I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved various flavours of string processing. (Note that this ends today.)
2007 YA SF, second in its series. Ishmael Horatio Wang transfers from the galley to environmental maintenance on the intersteller merchant ship, and grows up a bit more.
2022 horror novelette. Starr comes to work for the crime boss as handler for her pet ghoul—who may be more than the flesh-eating monstrosity she appears.
More gaming with some nearby friends.
2011 fantasy, first of a series. Moon is a shapeshifter, able to turn into a flying predator. When he's driven out from the latest human community he's been hiding among, he is found by another shifter and brought to meet more of his people, while becoming a pawn in several power games…
1945 Napoleonic naval fiction, fourth written but ninth by internal chronology. Hornblower is settling uncomfortably into rural life when he's given a squadron and sent on a diplomatic and military mission to the Baltic.
1990 fantasy, sixth in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. Dracula, now known as Matthew Maule and living in Chicago, loses consciousness after an evening with family, and the guests in his high-rise flat find themselves under siege.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved string tweaking and bus route analysis. (Note that this ends today.)
2019 fantasy. Oliver is a very minor mage; he has some talent, but he's twelve, and he only knows three spells. But when the village is desperate for rain, and when a mob gets started, he finds himself (and his familiar) forced out with only the vaguest of instructions…
2018 SF. A reporter and camera operator are embedded aboard a convoy taking troops and supplies to the front lines. In space.
2017 mystery, fourth in its series. A "good" girl is found murdered in her lodgings, and more deaths follow. DI Edgar Stephens, and his old wartime colleague the magician Max Mephisto, investigate.
1992 contemporary fantasy. Former poker player Scott Crane is drinking himself to death after having lost his wife, and those aren't even the worst of his troubles.
Back to the boardgame café.
2021 fantasy romance. In Regency society, the essential accessory for every young lady is a dragon to sit on her shoulder. But Elinor Tregarth is still a poor relation…
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved poking through strings. (Note that this ends today.)
1986 alternate history. While camped at Bactra and on the verge of the Indian campaign, Alexander the Great hears of a revolt among the Greek cities he left behind him. So he turns back…
2016 historical mystery novella in Huber's Lady Darby series (post-Regency amateur detection). Lady Darby, suffering from pre-wedding jitters, is determined to resolve the mystery of a necklace.
2017 thriller and light mystery. Jenny Checkland is married to Russell and has a small daughter. But some people seem determined that she should not be happy.
1982 fantasy, fifth in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. A stage magician is asked to perform at a rebuilt castle in Illinois, and everyone's plans are interlocking.
2019 SF/romance, last in the Class 5 series. Ellie Masters wakes up in an abandoned installation. But someone out there is talking to her…
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved string replacement and character searching. (Note that this ends today.)
1903 thriller. On a sailing trip in the Baltic and points nearby, two young men discover a German plot.
My second in-pandemic trip to UK Games Expo. With images; cc-by-sa-nc on everything.
2022 SF, twelfth of its series. Naval forces and stealth ships are mustered in a joint operation to track down a breakaway force from the defeated enemy. But they will get unexpected help.
It's time again for my occasional political rant. As usual, these are the things I'd try to do if anyone were daft enough to put me in charge; they're also promises that would encourage me to vote for people who made them.
2007 TV tie-in science fiction. The Stargate team from Atlantis finds an enigmatic artefact…
2018 fantasy. Halla was taken in by her husband's family after he died, and has been working as a housekeeper for her great-uncle. Now he's died, and left everything to her, which of course the rest of the family won't let stand.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved matrix analysis, bit-counting and sorting. (Note that this ends today.)
2019 SF/romance novella in the Class 5 series. Having been aboard ships for far too long, Rose McKenzie goes along with a planetary survey party. Then the rest of the party vanishes.