Young adult novel, read because a film based on it is coming out soon and I want to be able to complain about the film-making separately from the writing. (And because last time I did this I read The Hunger Games, which I quite enjoyed.) Here be spoilers.
This is the scenario I mentioned when reviewing Fire on the Waters: Force Z plus Hood vs the Japanese invasion fleet. I played it with Mongoose's Victory at Sea, but this version is generic; it should work with any WWII naval/air game.
This group usually meets on Wednesday evenings, which I can't make, but has one Tuesday a month.
This is the story of the well-known deception operation in the Second World War: dropping a dead fake courier into the sea near Spain, in the hope that his deceptive paperwork would be taken seriously by the Germans and misdirect them as to the location of Allied landings in the Mediterranean.
Since a planned session at home had to be called off, I went along to Uxbridge for an afternoon of games.
As always, spoilers abound. See Wikipedia for production details
Doctor Who - Jon Pertwee Jo Grant - Katy Manning
The ninth and so far final book in Lackey's Elemental Masters series. This time our heroine is a circus acrobat fleeing from an abusive husband.
Pretty much every Wednesday evening, I drive to Cambridge and back. Since I leave at about the same time, I have some fairly consistent data about traffic patterns. (Images follow.)
Don Giovanni is one of my favourite operas; I met it first through the splendidly-overblown Joseph Losey film in the 1980s, and have continued to enjoy it since.
Something I find in it, though, doesn't seem to have been talked about much:
Stealing the idea from Vatine, here's what I've read in January.
The eighth book (or, if you believe the publisher, seventh) in Lackey's Elemental Masters series. This time our heroine is a Welsh fisherman's daughter, and as one might expect from the title and that set-up the main supernatural beings are "selch", a variant of selkies.
Broadly speaking your resistance to intimidation, magical and psionic effects, and frightening and stressful situations, is determined by your Will stat. By default this is equal to your IQ; you can buy it up or down for five points per +/-1, and may find this referred to as "strong will" or "weak will".
I don't like being spied on. But I don't mind gathering my own data. In July of 2012 I bought a USB GPS receiver (a GlobalSat BU-353, the cheapest available device that had a good score on the gpsd compatibility list) for use with a Raspberry Pi, and I have it running for most car trips I make. (Images follow.)
First of a projected trilogy. I learned about it from a half-chapter free sample in the back of Ancillary Justice.
The Caproni Ca.60, called the Noviplano or Capronissimo, was a prototype flying-boat airliner. Built in 1921,
I'm a recent convert to Too Fat Lardies (in spite of one of their regular contributors being a chap I knew at school), so the only game of theirs I've played so far is Chain of Command. I am hugely impressed with it; at a glance it seems very random, but as I played it I came to realise that I was having to make the same hard decisions as a commander on the scene.
Anyway, since that is the only Lard system I play (doubtless this will change), most of the Christmas Special isn't directly useful to me. So what is? (Ignoring "it might be useful later" or "ooh, that's interesting", at least for now...)
A classic, of course. But one I hadn't read until now.
(First written in January 2014)
Doctor Who - Jon Pertwee Liz Shaw - Caroline John
More panic and despondency in Marlow. The waters today were higher than on either of our previous visits.
I've been looking around for a WWII naval combat system that felt right to me, and I think I've found it.
For the last few years I've been making predictions of the Academy Award winners. I'm almost always wrong. Let's see what happens when I do it in public.
This first novel marks Leckie as someone to watch.
I've been interested for some time in campaign systems, by which I mean ways of linking together individual tactical games to create some sort of larger narrative.
At the Sharp End is the campaign supplement for the excellent Chain of Command platoon-level wargame.
Eighth and final book in Ferrars' Andrew Basnett series.
(First written in December 2013)
Doctor Who - Patrick Troughton Jamie McCrimmon - Frazer Hines Zoe Heriot - Wendy Padbury
Thanks to Manuel, the group has survived the loss of its coffee-bar venue; we met at his home. I played six different games, and enjoyed them all in different ways.
I picked up this collection of novellas for the Robb story, as I was clearly intended to. All the stories here are loosely based on, or more properly inspired by, fairy stories (something of a coincidence given the Elemental Masters series I've also been reading).
Tin Soldier is my answer to the problems I see in BattleTech.
Why didn't I just write house rules? Well, I started to, but the game is such a blunt instrument that it's hard to have subtle effects.