream of consciousness, but rather a stream of events. We can pick up on an individual for a line, a number of sentences or even a page, but then the text - rejecting conventional paragraphs - just flows into the next event. When you reach a break, it’s always at some natural pause. The structure draws you through and I found it very effective. You also feel the rhythm of the seasons, with the repeated events and the changes that come through as people grow old, move away, fall in and out of love, or die. It’s all set in the context of Bex, or Becky or Rebecca Shaw’s disappearance and the impact that it has on the lives of everyone in the village.
I really enjoyed this book; you are drawn into the lives of the people in it, a passive voyeur, all the while hoping, just hoping, that some kind of conclusion will be found. But eventually, whether or not it is ceases to be a real concern as you find yourself caring more for the lives of the people left behind as they live on set against the slow time of landscape.
Delta Green Handler’s Guide (Dennis Detwiller)
I printed out a copy of the Handler’s Guide to read as part of my preparation for North Star. I’m really impressed with the quality of the book; it’s very usable, well written and beautifully laid out. This is in effect the setting book for Delta Green.
Stranger Things - The Ultimate Guide (Stephen Smith)
Reading in preparation for North Star. This was a very usable reference while I was preparing the game to run.
Delta Green - The Way it Went Down (Dennis Detwiller)
Flash fiction set in the Delta Green universe, much of it culled from mood pieces in the game material. Lots of flavour that leaves you wanting more.
Delta Green Agent’s Handbook (Dennis Detailer)
I re-read the player’s book (which contains much of the rules) for Delta Green just before North Star. Very well done.
The Trinity Six (Charles Cumming)
The story tells about an academic who has stumbled into evidence that there may well have been a sixth agent in the Cambridge Spy Ring, one who has been protected by the UK Government. The discover places him at risk as he searches to discover the truth. I found this an enjoyable read; Cumming definitely has a claim to be trying to be a successor to le Carré.
The Forbidden Lands Player’s Guide (Beta)
This is the retro-styled fantasy heartbreaker from Fria Ligan. I’m impressed with what I’ve read; it definitely lifts from other sources such as the resources dice in the Black Hack along with shades of Dungeon World’s play agendas. It may be a little on the lethal side; I need to explore this a bit more and maybe play it.
The Letter for the King (Tonke Dragt)
This is a Danish Young Adult classic. A young squire is called to adventure the night that he should be completing his vigil to become a knight. It’s a simple story, told well, one that I would have appreciated more when I was younger.
Dogs of War (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
Rex is a Good Dog, a bioengineered corporate soldier who leads a team with a bioengineered crocodile (‘Dragon’), bear (‘Honey’) and Bee Swarm (‘Bees’). Master is a corporate troubleshooter, deployed to fight a war in Mexico against insurgents. Atrocities have been committed and Rex and his team have to deal with the conflict between morality, feedback chips and the fact that although they are sentient yet property. I enjoyed this.
Rupture (Dark Iceland #4) (Ragnar Jónasson)
I had an urge for some more Icelandic noir for the minimalist difference so I decided to read the Ragnar Jónasson books that are sitting on my Kindle waiting for the right mood. The fourth of the books with Ari Thór in, this sees Siglufjördour isolated and quarantined because of a dangerous ‘flu case. Thór spends part of the time digging into a closed case from the 1950s when new evidence is brought to him. In the mean time, a reporter contact in Reykjavik helps him out by checking details, and also gets drawn into a separate, brutal investigation. Again, enjoyable, but perhaps failing to land the feel of the quarantine’s isolation and the fear of disease fully.
Whiteout (Dark Iceland #5) (Ragnar Jónasson)
There’s a shift in the style of the series with this book, as it spends more time at the start in the set up to the story without the protagonists. Ari Thór is called in to support his former boss investigating a suicide with suspicious circumstances just before Christmas. Set on an isolated headland with a lighthouse, a farm and a well-to-do family home, you can really feel the remoteness of the place. I really enjoyed this one; the atmosphere builds well.
Noumenon (Marina J. Lostetter)
A SF novel about the journey to another star which has shown anomalous readings to astronomers. Is it an unusual Oort Cloud, an alien mega-structure or something else? Earth is sending of multiple missions into space to explore the galaxy, and this is one of them. It starts with the pitch for a slot in the mission rosters and ends thousands of years later. This is a generation ship tale with a twist; it follows the mission from its inception to its arrival at the target star, but then goes further to explore the changes in society that two thousand observed years of travel brings to both on the ship and Earth itself. Another slight variation to the genre is that, although this is a generation ship, each new generation is born artificially from clones of the first generation. I really enjoyed this; it reminded me of some of the great thought experiments and extrapolations of early SF.
Lifeboat (Marina J. Lostetter)
A collection of three short stories from the author of Noumenon. I enjoyed them, but not as much as the main novel.
The Cthulhu Hack (Paul Baldowski)
Sixth revision printing of the Cthulhu Hack, which features a significantly improved layout with a new font that makes it far more readable with a cleaner look. I think that this is one of the cleverest evolutions of The Black Hack and well worth the time. I need to get this to the table.
The Dark Brood (Paul Baldowski)
A new supplement for the Cthulhu Hack, focussing around the mythos of Shub Niggurath. This gives plenty of interesting material, plot ideas and options for you game. It would be usable with other Cthulhu games and more Lovecraftian D&D. It does link back to an earlier book, From Unformed Realms.
Lyonesse 1: Suldrun’s Garden (Jack Vance)
Lyonesse 2: The Green Pearl) (Jack Vance)
Lyonesse 3: Madouc (Jack Vance)
I spent the best part of two months listening to the audiobook versions of the Lyonesse trilogy by Jack Vance as published by Audible. These are really well done (although the narrator does have some affectation in how he says a few of the words) and listening to the whole - unabridged - work in one fell swoop as definitely worth it. Recommended
25 June 2018
The One Ring - Season 6 - The Werewolf of Mirkwood
 |
| The thing about meddlesome elves is that they're meddlesome. |
We returned to our One Ring campaign today, run by the excellent Paul Mitchener. This is the latest 'season' we've been in (Paul runs 4-6 sessions over hangouts and they always seem to finish pretty climatically).
Today we set about ensnaring and slaying the Werewolf of Mirkwood; we'd killed it before only to have it come back. This time we'd sought advice from Saruman, and had the assistance of Radagast, and an ancient artefact. The plan went swimmingly (clearly the dice were paying us back for the multiple Eyes of Sauron we rolled on a trek to Angmar some seasons ago), right up to the point when our wood elf Miriel (who can now go full Legolas) deciding to try out the use of the Black Speech that she'd learnt when visiting Saruman. Sadly, the werewolf's spirit took this as an invitation and decided to take up residence inside her.
She assures us it's all under control, but Radagast looks worried and the GM keeps smiling and asking for Wisdom checks. Next stop is a visit to Beorn to try and get some advice...
The One Ring image - By Xander - own work, (not derivative from the movies), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1953341
02 April 2018
Books in March 2018
The Sword, The Crown and the Unspeakable Power (Todd N. & Tom J.)
This was an RPG I backed indirectly last year on Kickstarter thanks to Steve Ellis pulling together a group order. It promised a ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ engined game aimed to create the kind of power politicking seen in Game of Thrones, as endorsed by Niccolò Machiavelli. On an initial read through, it may well have achieved that aim. Of course, the proof of the pudding will be in the playing, and unfortunately this arrived too late for me to try at Revelation 2018.
The default setting is the traditional western world take on fantasy, but there are notes on using other settings and mythologies. Playbooks have a variety of archetypes who can be common or elite, and may be patrons or agents of others. You can be Crown in this game, but it does expose you nicely. The initial play defines mythology and also who controls what resource. Some moves are powered by spending your honor (effectively a stat that shows your reputation with the faction to whom you are aligned). Each character will have a faction (which may not entirely overlap with their core activities).The Unspeakable Power is magic, from whatever source it comes from.
The game is definitely PVP, across all areas (social and physical) and there is guidance for making sure that the players are all comfortable with this. The X-card gets a run out, as do lines and veils. As one of the playbooks is effectively the Palace Torturer, this is probably a good thing. In conclusion, on initial read this is one of those games that makes me want to get it to the table. I hope it delivers.
Alice (Christina Henry)
I’d seen this book on Amazon a while ago, and had dropped it on my wish list to pick up at some point. When I saw it on the daily deal for Kindle, I snagged a copy straight away. I’m really glad that I did. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is one of those books which I read, repeatedly, at a young age. Partly because it was one of the few books suitable for me at my grandparent’s house, but I enjoyed the story as well, especially the clever dark edges to it as reality turns out to be something different to what you expected.
Christina Henry’s take on this is delicious. Alice is locked up in an asylum after a terrifying experience with the Rabbit and more. Her next door cell-mate is Hatcher, an insane murderer who becomes her friend. Events ensue that leads to them escaping the asylum, and heading off to seek revenge on the Rabbit and find Hatcher’s family. They travel deep into the Old City, a dystopian urban nightmare of competing gangs, violence and abuse run by bosses like the Rabbit and the Caterpillar. Although the magicians were banished from both the Old and New City years ago, magic remains, and the Jabberwocky is stalking Hatcher.
I really enjoyed this book; there’s an energy to it, and a darkness that pulls you on. It’s not a nice book; violence and abuse are everyday events in the Old City and both of the protagonists are broken and quite brutal when provoked. If anything, this is partly a journey of them finding what remains of their humanity. I really enjoyed this book, and found it hard to put down.
The Red Queen (Christina Henry)
Having finished Alice, I immediately bought the sequel. Rather than being an urban dystopian nightmare of gang violence, this book is a quest. Hatcher and Alice travel beyond the City to try and find Hatch’s daughter, entering the lands of the White Queen and Black King.
This is not as strong a book as the first novel, as it is far more traditionally linear, more conforming to classical fairy tales. What happens is far less of a surprise and less twisted than the first book. That said, it was satisfying and enjoyable, and I’d love to see more in this setting.
Elysium Fire (Alastair Reynolds)
A new Alastair Reynolds story is always something to look forward to. A story set in the Revelation Space universe even more so. This tale is set in the Yellowstone system (featured in Chasm City, The Prefect (now Aurora) and more), at the height of the Glitter Band. The character Prefect Dreyfus is, once again, at the heart of the story (although it’s more of an ensemble piece with his team this time), and Panoply tries to prevent an existential threat to society whilst dealing with agitation from member communities to secede. I guessed part of the reveal towards the end but not the whole thing. I’m hoping that there are more books about Dreyfus and colleagues.
The Princess Diarist (Carrie Fisher)
I picked this up on impulse; it’s the late and sadly missed Carrie Fisher’s diaries from the filming of Star Wars. The more recent commentary has a lovely, relaxed, almost conversational tone. This is the book where she revealed the truth about ‘Carrison’ as she called the relationship between her and Harrison Ford.
Notes from the Upside Down (Guy Adams)
This was prep for running the Delta Green/Stranger Things mash-up I have planned for North Star in late April. Best reviewed of the various ‘Unofficial Guides’, this seems to be more focussed around the influences on the show rather than the show itself. It’s fair to say that I’ve learnt a lot about John Carpenter, Stephen King and media trivia from the Eighties, but I’m not convinced that I got out of this what I was looking for in terms of material to plumb. Certainly an interesting read.
The Reservoir Tapes (Jon McGregor)
I picked up the novel of the BBC Radio 4 series written by Jon McGregor. It’s an interesting concept. The author describes it as a ‘who dun-what’ rather than a ‘who dun nit’. There are 15 different points of view, supposedly from interviews by a reporter, all about the disappearance of a 13 year old girl while on holiday in a small village in Derbyshire. The book is quite literally the script for the BBC version (which can be downloaded as I write this), and each chapter is an episode. I was hooked from the first interview, which takes the form of an overheard conversation. I have picked up the linked novel Reservoir 13 to read later. It has to be said that I really enjoyed McGregor’s first novel – “If no-one speaks of remarkable things” – but somehow missed the work that he has done since. Something that I need to remedy.
Stranger Things - The Companion (Nick Blake)
A very concise and focused overview of both series of Stranger Things which was much more what I was looking for, yet still managed to cover many of cultural references that Notes from the Upside Down focussed on. Think of this as the gruff Northern version, not wasting its words yet providing more information in a more easily usable state. That said, it didn’t have the edge of dry humour and wit that its competitor had, but it also lacked the many digressions. I preferred this book.
This was an RPG I backed indirectly last year on Kickstarter thanks to Steve Ellis pulling together a group order. It promised a ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ engined game aimed to create the kind of power politicking seen in Game of Thrones, as endorsed by Niccolò Machiavelli. On an initial read through, it may well have achieved that aim. Of course, the proof of the pudding will be in the playing, and unfortunately this arrived too late for me to try at Revelation 2018.
The default setting is the traditional western world take on fantasy, but there are notes on using other settings and mythologies. Playbooks have a variety of archetypes who can be common or elite, and may be patrons or agents of others. You can be Crown in this game, but it does expose you nicely. The initial play defines mythology and also who controls what resource. Some moves are powered by spending your honor (effectively a stat that shows your reputation with the faction to whom you are aligned). Each character will have a faction (which may not entirely overlap with their core activities).The Unspeakable Power is magic, from whatever source it comes from.
The game is definitely PVP, across all areas (social and physical) and there is guidance for making sure that the players are all comfortable with this. The X-card gets a run out, as do lines and veils. As one of the playbooks is effectively the Palace Torturer, this is probably a good thing. In conclusion, on initial read this is one of those games that makes me want to get it to the table. I hope it delivers.
Alice (Christina Henry)
I’d seen this book on Amazon a while ago, and had dropped it on my wish list to pick up at some point. When I saw it on the daily deal for Kindle, I snagged a copy straight away. I’m really glad that I did. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is one of those books which I read, repeatedly, at a young age. Partly because it was one of the few books suitable for me at my grandparent’s house, but I enjoyed the story as well, especially the clever dark edges to it as reality turns out to be something different to what you expected.
Christina Henry’s take on this is delicious. Alice is locked up in an asylum after a terrifying experience with the Rabbit and more. Her next door cell-mate is Hatcher, an insane murderer who becomes her friend. Events ensue that leads to them escaping the asylum, and heading off to seek revenge on the Rabbit and find Hatcher’s family. They travel deep into the Old City, a dystopian urban nightmare of competing gangs, violence and abuse run by bosses like the Rabbit and the Caterpillar. Although the magicians were banished from both the Old and New City years ago, magic remains, and the Jabberwocky is stalking Hatcher.
I really enjoyed this book; there’s an energy to it, and a darkness that pulls you on. It’s not a nice book; violence and abuse are everyday events in the Old City and both of the protagonists are broken and quite brutal when provoked. If anything, this is partly a journey of them finding what remains of their humanity. I really enjoyed this book, and found it hard to put down.
The Red Queen (Christina Henry)
Having finished Alice, I immediately bought the sequel. Rather than being an urban dystopian nightmare of gang violence, this book is a quest. Hatcher and Alice travel beyond the City to try and find Hatch’s daughter, entering the lands of the White Queen and Black King.
This is not as strong a book as the first novel, as it is far more traditionally linear, more conforming to classical fairy tales. What happens is far less of a surprise and less twisted than the first book. That said, it was satisfying and enjoyable, and I’d love to see more in this setting.
Elysium Fire (Alastair Reynolds)
A new Alastair Reynolds story is always something to look forward to. A story set in the Revelation Space universe even more so. This tale is set in the Yellowstone system (featured in Chasm City, The Prefect (now Aurora) and more), at the height of the Glitter Band. The character Prefect Dreyfus is, once again, at the heart of the story (although it’s more of an ensemble piece with his team this time), and Panoply tries to prevent an existential threat to society whilst dealing with agitation from member communities to secede. I guessed part of the reveal towards the end but not the whole thing. I’m hoping that there are more books about Dreyfus and colleagues.
The Princess Diarist (Carrie Fisher)
I picked this up on impulse; it’s the late and sadly missed Carrie Fisher’s diaries from the filming of Star Wars. The more recent commentary has a lovely, relaxed, almost conversational tone. This is the book where she revealed the truth about ‘Carrison’ as she called the relationship between her and Harrison Ford.
Notes from the Upside Down (Guy Adams)
This was prep for running the Delta Green/Stranger Things mash-up I have planned for North Star in late April. Best reviewed of the various ‘Unofficial Guides’, this seems to be more focussed around the influences on the show rather than the show itself. It’s fair to say that I’ve learnt a lot about John Carpenter, Stephen King and media trivia from the Eighties, but I’m not convinced that I got out of this what I was looking for in terms of material to plumb. Certainly an interesting read.
The Reservoir Tapes (Jon McGregor)
I picked up the novel of the BBC Radio 4 series written by Jon McGregor. It’s an interesting concept. The author describes it as a ‘who dun-what’ rather than a ‘who dun nit’. There are 15 different points of view, supposedly from interviews by a reporter, all about the disappearance of a 13 year old girl while on holiday in a small village in Derbyshire. The book is quite literally the script for the BBC version (which can be downloaded as I write this), and each chapter is an episode. I was hooked from the first interview, which takes the form of an overheard conversation. I have picked up the linked novel Reservoir 13 to read later. It has to be said that I really enjoyed McGregor’s first novel – “If no-one speaks of remarkable things” – but somehow missed the work that he has done since. Something that I need to remedy.
Stranger Things - The Companion (Nick Blake)
A very concise and focused overview of both series of Stranger Things which was much more what I was looking for, yet still managed to cover many of cultural references that Notes from the Upside Down focussed on. Think of this as the gruff Northern version, not wasting its words yet providing more information in a more easily usable state. That said, it didn’t have the edge of dry humour and wit that its competitor had, but it also lacked the many digressions. I preferred this book.
20 March 2018
The One Ring - Season 5 - Confrontation at Woodman Hall
|
| Ringwraiths. No sense of humour. |
 |
| Finally, the Dice are kind... |
2 March 2018
03 March 2018
Books in January and February 2018
I’ve added in the roleplaying games now, as I share this entry on The Tavern forum as well and that place includes RPGs in the ‘books read’ section unlike the late lamented UK Roleplayers site. I won’t be including part read RPGs.
The Journal of Reginald Campbell Thompson (Cthulhu Britannica)
This is a prop for the Cthulhu Britannica: London setting’s Curse of Ninevah campaign. I’d owned the PDF version for a while, and decided to pick up a physical copy when Cubicle 7 sold off their stock when their licence from Chaosium ended. Of course, as I was ordering the book, it went out of stock so I ended up tracing a new copy down on eBay. Hardbound, it’s the same kind of size as a Moleskine and tells the tale of an ill-fated expedition to Nineveh by a team from the British Museum. It isn’t the full story, but it does a grand job of teasing what went wrong. It’s enjoyable, and I think that players will lap it up if they get the chance to find and read it in the game. It’s not essential, but it’s a lovely extra.
Tremulus (Sean Preston)
This was a re-read of a ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ game which I backed on Kickstarter some time after I picked up Dungeon World. I’m planning to run it at Revelation, a roleplaying convention in Sheffield which will be over by the time that I post this. Tremulus is a game of Lovecraftian horror; it has a very bleak feel and the characters are very much expendable. I like the simplicity of the approach, which combines effectively with a structured playset approach where the scenario is built by asking questions.
The Journal of Neve Selcibuc (Cthulhu Britannica)
This is the second journal made as a prop for the Curse of Nineveh campaign. This time, it is the journal of Neve, a young American woman which has travelled to the UK to spend time with relatives. Along the way, she stumbles into dubious activities which are linked to the Campbell expedition. It’s a teaser; Neve is meant to tell the characters much of this, but it fleshes out the backstory. Again, you don’t get anything near the full story; it’s a hook into the adventure. It is an enjoyable read through.
Madouc (Jack Vance)
The third book in the Lyonesse trilogy, this tale picks up and weaves together happenings from the previous stories. Princess Madouc is one of the key protagonists in the tale, as she grows up and resists the King’s aim of marrying her off for a politically beneficial marriage. Along the way she discovers that her ‘pedigree’ is not what she expected, and that she has Faerie blood… I really enjoyed this trilogy. I wanted to pick it up and read it all again, straight away, which I may do quite soon.
The Sprawl (Hamish Cameron)
I had to re-read the Sprawl because I was running the game at Revelation 2018. I really like the way this one works; chrome slick adaptation of ‘powered by the apocalypse’ principles with the tools to let you run heists and general illegality so they have the feel of a good movie. You do the legwork, and the mission is affected by the outcome. Good stuff. I may have to get a print of the black on white version though as my eyes aren’t quite what they were.
Ironclads (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
Set in decades after Brexit, the UK has become a frontline state in the battle of corporate owned America with the Europeans. The protagonists are an American unit fighting in Scandinavia, normal infantry in a high tech war with robots, biological weapons and Scions. Scions are a form of mech armour, which is effectively invulnerable to infantry, and usually used by board members and owners of companies. The team are sent to find out what happened when a Scion goes missing deep in enemy territory. I really enjoyed this - a cyberpunk war story.
Witches of Lychford (Paul Cornell)
Lychford is a small market town in the south of the UK which also happens to be at a juncture between worlds. A supermarket plans to build a new store, rearranging the geometry of the town’s roads, a decision which will break the protections that have been in place for centuries. An elderly local witch seeks allies to protect reality including the local Vicar and the New Age shop owner. I enjoyed the pace of this, and will be looking at more in the series. Unfortunately, my play experience showed issues with the moves and the balance of the stats.07 January 2018
The Madcap Laughs
 |
| Bound working copy for 3 convention slots |
Just found the bound copy of the conversion of The Madcap Laughs, which Graham Spearing and I ran at #Furnace a few years ago. We converted the Stormbringer 2nd scenarios to Wordplay, then ran it over three sessions of the five at the convention. My copy has ripped out pages as Graham misplaced his during the con, and he needed the reference.
It was great fun and foreshadowed the current trend to multi-slot sessions. The only difference is that each slot had the potential for different players so each part was standalone.
It was also interesting, as we co-GMd. One of us led the narrative, the other played the NPCs and helped the players out with any issues.
The characters were developments of the ones played by Duncan, Derrick, Sarah-Jo, Clive, Charles and Andrew in my old home campaign.
Good times.
7/1/2018
It was great fun and foreshadowed the current trend to multi-slot sessions. The only difference is that each slot had the potential for different players so each part was standalone.
It was also interesting, as we co-GMd. One of us led the narrative, the other played the NPCs and helped the players out with any issues.
The characters were developments of the ones played by Duncan, Derrick, Sarah-Jo, Clive, Charles and Andrew in my old home campaign.
Good times.
7/1/2018
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)