At the end of October I went back to Internationale Spieltage SPIEL, or "Essen" as it's generally known in the boardgaming world.
2008 modern fantasy novel, second in the Kate Daniels series. Magic is building up to a once-in-seven-years flare, someone has stolen maps from the local werewolf pack, and gods are going to come into play.
1984 mystery, second in the Robert Amiss series. Amiss is seconded to industry… well, to a dead-end privatised offshoot of the Civil Service where all the unemployables are sent to rot. And then people die.
2017, 2-hour film: AniDB, follow-up to 2012's Sword Art Online and 2014's Sword Art Online II. Two years after the SAO Incident, virtual reality is out of fashion as a new augmented reality game has become hugely popular. But Kirito reckons there's something just a bit odd about it.
2017 supernatural mystery in modern Edinburgh, seventh in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. A body is found in a tree; clearly it fell there, but how did it happen, and why?
Chibnall writes again (though this time with a co-author), but with a very different emphasis.
2018 science fiction novella, fourth and final volume in the Murderbot series. Murderbot has some key data that will expose dodgy activities by one of the corporations… but the person to whom it would do some good seems to have been kidnapped. It's definitely not an emotional decision to rescue her. That would be a system error.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's rules that amend, replace or extend what's already in the books.
The 1 Player Guild is a group of solo game players, communicating through BoardGameGeek. After the first UK meet back in January, I organised a second one at a library near home.
With images; cc-by-sa on everything.
2011 young adult steampunk SF, final volume of a trilogy. The living airship Leviathan crosses Russia en route to Japan; will Nikola Tesla's latest terror weapon end the Great War?
2017-2018 modern fantasy, shounen manga adaptation, 24 episodes: AniDB. Unwanted orphan Hatori Chise is bought at auction by the monstrous magician Elias Ainsworth, to be his apprentice… and his bride. vt The Ancient Magus' Bride.
1988 cozy American detective fiction; seventh of MacLeod's novels of Boston Brahmin Sarah Kelling and art investigator Max Bittersohn. Sarah is pregnant, but doesn't let that slow her down much; one of the rubbish-collectors working for the Senior Citizens' Recycling Center, a family charitable project, has been fatally mugged, and it seems that there's more going on.
Last week's opening episode was distinctly better than I'd expected, though very far from perfect. Can Chibnall (writing again) keep up the quality in a "regular" series episode?
Apex is a monthly on-line magazine edited by Jason Sizemore among others.
This Meetup-based boardgames group continues to meet at the Marlow Donkey.
Clarkesworld is a monthly on-line magazine edited by Neil Clarke.
2011 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning fantasy. Morwenna is a young Welsh SF and fantasy fan; after losing some of her family and becoming crippled, she ends up living with her father and going to a boarding school.
Back to the boardgame café. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.
2013 science fiction, first in the Chronicles of St Mary's series. St Mary's Institute for Historical Research is rather more hands-on in their observation of history than anyone suspects; Dr Madeleine Maxwell is their newest recruit.
Whartstock is the best gaming convention that you aren't invited to; it's the annual-ish gathering of the Whartson Hall Æthernauts.
1924 mystery, first in the Anthony Gethryn series. A cabinet minister is beaten to death in his study; Colonel Anthony Gethryn, with a background in intelligence work but now terminally bored, investigates.
I gave up on watching Doctor Who around series 6 of the new iteration, in exasperation at Steven Moffat going on and on and on doing the same old things. Now he's finally left, so I gave it another try.
2018 SF/mystery; fifty-eighth (roughly, or 47th novel) of J. D. Robb's In Death series. Someone wears an explosive vest into a meeting to finalise a corporate merger; Lieutenant Eve Dallas has to find out why he did it, and whether someone else is pulling the strings.
2003 police procedural mystery/horror, first in the Bryant and May series. In the modern day, a bomb destroys the office of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, where boss Arthur Bryant was working late. John May, while mourning his friend and colleague, looks back on their first case together, during the Blitz.
2017 short fantasy novel in the World of the Five Gods (formerly known as Chalion). This one follows directly from Penric's Mission and Mira's Last Dance; Penric, and the exiled general Adelis and his widowed sister Nikys whom Penric was escorting, are safely in their new home, but it turns out that Nikys's mother (it's complicated) has been imprisoned in order to get leverage on the general.
2018 steampunk SF, second of the Signal Airship series. The war continues, and Josette Dupre, captain of the scouting airship Mistral, will go on fighting it… if she can survive the politics of her own side.
2005 police procedural mystery, tartan noir, first in the Logan McRae series. DS McRae is just back on the force after a major injury sustained in the line of duty; it's winter in Aberdeen, and the mutilated body of a kidnapped boy has just been discovered. And it won't be the last.
2010 young adult steampunk SF, second of a trilogy. As an alternate Great War is beginning, the airship Leviathan visits Istanbul to give a British bribe to the Ottoman Sultan. But much more is going on behind the scenes.
Seventh in this series of one-day conventions in bustling metropolitan Baildon (suburban Bradford).
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I hate everything.)