RogerBW's Blog

Way Down Dark, J. P. Smythe 30 June 2018 - 2 comments

2011 young adult science fiction, first of the Australia Trilogy. Chan lives on the generation ship Australia, built in haste after Earth collapsed; they didn't find a new planet, so they've kept going. But its society is breaking down. Spoilers.

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Pyramid 116: Locations 29 June 2018

Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a set of four locations, with some effort made to blend detail with broad applicability.

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Top Gear season 2.25 28 June 2018 - 2 comments

2018 motoring show, 6 episodes. The inevitable plunge into comedy starts here.

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The Wimsey Papers, Dorothy Sayers 27 June 2018 - 3 comments

1939-1940 short articles published in The Spectator; various characters from the Wimsey stories write to each other about the early days of the Second World War.

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Thirsty Meeples June 2018 26 June 2018

Back to the boardgame café. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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Otaku ni Koi wa Muzukashi 25 June 2018

2018 modern romantic comedy, josei manga adaptation in 11 episodes: AniDB, vt "Love is Hard for Nerds". Obsessive fans of games and manga try to balance their passions with real life.

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One Fell Sweep, Ilona Andrews 24 June 2018

2016 modern fantasy. Dina Demille's magical inn will be the site of another meeting: a dying species has hired a group mind to work out where to find their new home world. But there's another species out there which regards slaughtering the first one as a religious obligation. Oh, and Dina's sister has just sent a message, asking for help.

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GURPS Magic: Artillery Spells, Sean Punch 23 June 2018 - 5 comments

This supplement adds to the standard GURPS magic system, with spells designed to destroy hordes of minor opponents.

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Arabella and the Battle of Venus, David D. Levine 22 June 2018

2017 clockpunkish science fiction, sequel to Arabella of Mars. With her fiancé captured by Bonaparte, Arabella Ashby travels to Venus to rescue him.

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Boardgames at Home, June 2018 21 June 2018

It's been a while since the last boardgaming day, and we felt like doing it again.

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The Mad King, Edgar Rice Burroughs 20 June 2018

1926 Ruritanian romance, originally serialised in 1914-1915. Travelling in the tiny kingdom of Lutha, between Austria and Serbia, American tourist Barney Custer finds himself mistaken for the young king, who's been confined for years with a mysterious ailment, and rapidly becomes mixed up in adventure.

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Marlow Tabletop and Board Games 4 June 2018 19 June 2018 - 2 comments

This Meetup-based boardgames group continues to meet at the Marlow Donkey; up to eight at this meeting.

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Murder on a Midsummer Night, Kerry Greenwood 18 June 2018

2008 historical detection, seventeenth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). As Melbourne suffers under a post-Christmas heat wave, Phryne takes on two cases: a junk dealer's suicide, which his mother earnestly believes is nothing of the sort, and the whereabouts of a possible illegitimate child from sixty years ago. Minor spoilers.

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UK Games Expo 2018: Sunday 17 June 2018

Sunday was mostly a demonstration day as the show wound down; it was much less crowded than Saturday.

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A Mind To Murder, P. D. James 16 June 2018 - 1 comment

1963 detective fiction, second of James's novels of Inspector Adam Dalgliesh. In a London psychiatric clinic that's still adjusting to being part of the NHS, the unpopular chief administrator is stabbed in the heart. Any of the staff could have done it, and most of them had reason to; but who is guilty?

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GURPS Encounters: The Harrowed Hearts Club, Jon Black 15 June 2018

This first GURPS Encounters book is a tavern/bar/club sourcebook combined with four short adventures.

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Watching Out, Ann Granger 14 June 2018

2002 thriller/mystery; fifth of Granger's novels of Fran Varady, would-be thespian and amateur sleuth. Fran's in a play, very amateur and over a pub for one night only, but it's still acting work; and she's waitressing at the trendy pizzeria that used to be the Hot Spud Café. But something about it doesn't feel quite right, even before an illegal immigrant boy comes in, desperate to find "Max".

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UK Games Expo 2018: Saturday 13 June 2018

On Saturday I was mostly out in the show rather than at the table, because there was a team of extra demonstrators coming in just for that day.

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Striding Folly, Dorothy Sayers 12 June 2018 - 1 comment

1972 collection of the last three short mystery stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.

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More apps for the smartphone 11 June 2018

Part 2 of an occasional series.

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The Cold Blue Blood, David Handler 10 June 2018

2001 mystery, first in the Berger and Mitry series. Mitch Berger is a New York film critic mourning his dead wife, who rents a house in a rural (but rich) part of Connecticut; Desiree Mitry is a cop on the Serious Crimes Squad. So when Berger digs up a body in the vegetable patch…

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UK Games Expo 2018: Friday 09 June 2018

Friday at UK Games Expo was a half-day of demos, followed by meeting friends.

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Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold 08 June 2018

2003 fantasy, sequel to The Curse of Chalion and set three years later. Ista, widowed mother of the new queen, feels supernumerary – even without her embarrassing history of madness. But the gods haven't finished with her yet.

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UK Games Expo 2018: Thursday 07 June 2018

UK Games Expo expanded again this year, and either it sorted out most of its organisational problems or I managed to shift to doing the things which it's good at.

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Artificial Condition, Martha Wells 06 June 2018 - 2 comments

2018 science fiction novella, sequel to All Systems Red. Murderbot is going to try to make a new life for itself… but it first it needs to get to the truth about that human fatality incident it was involved in.

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Marlow Tabletop and Board Games 21 May 2018 05 June 2018

This Meetup-based boardgames group continues to meet at the Marlow Donkey. This time four of us turned up (I think we're getting into the spring illness season).

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The Third Eye, Ethel Lina White 04 June 2018

1937 thriller. Caroline Watts, not wanting to be a burden on her married sister, takes up a post as games mistress at a minor school for girls, but soon runs up against the horrid Matron Miss Yaxley-Moore, who seems to have the Head under her thumb. Was the previous games mistress's death really misadventure?

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GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 19: Incantation Magic, Christopher R. Rice and Antoni Ten Monrós 03 June 2018

This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals with a new style of magic.

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In the Teeth of the Evidence, Dorothy Sayers 02 June 2018

1939 collection of seventeen short mystery stories, some involving Lord Peter Wimsey. Minor spoilers.

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May 2018 Trailers 01 June 2018 - 5 comments

Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I hate everything.)

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