1957 classic English detective fiction; nineteenth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. In the village of South Mardian, the Dance of the Five Sons is still performed at midwinter; but this year one of the dancers will be decapitated in truth as well as in jest. US vt Death of a Fool.
This Meetup-based boardgames group continues to meet at the Marlow Donkey
Can you identify this bird?
The units(1) program is available on many Unix systems (though rarely installed by default). Most people think of it as a simple interactive converter. It's actually much more powerful than that.
…not just for Christmas. Or I think it should be.
2006 historical mystery, third of Shaw's series. In 1896, Vanessa Weatherburn (now a mother of twins) investigates the murder of a professor of history at King's College.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's magic inspired by large-scale filmic stories. Is it just going to be a rerun of #102 Epic? Not quite.
Back to the boardgame café. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.
2015 fantasy. In Victorian England, Faith Sunderly has gone with her family to the Isle of Vane as her father the famous naturalist supervises the excavation of fossils, though it gradually becomes apparent that he is under some sort of cloud. Still, there is science to be done… by the men.
Construction has begun on the first of the Type 26 frigates. How have things changed since I looked at the design in late 2015?
1997 mystery; third of Cutler's novels of Sophie Rivers, a teacher in a sixth-form college in Birmingham. Seconded to a new college for a project, Sophie finds the proximity to her home and the high equipment budget don't compensate for a strange managerial attitude… or for murder.
This long-running games convention had another instance at the start of July. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.
2014 fantasy. Triss has survived a fall in the river, but she doesn't feel quite right: she's permanently hungry, her memories are fuzzy, and her sister refuses to talk to her.
2016, 10 episodes. Horror comedy by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan: the survivors of the Kappa Kappa Tau sorority house massacre are now running a hospital, but they haven't got away from masked killers.
1955 classic English detective fiction; eighteenth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. The quiet village of Swevenings has seen two deaths recently: Sir Harold Lacklander of the Foreign Service died of old age and heart failure, leaving his memoirs to his good friend and neighbour Colonel Cartarette to edit and publish. But now someone's stove the Colonel's head in.
This Meetup-based boardgames group continues to meet at the Marlow Donkey, on an evening that was slightly cooler but still fairly sweaty.
2012 fantasy. In the underground city of Caverna, Neverfell was found with no memories, aged five, in a cheese-vat. Seven years later, she sets out to catch an escaped rabbit, and ends up finding her place in the world.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal.)
1974 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning military science fiction. William Mandella is a conscript in Earth's first interstellar war; it starts off looking an awful lot like Vietnam.
2016 slice of life, novel adaptation in 11 episodes: AniDB, vt "The Great Passage". Introverted Majime is a useless salesman for Genbu Publishing, but finds his true calling working in the Dictionary Editorial Department.
These are my thoughts on the Campbell Award-nominated authors (yes, I know it's not a Hugo) based on the material provided in the voter pack. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so.
'Twas on a Wednesday evening that the laptop did break down... failing to come out of suspend after having been moved, with the 1-3-3-1 beep code that, on Lenovo machines at least, indicates a memory or system board problem. I cleaned up the DIMM contacts and it worked happily for a day, then died again on Thursday night, and more cleaning and re-seating didn't help. Time for a warranty repair.
These are my thoughts on the Hugo-nominated novels. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so.
I've been podcasting for over four years now, I'm now getting game recordings together for the Whartson Hall Æthernauts too, and I hope some of this advice may be useful to people who are getting started.
These are my thoughts on the Hugo-nominated series. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so.
On a Wednesday night in Cambridge, with the usual GM unable to run the game we'd planned, four of us got together to play Princes of the Renaissance, a Martin Wallace design from 2003 not currently in print.
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.
2016 caper show, 10 episodes. Alice Vaughan, private investigator, discovers her fiancé was a con artist stealing from her firm. But in spite of all that, neither of them is quite ready to break things off.
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.
This Meetup-based boardgames group continues to meet at the Marlow Donkey, this time on an excessively hot day.
These are my thoughts on the Hugo-nominated novellas. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so.