RogerBW's Blog

The Scavenger Door, Suzanne Palmer 31 January 2022

2021 SF, third of its series. Fergus is just trying to settle back down with more family than he thought he had, but this time he's not even surprised when he gets involved in world-saving…

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Quicksort in Postscript 30 January 2022 - 5 comments

I think this is the closest I've come to writing a Cthulhu Mythos document: if you don't know what's going on, it's harmless, but with a little knowledge it can be mildly disturbing…

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The Green Berets (1968) 29 January 2022 - 1 comment

1968 war, dir. John Wayne and Ray Kellogg, Wayne, David Janssen: IMDb / allmovie.

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Firebreak, Nicole Kornher-Stace 28 January 2022

2021 SF. Mallory and Jessa are orphans of the corporate wars, streaming their VR gameplay in the hope of getting more water credits. But the real prize in the game is finding the SecOps NPCs, automated avatars of real-world corporate supersoldiers…

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The Weekly Challenge 149: Fibonacci Squares 27 January 2022

I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved just-in-time Fibonacci and squares without repeating digits. (Note that this is open until 30 January 2022.)

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Answers for the Princess Charlotte General Knowledge Paper 2021 26 January 2022 - 2 comments

Here are the answers to last year's quiz.

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Miss Moriarty, I Presume?, Sherry Thomas 25 January 2022

2021 mystery story, sixth of the Lady Sherlock series. Charlotte Holmes finds herself employed by Moriarty himself, to investigate the situation of his estranged daughter. But nothing is as it appears.

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Random Saturday Games Day 24 January 2022

A friend I don't see very often was able to visit, so in between the chat we played some games.

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A Merciful Silence, Kendra Elliot 23 January 2022

2018 romantic mystery, fourth in the Mercy Kilpatrick series. Skeletal human remains turn up in a blocked culvert, with a pattern of injury consistent with a killer from twenty years ago. And in this small town, many of the people who were involved back then are still around now.

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Hamburger Hill (1987) 22 January 2022 - 4 comments

1987 war, dir. John Irvin, Dylan McDermott, Courtney B. Vance: IMDb / allmovie. Even the breaks between war are fairly hellish.

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Skirmishes, Kristine Kathryn Rusch 21 January 2022

2013 science fiction, fourth of its series. The Empire is attacking: "Boss" goes to a cluster of abandoned ancient ships to try to get some of them back into service, while Captain Cooper tries to hold off the initial wave with the ships they have.

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The Weekly Challenge 148: Eban, Cardano 20 January 2022 - 2 comments

I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved various sorts of numerical search. (Note that this is open until 23 January 2022.)

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Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) 19 January 2022

1987 war, dir. Barry Levinson, Robin Williams: IMDb / allmovie. A laugh a minute in good old Vietnam.

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Marlow Tabletop and Board Games 3 January 2022 18 January 2022

This Meetup-based boardgames group continues at the Marlow Donkey.

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The Assassins of Thasalon, Lois McMaster Bujold 17 January 2022 - 1 comment

2021 fantasy novel in the World of the Five Gods (formerly known as Chalion). Penric's brother-in-law, the former General Arisaydia, is quite happy to ignore the Imperial succession crisis. But one of the factions doesn't trust him to stay out, and sends a new sort of assassin after him. Which generates a theological challenge for Penric…

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A Pocket Full of Rye 16 January 2022 - 6 comments

1995 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1953 mystery, in one 90-minute episode. Rex Fortescue dies of poisoned marmalade, and someone has filled his pocket with grains of rye.

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Full Metal Jacket (1987) 15 January 2022 - 1 comment

1987 war, dir. Stanley Kubrick, Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey: IMDb / allmovie. Boot camp is hell, then it gets worse.

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A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers 14 January 2022

2021 science fiction novella, first of a planned series. Dex is a monk who feels hemmed in in the city; going out and serving tea-and-relaxation to villagers seems like a reasonable change. But it's not the answer.

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Fox Hunter, Zoë Sharp 13 January 2022

2017 thriller, twelfth in the series about Charlie (Charlotte) Fox, former soldier and currently private bodyguard. Charlie's in Iraq, on the trail of whoever tortured an ex-soldier to death – because there's a chance it might be her old lover Sean.

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Platoon (1986) 12 January 2022

1986 war, dir. Oliver Stone, Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger: IMDb / allmovie. Turns out war isn't as bad as you thought; it's worse.

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The Weekly Challenge 147: Truncating the Pentagon 11 January 2022

I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved prime searches and pentagonal numbers. (Note that this is open until 16 January 2022.)

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White Trash Zombie Apocalypse, Diana Rowland 10 January 2022

2013 urban fantasy, third of its series. Angel Crawford is still a zombie (subtype conscious and super-strong, though still cerebrivorous), and gradually getting her new life together. It doesn't help that nobody tells her anything.

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Polyglot Programming 09 January 2022 - 4 comments

I've got up to nine programming languages for The Weekly Challenge (formerly the Perl Weekly Challenge). Why am I doing this? (And is it just envy of Abigail, who usually does 14 or more? I don't think so.)

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The Way to Glory, David Drake 08 January 2022

2005 military SF, fourth of this ongoing series. With riots breaking out after an officer who lethally suppressed a mutiny is found not guilty at his court-martial, Daniel Leary ends up serving under him. This is unlikely to end well.

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The Dead 07 January 2022

1987 drama, dir. John Huston, Anjelica Huston, Donal McCann: IMDb / allmovie. Everybody is miserable (in Dublin in 1904).

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Archangel Blues, Eluki bes Shahar 06 January 2022

1993 SF, last of its trilogy. Saint Butterflies-are-free Peace Sincere has a new job: stop the war by killing the man who's starting it. But of course things are going to get much more complicated.

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December 2021 Trailers 05 January 2022

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

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The Weekly Challenge 146: Curious Prime 04 January 2022

I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved prime-counting and fraction trees. (Note that this is open until 9 January 2022.)

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2021 in boardgames 03 January 2022

2021 seemed to involve more talking about boardgames than actually playing boardgames.

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2021 in Books 02 January 2022

In 2021 I read 129 books, fewer again as I think I've fallen out of the habit of making time to read. (And I'm still not having long drives for listening to audio books.)

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Roger's 2021 in 50 Words 01 January 2022

A friend likes to sum up his year in a set number of words, and I copy this fine idea. "Think of it as a short and un-boastful summary of the year, which nobody is expected to understand all of."

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