RogerBW's Blog

Deeplight, Frances Hardinge 30 April 2020

2019 fantasy. The islands of the Myriad used to have gods: great and implacable entities living in the sea, feared as much as worshipped. Thirty years ago, for no obvious reason, they turned on each other, fighting until they were all dead. But parts of their bodies make for useful salvage…

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Perl Weekly Challenge 56: Diff-K and path sum 29 April 2020

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved searching arrays and summing tree paths.

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Once Ghosted, Twice Shy, Alyssa Cole 28 April 2020

2019 romance novella in the Reluctant Royals series. Likotse, assistant to Prince Thabiso, met someone amazing while she was briefly in New York last year - but then Fabiola cut things off without explanation, and Likotse's been trying to forget her ever since. Now, by chance, they meet again…

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The Pale Horse 27 April 2020 - 2 comments

1993 audio adaptation of Christie's 1961 mystery, in 90 minutes. People seem to be dying very… conveniently; do the village witches of Much Deeping have anything to do with it?

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Medusa in the Graveyard, Emily Devenport 26 April 2020

2018 science fiction, second of its series. Oichi Angelis and Medusa are now among the leaders of the generation ship Olympia, but that hasn't solved their problems; it's just given them new ones.

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Perl Weekly Challenge 55: binary flips and alternating permutation 25 April 2020

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved flipping bits and generating zigzag permutations.

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Clarkesworld 163, April 2020 24 April 2020

Clarkesworld is a monthly on-line magazine edited by Neil Clarke.

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Airecon in 2020 23 April 2020 - 1 comment

I went back to this year's Airecon – my fourth visit to the show. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

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The Black Moth, Georgette Heyer 22 April 2020

1921 romance, first of Heyer's novels. Six years ago Jack Carstares left England in disgrace, having admitted to cheating at cards. Now in 1751 he's back, and living as a highwayman, leaving the family home to his brother even though his father has died and he's now the rightful Earl; but meanwhile Tracy Belmanoir, the sinister Duke of Andover, has his eyes on beautiful Diana Beauleigh…

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Perl Weekly Challenge 54: permutations and Collatz 21 April 2020

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved generating permutations and checking the Collatz Conjecture.

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Kitty In the Underworld, Carrie Vaughn 20 April 2020 - 1 comment

2013 urban fantasy, twelfth in the series. Kitty Norville, the late-night DJ who has become the world's most famous werewolf, is kidnapped by fanatics.

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Sprouts are the New Flour 19 April 2020 - 4 comments

Not that I shop in person very often anyway. But it's gone a bit strange.

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The Dead House, Harry Bingham 18 April 2020

2015 police procedural mystery, fifth in the Fiona Griffiths series. The body of a young woman is found in the annexe of a church, respectfully laid out and with no signs of violence. It may not even be a murder…

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Perl Weekly Challenge 53: matrix rotation and string expansion 17 April 2020

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved a basic Markov chain.

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A Shield Against the Darkness, Todd Downing 16 April 2020

2012 historical fantasy short novel, first in the Airship Daedalus series. In a somewhat alternate 1925, ace pilot Jack McGraw is going to lead the hunt for Aleister Crowley's agents of chaos. (Released free of charge by the author.)

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Angstrom Season 1 15 April 2020

2018 comedy detective audio, four half-hour episodes. Knut Angstrom is a brooding Swedish detective in the Nyarlslund Peninsula.

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A Duke by Default, Alyssa Cole 14 April 2020 - 4 comments

2018 romance, second in the Reluctant Royals series. Portia Hobbs, former self-indulgent hot mess, has gone to Scotland to apprentice in sword-making.

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Perl Weekly Challenge 52: stepping numbers and game theory 13 April 2020

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved some game theory.

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Clockwork Secrets: Heavy Fire, Dru Pagliassotti 12 April 2020

2014 steampunk fantasy romance, third in the Clockwork Heart trilogy. Taya and Cristof are on a diplomatic mission to Alzana, trying to prevent a war, when the Alzanan coup is launched, and of course as dubious foreigners they get blamed for the assassination of the royal family…

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2020 Hugo Nominations revisited 11 April 2020

The nomination results are out.

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Swords, Sorcery, & Self-Rescuing Damsels, Lee French and Sarah Craft 10 April 2020

2019 fantasy anthology, on the theme of female characters who solve their own problems rather than waiting for a man to do it for them.

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Marlow Tabletop and Board Games 2 March 2020 09 April 2020

This Meetup-based boardgames group had what turned out to be its last meeting for the moment at the Marlow Donkey.

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Golden in Death, J. D. Robb 08 April 2020

2019 SF/mystery; sixty-first (roughly, or 50th novel, hence presumably the title) of J. D. Robb's In Death series (SF police procedurals). Someone beloved by everyone who knew him is killed by a cunning gas bomb.

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Perl Weekly Challenge 51: triplet sums and colourful numbers 07 April 2020

I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved a lot of nested loops.

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The Sunken Sailor, Patricia Moyes 06 April 2020

1961 mystery, second in the series about Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett. Tibbett and his wife join some friends for a week of sailing in Essex. But the accidental drowning a few months ago starts to look less so, especially when it's followed by another.

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Life in the Plague Weeks 05 April 2020 - 9 comments

So we finally got something like precautions being applied, though piecemeal and rather later than would have been sensible.

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Hello World, Hannah Fry 04 April 2020

2018 non-fiction, a layperson's introduction to the way in which algorithms are allowed to affect life. (Another Book of the Week condensation.)

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How To Jitsi 03 April 2020

I've been playing RPGs over Google Hangouts for a while but I don't like it. Here's how to do it with free software instead.

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White Corridor, Christopher Fowler 02 April 2020

2007 police procedural mystery/horror, fifth in the Bryant and May series. With the team split up by chance and weather, they most solve two separate cases.

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March 2020 Trailers 01 April 2020 - 1 comment

Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.)

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