RogerBW's Blog

Overlord II 31 July 2019

2017-2018 fantasy, continuing light novel adaptation in 13 episodes: AniDB. Momonga, the VR MMORPG player who found himself stuck in the game world when the servers shut down, lives on as a super-powerful lich, and continues to…

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Small Magics, Ilona Andrews 30 July 2019

2015 modern fantasy anthology, short stories in the Kate Daniels universe.

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The Good Place season 3 29 July 2019

2018-2019 fantasy comedy, 13 episodes. The afterlife's experiments with ethics and moral philosophy continue.

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Gunmetal Magic, Ilona Andrews 28 July 2019

2012 modern fantasy, intermediate novel in the Kate Daniels series. Andrea Nash looks into the murders of four shapeshifters… and the possibility that something much, much worse is going on.

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Perl Weekly Challenge 18 27 July 2019

I've been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. This one was a couple of standard computer-science problems.

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A Trouble of Fools, Linda Barnes 26 July 2019

1987 mystery, first in the Carlotta Carlyle series. Carlotta was in the Boston Police, but left for reasons which aren't yet clear; now she's a private eye without clients. Then a nice old lady, worried about what's happened to her brother, offers her a bundle of cash to look into the matter…

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Whiskey Cavalier season 1 25 July 2019

2019 action comedy drama, 13 episodes. A motley group of rough men (and women) run around saving the world while trying to get in touch with their feelings.

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Perl Weekly Challenge 17 24 July 2019

I've been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. This one was to implement the Ackermann function and parse URLs.

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A Second Chance, Jodi Taylor 23 July 2019

2014 science fiction, third in the Chronicles of St Mary's series. The St Mary's team of time-travelling historians continue their highly dangerous observations of historical events, this time visiting Troy and Agincourt among other places.

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Marlow Tabletop and Board Games 15 July 2019 22 July 2019

This Meetup-based boardgames group continues to meet at the Marlow Donkey.

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It's Murder, My Son, Lauren Carr 21 July 2019

2010 cosy mystery, first in the Mac Faraday series. Just after his firing and divorce, homicide detective Faraday finds that his birth-mother went on to become a hugely successful mystery writer, who's left him everything in her will. So now he doesn't have to do anything but laze around… though his neighbour did get murdered recently, and the local police chief doesn't seem to be up to the job…

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Xandikos Calendar Server on Debian 10 20 July 2019 - 2 comments

Why have a calendar server in the first place? Because I want to check my schedule from multiple devices, and because I don't want to sell out to Google. (Which of course just means that when Google takes over I won't have been paid.)

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Abaddon's Gate, James S. A. Corey 19 July 2019 - 4 comments

2013 science fiction, third in The Expanse series. The mysterious plot-device-producing alien supertech has built a ring out past the orbit of Neptune, which seems to be a gate to Somewhere Else. In spite of his best efforts, James Holden will get involved again.

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Perl Weekly Challenge 16 18 July 2019

I've been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. This one was to do a fiddly numerical calculation, and to check Bitcoin addresses.

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Clarkesworld 154, July 2019 17 July 2019

Clarkesworld is a monthly on-line magazine edited by Neil Clarke.

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Buzzardcon 2, July 2019 16 July 2019

The Leighton Buzzard Boardgames group put on their second convention, and having seen a flyer for it at the last Tringcon I went. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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Thirteenth Child, Patricia C. Wrede 15 July 2019

2009 fantasy. In a parallel 19th century America, Eff's twin brother Lan is the seventh son of a seventh son, so that means he's lucky, and he'll probably become a great wizard. But Eff is a thirteenth child, which means that everyone knows that sooner or later she'll turn bad.

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Thirsty Meeples July 2019 14 July 2019 - 2 comments

Back to the boardgame café. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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A Bachelor Establishment, Isabella Barclay 13 July 2019

2015 Regency romance. Elinor Bascombe, a widow who's been bringing her late wastrel husband's estate back to something like prosperity, meets the wicked Lord Ryde, exiled from the country for decades, and here to raise money from his own neighbouring estate before leaving for good.

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Outbreak, Melissa F. Olson 12 July 2019

2018 modern fantasy novella, third and last in its series. The big bad vampire has broken the others out of prison, and is setting up for the big battle.

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Perl Weekly Challenge 15 11 July 2019

I've recently started doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. This one was to hunt primes and do "Vigenère" enciphering.

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Summer Stabcon 2019 10 July 2019 - 4 comments

This long-running games convention had another instance at the start of July, on a sweaty weekend but not as hot as the last few have been. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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Deep Roots, Ruthanna Emrys 09 July 2019

2018 Lovecraftian SF, second in the series. Aphra Marsh is in New York, trying to track down any relatives who might have survived the Innsmouth Raid. But other forces are at play.

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2019 Hugo Awards 08 July 2019

This is my ballot for the 2019 Hugo awards. I've talked about some of it already; see the "Hugo 2019" tag.

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Hugo 2019: Short Story 07 July 2019

These are my thoughts on the Hugo-nominated short stories. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so.

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Marlow Tabletop and Board Games 1 July 2019 06 July 2019

This Meetup-based boardgames group continues to meet at the Marlow Donkey.

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Hugo 2019: Novelette 05 July 2019

These are my thoughts on the Hugo-nominated novelettes. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so.

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Reading Gamers, 30 June 2019 04 July 2019

I used to go to the Reading Boardgames Social quite a bit, but they went silent. I recently learned that they'd moved to Facebook and now Meetup, and went along to a Sunday afternoon meeting at the Greyfriar in Reading.

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The Tea Master and the Detective, Aliette de Bodard 03 July 2019

2018 SF novella, set in what I now learn is known as the Xuya Universe, the Vietnamese empire in space with mindships. A ship who's working as a blender of mildly psychoactive teas has an odd new client, a "consulting detective".

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Fighting With My Family 02 July 2019

2019 drama/comedy, dir. Stephen Merchant, Florence Pugh, Jack Lowden; IMDb / allmovie. Siblings Raya and Zak Knight come from a wrestling family in Norfolk, but is that going to be enough to get them to the top?

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June 2019 Trailers 01 July 2019

Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I didn't know the cybernetic death squads would be used for violence.)

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