1999 pseudo-historical fantasy, dir. John McTiernan*, Antonio Banderas, Vladimir Kulich: IMDb / allmovie. Ahmad ibn Fadlan's diplomatic mission to the Volga Vikings goes further than anyone expected.
2023 SF short story collection in the Planetfall universe.
This Meetup-based boardgames group continues at the Marlow Donkey.
2003 gaslamp fantasy. Ile-Rien is under attack by the mysterious Gardier and their black airships. Tremaine Valiarde doesn't really care about that; she's just looking for a way to die, on her own terms. In another world, Ilias wants to make sure the wizard he killed is still dead.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved a list search and combinations. (Note that this ends today.)
1957 noir, dir. Alexander Mackendrick, Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster; IMDb / allmovie. Compromise enough and there's nothing left; then the film begins.
2011 police procedural mystery, tartan noir, seventh in the Logan McRae series. The most popular contestants on Britain's Next Big Star have been kidnapped – but is it all a hoax by the promoter? Meanwhile the target of a drugs bust seems to think he can get Logan to get him the drugs back…
Another Mansions of Madness session, this one with a last-moment scenario change.
2007 mystery, fourth in Greenwood's Corinna Chapman series. A cut-price rival bakery, a dangerous new drug, a prickly neo-Pagan conference, Nazi-looted gold…
2023 comedy-horror, dir. Chris McKay, Nicholas Hoult, Awkwafina: IMDb / allmovie. What if Dracula's servitor tried to get out from under his thumb?
2022 space-navy SF, second of its sub-series. The Dakotan Confederacy refuses to become the arsenal for a massive fleet being built by the admiral who's taken over the Commonwealth of which it used to be a part. Nobody there wants a fight, but military dictators aren't known for their understanding of differing opinions…
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved combinatorics and integer division. (Note that this ends today.)
I went to ACWest – the first spin-off venture for the Airecon team. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.
2017 military-adjacent SF, second of its series. Ian Dunlop the genetic experiment is trying to settle down to life with his new family, but not everyone has forgotten about him.
1947 mystery-comedy, dir. Edward Buzzell, William Powell, Myrna Loy: IMDb / allmovie. That devil music, it's no good!
1992 mystery. Helen Lovelace dies peacefully at eighty-eight. But when her surviving relatives turn up, a glamorous Hollywood star and an Australian businessman, one will soon be shot dead and the other suspected of the murder…
Back to the boardgame café.
1978 short SF novel. After its civil war, the Heaven system (gas giant and trojans, asteroid belt, some very marginal planets) has split into multiple polities, and the machinery that sustains life is gradually breaking down. Then a ramscoop starship arrives from a nearby system…
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved differentiating lists and processing matrices. (Note that this ends today.)
1944 mystery-comedy, dir. Richard Thorpe, William Powell, Myrna Loy: IMDb / allmovie. There's nothing like going back to your home town.
2023 modern fantasy, continuation of the Kate Daniels series. Kate and Curran are still trying to live in peace, but the effort is still doomed.
2017 crime, sixth in the Sean Duffy series. Belfast, 1988: a heroin dealer is wounded by a crossbow bolt, and another is murdered. But for once it doesn't seem to have been the paramilitaries who did it.
1941 mystery-comedy, dir. W. S. van Dyke, William Powell, Myrna Loy: IMDb / allmovie. Can new screenwriters revive the series, without Dashiell Hammett's help?
2023 romantic SF, second of a planned trilogy. Vesper Quill is trying to pretend she doesn't have an unbreakable psychic bond with Kyrion Caldaren, so that the Emperor doesn't eat their souls (he has form). But to get through all the things being thrown at them they'll need to use not only their own powers but each other's.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved sequence searching and another nested sort. (Note that this ends today.)
2023 audio drama, adapted in ten parts by Julian Simpson from the story by H. P. Lovecraft.
2022 comic fantasy. Frinzil the sorcery student suddenly has to pay for several years of tuition. Obviously the way to do this is to go adventuring.
Over to a friend's place to deliver some games I'd driven back from Essen.
2017 short story in the Lady Sherlock series. A client has a mysterious puzzle box…