Thanks to a G+ post by Greg Gorgonmilk, I checked out the weird, colorful world of The Astralnauts over the weekend. Created by artists Alex Pardee and Matt Richie, the Astralnauts are a team of spacefaring ghost-hunters who track down extraterrestrial spooks. If you read that and immediately thought “campaign setting!” then I like the […]
The Astralnauts roam the galaxy hunting alien ghosts Read More »
I wrapped up my second 2016 Hugo Awards finalist novel, N.K. Jemisin‘s The Fifth Season (paid link), yesterday, and it was awesome. The Fifth Season is post-apocalyptic fantasy, which is unusual enough to pique my interest, but it’s doubly unusual: Its setting, The Stillness, experiences recurring apocalypses — Seasons — that can be decades or centuries
The Fifth Season’s recurrent apocalypse Read More »
I’ve been reading fantasy and sci-fi for as long as I can remember[1], but this is the first time I’ve ever become a member of the Hugo Awards voting pool. (A voting membership costs $50, and members also get to make nominations for the 2017 Hugo Awards.) My faithful Kindle Paperwhite (paid link) is already
2016 Hugo Awards: “So join. Read. Vote.” Read More »
I’m currently reading Neal Stephenson‘s Seveneves (paid link), and it’s blowing my mind. (This post is spoiler-free.) The larch Stephenson is one of my favorite authors, and Cryptnomicon (paid link) is both my favorite Stephenson book and one of my favorite books period. Quite apart from “just” being fucking amazing in every way, it sparked my
Seveneves is roaring through my brain Read More »
I love Dyson Logos’ cartography and coil-bound gaming books, so the Dodecahedron 2015 Cartographic Review is right up my apple cart. It more than earns its starred entry on my big list of Lulu RPG recommendations. The Cartographic Review is a big book of maps, running close to 90 pages with a map per page.
Glorious old-school maps: the Dodecahedron 2015 Cartographic Review Read More »
I finished Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest (paid link) today, and it blew me away. I wasn’t sure he could follow The Three-Body Problem (paid link),and the first 80% of the book was a solid four stars — I thought that was about the best I could hope for, given how amazing and surprising and wonderdul
The Three-Body Problem (paid link) was amazing. The hook is great. The story it promises puts a twist on a premise I’ve seen before, but it’s solid. But underneath that story, unfolding throughout the book, is a story that went nowhere I expected it to, in the best way possible. Reading it reminded me of
Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem Read More »
I picked up 188 RPG products in 2014 (plus a few more than arent in RPGGeek’s database yet), 43 of which were published in 2014. Of those 43, I’ve spent enough time with enough of them to tease out a partial list of 12 favorites — partial because there are books I expect to love
My favorite gaming books published in 2014 (so far) Read More »
I often see posts asking for Lulu RPG recommendations, and Lulu’s search functionality is pretty lacking, so rather than type mine up every time I wrote this post for easy reference. It’s up to several dozen recommendations, mostly old school products and story games, and I keep it more or less up to date with
Gaming books on Lulu.com that I enjoy Read More »
I’ve done a bit of design work in the tabletop RPG industry, and like most gamers I’ve started and abandoned game designs over the years, but today marks only the second time I’ve designed a complete RPG and shared it with others. After enjoying my experience with RPG Geek’s 24-hour RPG design contest in 2012,
Signal Lost, my Game Chef 2013 submission Read More »
