Vaccine booster achieved! At great expense, because my government wants me dead. (Yeah, yeah, Americans, I know. They're trying to bring your system here.)
2022 SF. The climate catastrophe has happened, and the survivors are rebuilding, whether it's the hollowed-out remnants of nation-states, the corporates on their bunker-islands, or the dandelion networks that are trying to make the environment back into something compatible with human thriving. None of them is expecting the alien scout ship.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved word list comparison and matrix validation. (Note that this ends today.)
2017 SF/romance novella, first of a trilogy. Two space empires are at war: the Rogue Coalition is caught in the middle.
More gaming with some nearby friends.
1979 horror, third in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. Kate Southerland is murdered by a vampire, and her brother is kidnapped and mutilated… but her family has a favour to call in.
2014 mystery. It's 1950, and variety is on its last legs. Two wartime friends meet again over the investigation of a series of grotesque, and perhaps meaningful, murders.
2014 romance and light mystery. Jenny Dove has a severe stutter and chronic lack of self-confidence; she's on the verge of suicide when something appears to her and tells her not to. Eventually, she will have to make something of herself.
2023 mystery anthology, fifth of the British Library's series of seasonal mysteries.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved hunting integers and filtering words. (Note that this ends today.)
2022 fantasy-romance, fixup of four shorter works. After the townsfolk burned down her workshop, Mia Brandt tries to keep her powers quiet in her new home. But the necromancer next door isn't going to let it be.
2014 historical mystery; third in Huber's Lady Darby series (post-Regency amateur detection). Still shaken by the events of the previous book, Lady Darby must step forward again when a caretaker is murdered and a body stolen…
2023 romance. She's a curse-breaker. He's a disgraced archaeologist with a famous father. They're both wotking on the same Scottish castle before it gets redeveloped…
2007 YA SF, first in a series. Ishmael Horatio Wang finds himself orphaned and penniless, and the only way of getting out of that seems to be to sign aboard an interstellar merchant ship.
2017 fantasy, fifth and last volume of its series. Things are finally getting moving.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved letter hunting and array construction. (Note that this ends today.)
Back to the boardgame café.
1987 SF, third of its trilogy. With a new Hegemon established, Silence Leigh is finally ready to make another try at reaching Earth.
Hexicon is a small church-hall convention held quite close to me. I missed the last one but made it along this time.
2021 alternate-world fantasy, eighth and last of its series. Irene is trying to do something about the situation she's discovered, but forces within the Library seem to be working against her.
1944 psychological thriller, dir. George Cukor, Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman: IMDb / allmovie. Is she going mad?
2005 gaslamp fantasy, last of its trilogy. The Gardier are still invading; Vienne has fallen; and our heroes are a long way from home.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved list and hash hunting. (Note that this ends today.)
2020 historical mystery; first in Baker's Anna Fairweather series (1920s amateur detection). Anna is a maid in the country house of Colonel and Mrs Montford; when the Colonel drops dead during his 70th birthday party, she's one of the few people who thinks it might be murder…
1940 psychological thriller, dir. Thorold Dickinson, Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard: IMDb / allmovie. Is she going mad?
2016 SF/romance, second of of its series. Fiona Russell has also been kidnapped from Earth into an alien civilisation…
My seventh Airecon, this time without snow. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.
1994 historical military fiction, fourth and last in its series, but this time falling back on the early life and career of Otto Prohaska of the Austro-Hungarian Navy.