2011 drama, dir. Michel Hazanavicius, Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo; IMDb / allmovie. George Valentin is a star of the silver screen, but the talkies are coming…
2021 SF, first of a series. Marca Nbaro has committed various forms of fraud to get aboard one of the nine treading Greatships that link human worlds (and the enigmatic aliens). This turns out to be a very good thing.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved an array search and a mathematical classic. (Note that this is open until 29 January 2023.)
Back to Stabcon! Stockport barely managed to rain on me at all this time.
1955 murder mystery. Fanny Lynam throws a party to celebrate the engagement of her younger half-brother, and makes her special lobster patties. That will turn out to have been a mistake.
1942 wartime romance and comedy, dir. Michael Curtiz, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman: IMDb / allmovie. As refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe collect in Casablanca on the way to Lisbon and freedom, everybody comes to Rick's Café Americain.
2019 romance novella, in the Reluctant Royals series. Regina Hobbs was always the "good" daughter in her parents' eyes, and having to use a wheelchair hasn't changed that, but she has built things on her own too…
Here's a core game mechanic with no game wrapped round it. It might be useful for someone, or I may use it myself some day. Have fun.
2008 thriller, twelfth and last in the Carlotta Carlyle series (neo-noir private investigation). Getting back into PI work after her absence at short notice, Carlotta takes on a prospective bride who wants the groom checked up on. But it's all much more complex than it looks.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved array searching and an emulated seven-segment display. (Note that this is open until the end of today.)
2010 mystery/thriller, fourth in its series. Georgiana Rannoch, 34th in line to the throne, is sent to the wedding of Maria Theresa of Romania to Prince Nicholas of Bulgaria (after all she was at school with "Fatty Matty").
2018 science fiction, seventh in the Diving Universe series. Cooper the captain and Vash the engineer deal with isolation from their original time in a variety of ways.
For the seventh year (having skipped 2020), a bunch of us without family commitments got together for boardgames.
2010 urban fantasy, first of a 19-book series. In a magical world, Gin Blanco is an assassin for hire, until the job goes bad.
Here are the answers to last year's quiz.
2010 military SF, eighth of this ongoing series. There's an election coming up, so famous commander Daniel Leary should be got away from the capital of the Republic before he accidentally endorses someone. But backwater postings never stay backwaters for long.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved filtering pairs and triplets out of a list. (Note that this ends today.)
2010 SF romance, dir. Mark Romanek, Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley: IMDb / allmovie. The generic love triangle plays out over a dark background. Spoilers.
2017 urban fantasy, first of its series. Dr Greta Helsing is a doctor to monsters: vampires, ghouls, mummies, and stranger things. And now a sect of murderous monks is attacking them all…
This Meetup-based boardgames group continues to meet in the Britannia.
2006 thriller, eleventh in the Carlotta Carlyle series (neo-noir private investigation). Carlotta's "little sister" Paolina is missing.
I did Advent of Code again, and had a really good time. Spoilers.
2011 military SF, ninth of the Kris Longknife books. Kris leads an expedition in search of an alien menace.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved analysing a list and counting primes. (Note that this is open until the end of today.)
2009 horror, dir. Neil Blomkamp, Sharlto Copley, David James; IMDb / allmovie. The people who don't look like us have to be moved on.
1968 mystery. Corin Johansen moves to Boston to be a designer, and finds her rented room is cheaper if she agrees to use the kitchen… There's a ghost, you see.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I want a trailer to tell me what's different about this film; the marketers want it to tell me why it's like all the others…)
1935 comedy anthology, containing six stories of Lord Emsworth, and six others.
In 2022 I managed to play significant numbers of games across an actual table again.
In 2022 I read 164 books, up again at last (some long drives meant I started to get through audio books again too).
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."