1981, cosy American detective fiction; second of MacLeod's novels (as "Alisa Craig") of Madoc and Janet Rhys. In a remote country house in Canada, old Granny Condrycke has died peacefully in her sleep. With the house cut off, the family decides to go ahead with Christmas festivities. But Madoc Rhys, a Mountie who's there accidentally undercover with his fiancée Janet, reckons there was more to it.
2010, dir. Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud; IMDb / allmovie
The supervillain Gru finds that he needs three little girls for his latest nefarious scheme: to steal the Moon. But he's not as much of a hard case as he thinks he is.
2007 military SF, fourth in a five-book series. Kylara Vatta is putting together an anti-pirate navy while her cousin Stella is rebuilding the family firm.
2014-2015, 21 episodes: Wil Wheaton and other minor celebrities play boardgames.
2013 thriller, third in Brookmyre's Glasgow crime series. Jasmine Sharp's protector, the vanished and reappeared gang enforcer Glen Fallan, is arrested for the murder of his old enemy Stevie Fullerton; DS Catherine McLeod is happy to see Fallan put away, but wants to do this by the book, and there are disturbing inconsistencies.
With the Great Expectations booked by another group, we made one last (?) visit to the Wild Lime. Images follow: cc-by-sa on everything.
2011 contemporary fantasy, a "re-imagining" of the Twilight series. Five years after Luminosity, Elspeth Cullen, daughter of Bella and Edward, tries to stay alive.
Back to this small quarterly boardgames convention in Watford.
Now that the awards have been made, here are my reactions.
(Also, hurrah, Helsinki in 2017!)
2014-2015 fantasy, light novel adaptation, 25 episodes: AniDB. Sequel to 2013-2014's Log Horizon. The players of a virtual-reality fantasy game are trapped inside it, and have to learn to live in their new world.
2014 SF, sequel to Terms of Enlistment. Humanity is losing the war against the aliens, but Andrew Grayson might as well re-enlist: there's nothing else for him to do.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's about things that threaten adventurers in a fantasy game: some monsters, but also societal menaces.
1910 children's fantasy. Philip, feeling abandoned after his older sister and sole family member marries, builds a model city from things around the house, then finds he has been sucked into it.
2015 action comedy, dir. and starring David Sandberg: IMDb / allmovie
The toughest martial arts cop in Miami goes back in time to kill kung fu Hitler.
1972 comedy, first in the Mortdecai Trilogy. Charlie Mortdecai is a cheerfully corrupt, vaguely aristocratic and thoroughly cowardly art dealer, who finds himself called on to act as an unwilling assassin.
I got this from History Monk. This is the earliest place I've found it.
On a somewhat muggy day in August, five of us played two big games.
2012 historical detection, fourth in Dean's Dido Kent series. Dido is forced to act as companion to her elderly and wealthy aunt, but the house they visit has its own problems: a young lady has disappeared, perhaps to Gretna Green, but her guardian is curiously unconcerned about her.
I haven't given up!
As always, spoilers abound. See Wikipedia for production details
The Doctor - Peter Davison The Doctor - Colin Baker Tegan Jovanka - Janet Fielding Vislor Turlough - Mark Strickson Kamelion - Gerald Flood and Dallas Adams Peri Brown - Nicola Bryant
1998 lesbian noir mystery/romance; first in Griffith's series about Aud Torvingen, bodyguard and borderline psychopath in Atlanta. An art historian's house is burned to the ground, with him in it; six kilos of cocaine are found in the garage. A drug-related execution, or something odder?
I have just had two different sorts of laser shot into my eyes. The eye-squeamish may not wish to keep reading.
1984 mystery; fifth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. A major player in the flea-markets wants help dealing with a stalker, but his business is not as honest as it could be, and soon people start turning up dead.
The latest Harpoon PBEM game used a scenario from the Harpoon Naval Review 2009, written by Gorka L. Martínez Mezo: Moroccan fundamentalists attack the Spanish outposts at Ceuta and Melilla, and the Spanish try to get convoys across the western Mediterranean to evacuate civilians and bring in troops.
2014-2015, 22 episodes: in the years before Batman, Gotham City is a cesspit of crime. But one cop is trying to make a difference.
2008 war story, first in Holland's Sergeant Jack Tanner series. In April of 1940, British forces in Norway make a fighting retreat in the face of the oncoming German invasion. Jack Tanner, of the King's Own Yorkshire Rangers, must also deal with poor officers, being cut off from friendly troops, and a civilian who has to be smuggled out of the country.
The NATO-and-allied-countries naval exercise in the southern Baltic, BALTOPS 2015, took place between 5 and 20 June of this year. I was digging in the hope of getting some information about any wargames that might be involved, and noticed something interesting.
2014 technological fantasy. On the island of Kavekana, the main business is idols: all the convenience of a god, but none of the commitment or free will of the real thing. One of them has died thanks to a bad financial deal, but the priestess Kai tried to save her, and heard something odd as she did.
Back to the boardgame café, just two of us this time. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.
I've been playing with software-defined radio and broadcast aviation data.
2013 science fiction. Six months' hyperspace travel from Earth, a small scientific team explores the lightless under-ice ocean of the planet Ilmatar.
A select group turned up for the extra barbecue that I called to take advantage of plausibly good weather (and it turned out pretty well, the first time since I got the tent that the weather forecast has been good enough for me not to put it up).
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube.)