RogerBW's Blog

Murder Goes Mumming, Charlotte MacLeod 31 August 2015 - 1 comment

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.

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Despicable Me 30 August 2015 - 1 comment

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.

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Command Decision, Elizabeth Moon 29 August 2015

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.

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Tabletop season 3 28 August 2015

2014-2015, 21 episodes: Wil Wheaton and other minor celebrities play boardgames.

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Flesh Wounds, Chris Brookmyre 27 August 2015

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.

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Reading Boardgames Social 25 August 2015 26 August 2015

With the Great Expectations booked by another group, we made one last (?) visit to the Wild Lime. Images follow: cc-by-sa on everything.

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Radiance, Alicorn 25 August 2015 - 2 comments

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.

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SpringCon 22 August 2015 24 August 2015

Back to this small quarterly boardgames convention in Watford.

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2015 Hugo Awards: what happened in the end 23 August 2015 - 4 comments

Now that the awards have been made, here are my reactions.

(Also, hurrah, Helsinki in 2017!)

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Log Horizon 2 22 August 2015

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.

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Lines of Departure, Marko Kloos 21 August 2015 - 2 comments

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.

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Pyramid 80: Fantasy Threats 20 August 2015

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.

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The Magic City, E. Nesbit 19 August 2015

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.

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Kung Fury 18 August 2015 - 1 comment

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.

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Don't Point That Thing At Me, Kyril Bonfiglioli 17 August 2015

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.

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That British Memeplex 16 August 2015 - 3 comments

I got this from History Monk. This is the earliest place I've found it.

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Boardgaming at home, August 2015 16 August 2015

On a somewhat muggy day in August, five of us played two big games.

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A Place of Confinement, Anna Dean 15 August 2015

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.

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Doctor Who Re-Watch, series 21 14 August 2015 - 4 comments

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

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The Blue Place, Nicola Griffith 13 August 2015

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?

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Eye Lasers 12 August 2015 - 7 comments

I have just had two different sorts of laser shot into my eyes. The eye-squeamish may not wish to keep reading.

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Leave a Message for Willie, Marcia Muller 11 August 2015

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.

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Eleventh Harpoon PBEM AAR: A Question of Sovereignty 10 August 2015 - 9 comments

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.

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Gotham season 1 09 August 2015

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.

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The Odin Mission, James Holland 08 August 2015 - 2 comments

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.

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BALTOPS 2015 07 August 2015 - 4 comments

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.

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Full Fathom Five, Max Gladstone 06 August 2015 - 2 comments

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.

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Thirsty Meeples August 2015 05 August 2015

Back to the boardgame café, just two of us this time. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast 04 August 2015 - 6 comments

I've been playing with software-defined radio and broadcast aviation data.

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A Darkling Sea, James L. Cambias 03 August 2015

2013 science fiction. Six months' hyperspace travel from Earth, a small scientific team explores the lightless under-ice ocean of the planet Ilmatar.

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Intercalary (Lammas) Barbecue 2015 02 August 2015

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).

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July 2015 Trailers 01 August 2015 - 4 comments

Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube.)

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